Help FBI Catch Bank Robbers With Your Phone

The FBI is incorporating a mobile app into its strategy for nabbing bank robbers.

Last week, the FBI launched an app that lets users who think they know something about a robbery incident submit tips directly to the federal government.

The "Bank Robbers" app, free for download on iOS and Android phones, uses location services to send push notifications to users about nearby robberies. It also asks for information about recent crimes, such as a current suspect who acted with a sawed-off shotgun and is linked to nine bank robberies in the Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia areas.

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The app lets users, primarily citizens, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, examine details and photos from bank robberies across the country. The incidents are sorted by date, category (such as armed serial bank robber), location and field office working on the case.

Citizen tips already have been helpful in tracking down criminals, according to the FBI post; in one case, after FBI's bankrobbers.fbi.gov highlighted a suspect thought to have committed 11 armed robberies in Delaware and Pennsylvania, someone mailed local police a print-out from that site with the name of the suspect written across it. That suspect was identified and charged, according to an FBI blog post.

Beginning with "Wanted" posters mounted in post offices, the FBI has long relied on public tips in criminal cases, according to the FBI blog. Today, websites and apps "can work as force multipliers and allow us to ask for and receive assistance from larger segments of the public," the post said.

The app currently only contains information already stored on FBI's bankrobbers.fbi.gov, so it doesn't reflect all bank robbery incidents recorded nationwide.