ST. LOUIS COUNTY • Different banks; same story.

A man wearing a dress and a woman's wig walked into a First Bank branch in the 2900 block of Telegraph Road about 9:30 a.m. Friday, robbed it without showing a weapon and fled with a sum that authorities would not reveal.

A man in a ball cap and shorts did virtually the same thing about 3:30 p.m. at the Great Southern Bank, 125000 Olive Boulevard in Creve Coeur.

They were the 33rd and 34th financial institution holdups in eastern Missouri in a year that seems to have had a lot of them — but so far is only on track to finish about average, and well behind 2009.

There was no surprise they happened on a Friday. It's the most likely day for bank robberies, FBI statistics show. The FBI knows a lot about the topic, although not yet the name of Friday's robbers. But there is about a 6 in 10 chance they will be caught.

It may feel like a heavy year for bank robberies because one-third of them have happened just this month. But at this year's rate, cases handled by the FBI field office in St. Louis will barely break 50, while there were 69 last year. (That was the most since 2002, which had a spike of 77, thanks to several serial robbers. The average over the last decade is 50.)

Equivalent numbers were not available for Southern Illinois, which is covered by the FBI office in Springfield.

Officials said a recent series of robberies has heightened public awareness of a fairly uncommon crime in which the average gain is relatively low and the risk of capture is high.

Indeed, the FBI reported Friday evening that St. Louis police had arrested Calvin Reed, 36, on Thursday evening as a suspect in the robbery of Southern Commercial Bank, at 4914 Gravois Avenue, on Aug. 16. Reed, of the St. Louis area, was charged in federal court with bank robbery.

The FBI said he also may be involved in similar robberies Tuesday at Bank of America, at 6639 South Kingshighway, and Aug. 4 at Regions Bank, at 4706 South Kingshighway.

Police are looking for a different man in robberies Aug. 6 at Advance America Cash Advance in Ballwin and Aug. 13 at the company's office in Fenton. Yet another robber is believed responsible for holdups at First Community Credit Union in Arnold on Aug. 19 and the Electro Savings Credit Union in south St. Louis County on Monday.

Authorities said that Friday's robber in the wig might be the same as the fellow in a black curly wig and sunglasses who robbed a UMB Bank in St. Charles on Aug. 6.

"It's hard to tell if we have a copycat or if this is the same individual or if it's just a coincidence at this point," said St. Louis County police Officer Rick Eckhard. "They wear disguises because it draws more attention to what they're wearing than what they are. Victims are great at describing the wig, but they lose other details."

The FBI has cultivated public attention to the issue by sometimes assigning memorable nicknames. Locally, the "Boonie Hat Bandit," sent off to prison on state charges this month, was known for the headgear he wore only in the early versions of his 12 holdups. A local billboard showed an uncommonly clear image of the "Granddad Bandit," who struck here only once in a 13-state circuit and was identified this month by authorities as a man from Louisiana.

August started with a holdup at an office of ATM Solutions — not a financial institution but a company that stocks and services ATMs — in which about $9 million in cash was reported taken.

"It seems like there's been an increase because we've had some high-profile cases lately, such as the Granddad Bandit and the ATM Solutions robbery, in addition to the fact that, between last month and this month, we did have a large amount of bank robberies," said FBI spokeswoman Rebecca Wu.

Richard Wright, a University of Missouri-St. Louis criminology professor who has studied offenders' decision-making, said financial institutions provide a sense of predictability.

"With credit unions and banks, not only is the money there, but you pretty much know what you're walking into," Wright explained. He noted that most such institutions instruct employees not to resist a robber, whereas, "With street robberies, you don't know how the victim is going to react."

While tense, "takeover" robberies by twitchy gunmen are a staple of movies and TV, they are rare in the real world — only about 5 percent of last year's approximately 6,000 holdups nationwide, the FBI says. There were 140 people injured in financial institution robberies last year — 79 employees, 27 robbers, 21 customers, nine police officers and four guards. Of the 21 people killed, all were robbers,

Nearly three-fourths of the time, there is no weapon or threat of violence. Often, nobody but the robber and the employee is even aware a crime is occurring.

But Wright said there is a downside for the crook. "In bank robberies, the victims will behave themselves, but the bad news is, there's lots of security."

A Justice Department report in 2007 said about 60 percent of bank robberies are solved, a rate second only to murder. Most of the robbers are caught at or near the scene, it said, because the crimes typically have multiple witnesses, are reported quickly, occur during daylight and are photographed by surveillance cameras.

More than 80 percent of arrested bank robbers have no prior convictions for bank crimes, the Justice Department says. And the payoff is relatively low for the risk. U.S. bank robbers averaged just over $7,600 in loot in 2009, and can face 20-year federal sentences.

About $46 million was stolen from financial institutions in 2009 during about 6,000 robberies, according to the FBI.

It is easy to presume that the poor economy is driving up the number of bank robberies. Indeed the "Boonie Hat Bandit," Donald Keith Giammanco, 46, of Florissant, said he needed money to pay bills after losing his job. (He testified that he did research on FBI websites for tips on how to dress and act, and knew employees are trained not to resist.)

But Wright said he believes the majority have other motives. More than a third of the bank robbery suspects arrested last year were classified as drug addicts, according to the FBI.

"It depends on a person's own situation, and a lot of times those situations are self-inflicted," Wright said. So sometimes, "it's not because the economy's bad, it's because they have a drug problem."

More information on St. Louis-area bank robberies is available at bandittrackerstlouis.com. Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI at 314-589-2500 or CrimeStoppers at 1-866-371-8477.

Heather Ratcliffe of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.