Leslie Rogge remains unrepentant, self-deprecating, and self-aggrandizing. Just read his tell-all book Wanted: Gentleman Bank Robber. Yet after stealing loot from at least 30 banks, nabbing roughly $2 million from "the man," and making the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, he was brought down by the ultimate enemy of the modern outlaw: the Internet.
Rogge's delinquency began at 13 when he ripped off a car or two and nabbed his pop's credit cards, before being shunted into the Navy by a judge. He later made a pretty penny swapping stolen Cadillacs before setting his sights on a more dangerous game: bank heists. Knocking off several cash-keepers, he often used two getaway cars to elude capture. Rogge then caught airtime on America's Most Wanted, as well as primetime on the FBI's list in 1990, before he made a run to Antigua, Guatemala—the landlocked country, figured the salty seadog, would be the perfect hideout for him.
Rogge went by "Bill Young" and posed as an expat handyman. But all his ingenuity was thwarted by his better nature, as well as the unyielding march of progress. When the World Wide Web finally arrived in Guatemala, Rogge helped one of his young neighbors connect to the newfangled network. Not long after, the teen surfed onto the FBI's website, discovered that his helpful neighbor was a ruthless robber, and begrudgingly turned him in.
The Federales finally caught up to Rogge, who scarpered to the coastal town of Puerto Barrios. In May 1996, he turned himself in to the US Embassy, rather than face the notoriously itchy trigger fingers of the Guatemalan cops. "Bill" still made quite the impression on his fellow citizens—an area paper, The Guatemala Weekly, wrote an editorial about the local's moral ambivalence at turning in the charming man.
It just goes to show that we never truly know our neighbors, at least until we stumble across their criminal history on the FBI's home page.
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