Terry Tyrone Pollard, Bank Larceny, South Carolina 2021

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A brazen scheme to steal $1.9 million from an armored truck landed Terry Tyrone Pollard, 28, of Cedartown, Georgia, a hefty 63-month federal prison sentence. Pollard was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank larceny and bank larceny after a trial exposed the meticulously planned inside job.

The scheme, hatched in early January 2021, involved a Garda employee who recruited Pollard and three others to feign a robbery. The plan, largely communicated through Snapchat, was simple: pretend to hold up the Garda employee while he was transporting a substantial amount of cash. On January 15, 2021, Pollard and his co-conspirators made the trip from Georgia to North Charleston, casing potential locations for the staged heist.

The following day, the Garda employee parked his truck outside a Bank of America ATM on Core Road. Pollard and his crew approached, going through the motions of a violent robbery, pretending to restrain the driver at gunpoint. They then loaded the $1.9 million in cash into black trash bags and immediately fled back to Georgia. It was a calculated gamble, but a skeptical North Charleston Police Department investigator quickly smelled a rat, alerting the FBI to the potential inside job.

The investigation quickly unraveled the scheme. Hours after the “robbery,” Pollard was back in Cedartown, Georgia, brazenly flaunting his ill-gotten gains. A co-defendant posted a Snapchat video of Pollard holding a large stack of the stolen cash directly in front of his face – a digital slip-up that proved crucial to the case. Adding to his troubles, Pollard attempted to cover his tracks from jail, calling an associate and instructing him to delete phone records, a move captured on a recorded line.

Five individuals were ultimately indicted in federal court. Four pleaded guilty, but Pollard took his chances at trial, ultimately being found guilty in March 2023 on both counts of conspiracy to commit bank larceny and bank larceny. The court also took note of Pollard’s prior armed robbery conviction when handing down the sentence. U.S. District Judge Bruce Hendricks sentenced Pollard to 63 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

The FBI Columbia Field Office and the North Charleston Police Department collaborated on the investigation, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Limehouse and Chris Lietzow successfully prosecuting the case. This case serves as a stark reminder that even the most meticulously planned crimes can unravel under the scrutiny of law enforcement and the weight of digital evidence.

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