modern day Bonnie & Clyde bankrobbers

SYNOPSIS: Since 1997, Craig Pritchert and Nova Guthrie have been two bank robbers on the run. This glamorous modern-day Bonnie & Clyde couple has held up over 12 banks throughout the West. Their elaborate schemes allow them to live the lavish lifestyle they've always dreamed of.

Craig Pritchert, 37, is a former college baseball star. Nova Guthrie is a former biology major and sorority president. Before each heist, Guthrie and Pritchert are believed to spend considerable time in the area. They study and survey the targeted bank. Each robbery is an armed take-over, and often occurs when the bank opens or closes. They wear disguises and maintain radio contact with their co-conspirators on the outside via two-way radios. They usually abandon their vehicle not far from the bank.

For nearly two years it would seem Nova and Craig were a match made in bank robbing heaven, but in 1999, their world almost fell apart. Nova had a change of heart. She asked for help from her sister, who led her to chaplain Bill Fay in Denver. Nova told Chaplain Fay she wanted out of her life of crime. She turned herself in to the FBI and began revealing bits about the heists. The FBI was so confident that Nova would divulge all that they let her go without an arrest. It was a move they would soon regret. Apparently, Nova decided the straight and narrow was not for her. Authorities say she rejoined Craig and went back to bank robbing. They committed another robbery in the fall of 2000 and were last seen in Nova Scotia at a professional hockey game. Authorities surrounded the area but somehow the couple managed to evade the cops one more time.

---------

Part of a modern-day “Bonnie and Clyde” duo, Craig Pritchert made the FBI’s most wanted list by robbing banks throughout the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, going back to 1997.

The FBI believes that Pritchert and his girlfriend Nova Guthrie, spend considerable time in the area casing their target before moving in. They use a sophisticated system of communication via two-way radios with their outside man, they’re familiar with the layout and personnel in the banks, and they dump their getaway car not far from the scene of the robberies.

They were captured in South Africa in August of 2003, and are awaiting extradition.

------

Bank robbers right at home in SA

As America's 'Bonnie and Clyde' are arrested in Cape Town, their local friends sing the praises of a likeable and trustworthy couple.

By Gill Moodie and Jeanne van der Merwe

WANTED: Craig Pritchert leaves the Cape Town Magistrate's Court this week after an extradition hearing

DOUBLE IDENTITY: Nova Guthrie with her boss at a Cape Town nightclub, Giorgo, in a photo on the club's website

Americans Nova Guthrie and Craig Pritchert, the wild "Bonnie and Clyde" bank robbers who were nabbed in Cape Town this week, reinvented themselves as a yuppie couple while living on the run in South Africa.

In the US, the two are accused of bank robberies noted for their shock gun-wielding tactics. But in Cape Town the couple built such trust in their circle that acquaintances described Guthrie this week as an "angel" and told how she had been entrusted with large sums of money.

The couple will be extradited to the US tomorrow after being on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list for years. But stunned friends and colleagues in Cape Town said they had had no inkling that the two were on the run.

Guthrie, 30, and Pritchert, 41, seemed relaxed as they appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Friday for an extradition hearing. They whispered to each other in the dock while prosecutor Derick Vogel read out the charges against them.

Both told magistrate Audrey Johnson in confident, nonchalant voices that they had nothing to say.

"People in the States know her [Guthrie] as this bank robber," said her boss at the Bossa Nova nightclub and a former flatmate, who would give his name only as "Giorgo". "But there was a good side." Andi Brown, as Guthrie called herself, was a capable young woman who was sweet, athletic and good at her job, he said.

She rose from being a waitress at the trendy Greenpoint club to running its website and organising promotions and events. She was trusted with large sums of money, said another boss, calling himself only "George".

Pritchert, who was known to everyone at the club as "Dane", would pop in for a drink. He was a day trader, buying and selling stocks on the Internet from their nearby flat.

Neighbours in the upmarket block of flats remarked that it was odd that Guthrie had been the one who always drove their Volkswagen Beetle - possibly because Pritchert was fearful of applying for a driver's licence.

The lease for the two-bedroom flat was in her name and she had recently renewed it and told the landlord she would like to buy the place.

Graham Savage, who acted as the letting agent, saw Guthrie's passport - in Andi Brown's name.

"Both of them said they had fallen in love with South Africa and wanted to settle here," said Savage.

The FBI eventually tracked down the pair after a tip-off in the US.

At the flat this week were signs of the yuppie life they had led. On the kitchen counter stood a computer, a big-screen TV and a bottle of expensive Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky.

Giorgo said Guthrie had loved Pritchert and would do anything for him. This week the two had asked after each other from their cells when Giorgo had visited them.

Guthrie told him she had spoken to one of her brothers in the US and that her parents had already been approached about a book and movie deal.

It was Guthrie's love for Pritchert that led her into a life of crime. She became the getaway driver as her lover hit small-town banks across the US. The FBI estimates they netted 500 000 between 1997 and 1999.

The rebellious daughter of Christian fundamentalist parents living in Colorado, Guthrie left home to study biology at college and then went to live with a brother in New Mexico. The brother introduced her to Pritchert, a drifter he had met in a bar in September 1997.

He was a college baseball star from Arizona who had failed to break into the professional league. He had left his high school sweetheart wife and three children when he had turned to robbing houses and banks.

Pritchert had already served time when he met Guthrie.

Unlike Bonnie and Clyde, they did not kill anyone, but things turned sour in 1999 when Guthrie turned herself in to police, apparently in a fit of Christian remorse.

However, after preparing to turn state witness she got cold feet and disappeared again.

It seems the couple travelled through Canada, the Caribbean and Namibia before arriving in South Africa. By the time they hit the Mother City in 1999 the loot was spent.

The couple replaced the thrill of robbing banks with gym and martial arts. They were regulars at Quentin Chong's martial arts centre, where they pumped iron and learnt Muay Thai boxing, a particularly brutal form of kickboxing.

"It's weird. Everyone will tell you they were nice people. They seemed like normal Capetonians," Chong said.