"Now, 63-year-old Valentino Giovanni Luchin has become known for something else being arrested for allegedly robbing banks without any of the finesse he's known for in the kitchen. On Thursday, a new federal indictment was unsealed, charging Luchin with a single-day robbery spree that netted barely more than $2,800. He faces two counts of bank robbery and one count of attempted bank robbery, alleged crimes that all occurred in San Francisco on Sept. 10, 2025, court records show."
"Police said last year he used a demanding note to steal $300 from the CTBC Bank on the 1100 block of Grant Avenue, near the neighborhoods of Chinatown and North Beach, and that investigators quickly linked him to two similar crimes a $2,500 robbery of Bank of America on the 1400 block of Stockton Street, and an attempt at BMO Bank on Columbus Avenue."
"He allegedly used a fake gun to take $18,000 from a bank and escape in his Mercedes, but police quickly identified him as a suspect and arrested him. At the time, he granted a jailhouse interview where he told a reporter that he thought he'd planned the robbery out well at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight his opinion had changed."
Valentino Giovanni Luchin, 63, was federally indicted for a one-day bank-robbery spree in San Francisco on Sept. 10, 2025, that netted about $2,800. He faces two counts of bank robbery and one count of attempted bank robbery. Investigators allege he used a demanding note to steal $300 from CTBC Bank and linked him to a $2,500 Bank of America robbery and an attempted BMO Bank robbery. His public defender said the charges are overblown and cited severe financial distress amid a struggling local restaurant industry. Luchin previously pleaded to a 2018 Orinda bank robbery and served a year in jail. He emigrated from Veneto, Italy, in 1993 and worked as an executive chef before opening Ottavio.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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