SAN DIEGO—A man who robbed a La Mesa bank over a decade ago pleaded guilty June 29 to holding up the same bank, as well as a credit union in Imperial County.
Asim Shakir Daniels admitted Thursday to robbing a Bank of the West in La Mesa on Jan. 4, 2022, as well as a Sun Community Federal Credit Union in the Imperial County city of Holtville one day earlier.
Daniels pleaded guilty over a decade ago to robbing that same La Mesa bank in 2011 and was sentenced to nearly a dozen years in prison.
In the latest robberies, more than $23,000 in cash was taken.
According to court documents, Daniels entered the Holtville credit union on January 3, stating he was robbing “the place” and told a teller to “give me that” while pointing toward a vault. While employees were unable to open the vault, they gave Daniels $20,545 from the tellers’ drawers.
The following day, prosecutors allege he approached a teller window at Bank of the West and said, “Give me everything!”
He demanded money from the vault but was told the bank had no vault, court documents state, and was given $2,843 in cash instead.
Daniels took off on foot, but was arrested later that day.
Daniels and his brother, Akil Daniels, were accused in a spree of bank holdups that included the 2011 La Mesa robbery.
Akil Daniels was then convicted of robbing several San Diego County financial institutions in late 2010 and early 2011, including a credit union in Chula Vista. He was sentenced to over 13 years in prison.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, about three months after his 2022 release, Akil Daniels robbed a Poway credit union and the same Chula Vista credit union he was previously convicted of robbing. A San Diego federal jury convicted him of the two new bank robberies and he was sentenced this April to just over nine years in prison.
