GPS ankle bracelet key to nabbing alleged Pawtucket, Central Falls bank robber

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The detectives investigating bank robberies last week in Central Falls and Pawtucket thought he looked familiar. The surveillance cameras captured his gaunt face. FBI face recognition technology also helped single him out.

But it was the GPS ankle bracelet that definitively gave away parolee Derek DeCosta.

At 41, DeCosta, nicknamed "Bugsy," was a veteran of bank robberies. Back in 2002, he went on a spree — getting money for gambling, prostitutes and heroin by robbing banks in Central Falls, East Providence, Pawtucket and Providence, as well as a convenience store in North Providence. 

DeCosta was sentenced to serve 25 years. In his personal ad on a Facebook page for Rhode Island maximum security prison inmates, he noted his crimes this way: "I made a few unauthorized withdrawals from local banks — bank robbery."

By May 2014, DeCosta was released on parole and was free for just six months until police in Seekonk, Massachusetts, charged him with robbery. He was held as an alleged parole violator until the Rhode Island Parole Board was notified this May that the Seekonk case was dismissed, said board chairperson Laura Pisaturo.

DeCosta was released on parole in June with a GPS bracelet that he had to wear for 90 days, Pisaturo said. He almost made it.

On Sept. 20, a man robbed a Pawtucket Credit Union branch on Broadway in Pawtucket. Four days later, a man robbed a Bank of America branch on Broad Street in Central Falls. Pawtucket detective Dave Silva and Central Falls detective Craig Viens determined the suspect was DeCosta — who was wearing his ankle bracelet while committing the crimes. 

Police prosecutors told a District Court judge Wednesday that investigators traced the bracelet's GPS into and out of the banks during the robberies.

DeCosta cut off the bracelet on Sunday and tossed it away, which alerted the parole board. By then, police and parole were searching for him.

On Tuesday, police from Central Falls, Pawtucket and the FBI found the get-away car at his girlfriend's residence. The state police violent fugitive task force found DeCosta 128 Coyle Ave. in Pawtucket.

DeCosta, fidgety and belligerent, questioned during Wednesday's arraignment whether the GPS showed him inside the banks. The judge hushed him as she ordered him held without bail on new robbery charges. The parole board is also charging him as a violator.

—amilkovi@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7213

On Twitter @AmandaMilkovits