A chef in the San Francisco Bay area has been arrested on suspicion of robbing three banks in a day. Valentino Luchin, former executive chef at Rose Pistola and owner/head chef of the defunct Ottavio Osteria, is being held in police custody.
Around noon on September 10th, the San Francisco Police Department responded to a robbery activation at a bank. “Upon arrival, officers learned that the male suspect entered the business and passed a note to an employee demanding money,” said SFPD in a statement. “Fearing for their safety, the employee complied and provided the suspect with a bag of U.S. currency. The suspect then fled from the area with the money.”
The department did not disclose how much was taken. But through tips from the community, they identified Luchin as a suspect. While they were trying to figure out how to take him into custody, two more reports of similar bank robberies came in.
“Officers determined that the suspect who committed these robberies was Luchin,” the department writes. He was arrested without incident later that same day.
Not The First Bank Robbery
It also turns out he has a history of bank heists. In 2018, he was arrested for armed robbery at a bank in Orinda, a city 17 miles from San Francisco. That time, he held up a Citibank for $18,000 in cash, with what was later determined to be a BB gun. He was found and arrested within hours.
“At the time, I thought it was a good plan,” Luchin told East Bay Times in a jailhouse interview soon after. “But it was not.” He blames the closure of Ottavio Osteria in 2016 for his financial woes and eventual crime spree. “Everything went downhill,” he explains. “Everything became more complicated.”
While he did say he felt “very sorry” about the robbery. When asked why he did it, he simply stated, “shit happens.”
