Rising star chef arrested after 'robbing three banks on the same day'

A rising star chef has been arrested on suspicion of having committed back-to-back bank robberies in a bizarre one-day spree.

Valentino Luchin, 62, has been remanded in custody after having allegedly robbed three banks in a row during a spree in San Francisco's Central District. According to police, witnesses said they saw a suspect enter one bank and pass a handwritten note to terrified tellers, who handed over a bag of cash.

Luchin, a former executive chef at the locally famed North Beach restaurant and part owner of Ottavio, was later identified as a potential suspect following a series of tips.

Police said witnesses of one incident last week saw a suspect walk into a bank on Grant Avenue near the city's famed Chinatown and hand the teller a note demanding cash. The teller then complied out of fear, they added, before handing the figure a bag of dollars. San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) said Luchin was identified later and connected to further robberies.

The department has linked him to robberies at two additional banks on the same day, all inside the same Central District area of the US city.

He was identified as the alleged robber by members of SFPD's "ambassadors" programme and community tips, and he was booked into San Francisco County Jail on multiple robbery and attempted robbery counts. He is yet to be formally charged.

The alleged spree is not the first time Luchin has been connected to a bank robbery, with the chef having been arrested in 2018 after allegedly walking out of a Citibank in Orinda, California, with $18,000 (£13,265) in cash. Surveillance footage captured a man dressed in a hoodie, black sunglasses and white gloves reportedly brandishing a semiautomatic BB gun.

They are said to have demanded "large bills", and Luchin was arrested at his home the same day, with authorities recovering the cash and pellet gun.

He told the East Bay Times at the time he "thought it was a good plan" before stating: "But it was not." He added: "My action wasn't aggressive. It was a fake gun. I don't even know how to load a real gun." The chef even went on to claim he had written an apology to the bank teller he threatened with the weapon. It is unclear whether he was ever charged in relation to the alleged robbery.

Italian Luchin has worked in the US since 1993, and quickly became celebrated in California as a purveyor of his home country's cuisine at the famous Rose Pistola.

He was eventually able to open a restaurant, Ottavio in Walnut Creek, where he worked as the executive chef, but the location folded amid financial woes in 2016. Food outlet Eater reported that he had defaulted on a Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan payment before Ottavio closed, and he and his wife reportedly owed $110,000 (£81,002) with just $27,000 (£19,882) in assets.

Liam Doyle