Customers of Česká spořitelna, one of the country's largest banks, might as well have found this message posted in the windows of 50 branches in south Moravia Feb. 10.

On that day, Česká spořitelna made the unprecedented decision to close those branches after two of its locations in the region — in Pohořelice and Ždanice — were robbed at gunpoint a day earlier.

"We decided to close 50 banks in south Moravia for one day in response to the robberies," said Klára Gajdůšková, the bank's spokeswoman. During that day, "we were working on upgrading their security systems."

Gajdůšková wouldn't discuss the specifics of the new security measures, but said Česká spořitelna felt the changes were necessary because six of its branches in the region have been robbed in the past two months.

While Česká spořitelna is the first bank to temporarily close branches for security risks, armed robbery is on the rise in this country and becoming a nightmare for banks.

A strange case

In 2003 the police investigated 65 robberies in banks and currency exchanges. A year later, that number had jumped to 176 and continued to rise in 2005.

Each of the major banks in this country has been the target of armed robbery in the past two years, and Česká spořitelna's experience in south Moravia indicates banks shouldn't feel any safer in 2006.

In one of the strangest cases so far this year, a middle-aged woman walked into Živnostenská banka's branch in Prague–Vinohrady, showed the cashier a piece of paper with instructions written on it and walked out with tens of thousands of crowns.

It was the first time in two years a bank robbery in this country had been committed by a woman, according to police.

Jiří Vokuš, spokesman for the Police Presidium, said many thieves use the threatening note technique, but that a growing number of cases are starting to involve guns. Only about one-third of the bank robbery cases end in an arrest, and, to add insult to injury, the thieves are basically allowed to walk away with the money because Czech banks are instructed to let the perpetrators leave the premises before calling the police.

This is starkly different than in the United States, for instance, where bank officials are trained to push an alarm and lock the bank the minute a robber demands money.

Stepping up security

Bank robberies are increasing throughout the European Union. A report issued by the European Banking Federation in early January said that one bank robbery takes place in the EU every 90 minutes.

In 2004, 5,864 bank robberies were committed in the EU, totaling 97 million euros (about 2.8 billion Kč / $115 million) in stolen money.

The report called on banks to implement even tougher security measures. The majority of Czech commercial banks are investing hundreds of millions of crowns in new security. Banks are providing employees with training on how to react during a robbery, installing new surveillance cameras and equipping safes with time locks that have a delay between when the combination is entered and when the vault door opens. This makes it impossible for thieves to take out money immediately.