Leo Gillick
When cheffing doesn’t pay, it’s time to turn to a life of crime. A well-known chef has been arrested on suspicion of robbing 3 banks in 1 day in San Francisco.
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Cooking up A Storm: Valentino Luchin, 62, is a renowned chef in San Fransico, California. He was the head chef at Rose Pistola before his fall from grace and eventual alleged bank-robbing spree. Over the course of a day, he allegedly went into three different banks and handed over a note demanding money.
- He allegedly managed to rob the banks by simply walking in, handing a note demanding the cash to the teller, and then leaving with pockets full of dollars. It was a pretty flawless plan. However, his likeness was all over the CCTV.
After his description was given to the police, they tied him to two other bank heists in the area. They moved in on the celebrity chef and arrested him for robbing banks. The police formulated a plan to arrest the man without too much incident.
He was arrested within the day and charged with the robbery of two banks and one count of attempted robbery.
The Chef’s Second Course of Robbing Banks
Ironically, this wasn’t even the first time Chef Luchin had been arrested for bank robbery. He had previously been knicked for robbing a Citibank in Orinda, California, where $18,000 was stolen in 2018.
- After his previous restaurant, Ottavio, in Walnut Creek, went under, the chef was desperate. He dressed in dark shades and a hoodie and brandished a BB Gun. “I thought it was a good plan, but it was not,” he explained at the time. “My action wasn’t aggressive. It was a fake gun. I don’t even know how to load a real gun.”
Chefs are incredibly passionate people. The loss of his previous restaurant was too much to bear, and he believed that by robbing banks, he could continue to chef in his kitchen. However, that didn’t go to plan, and instead he ended up with a criminal record.
He clearly didn’t learn his lesson.
