The FBI is assisting several local police departments to catch the robber who has hit nearly two dozen restaurants across New York City and Long Island in recent months.
It comes after the masked bandit hit a Subway restaurant in Queens Sunday afternoon, marking the 23rd such incident since March.
The knife-wielding man demanded money from a 50-year-old employee at the sandwich shop on Springfield Boulevard in Oakland Gardens just after 4 p.m. The employee opened the register and the man got away with around $500 in cash before he took off, police said.
Workers at the store declined to comment to NBC 4 New York about the robbery on Monday.
He’s believed to be the same man who hit a Subway restaurant in Forest Hills on Friday night. In that robbery, a man with a knife robbed a Subway on 108th Street around 9 p.m. The suspect possibly fled in a gray Honda, according to police.
The robbery on Sunday afternoon would be the sixth time the suspect struck in Queens. He’s believed to have committed a total of 17 robberies in Nassau and Suffolk counties, authorities said.
Last Wednesday, a Subway restaurant was robbed at knifepoint in Bayside by a man with a knife.
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That robbery came less than a week after police said they were investigating similar robberies in the Forest Hills, Flushing and Howard Beach neighborhoods of Queens.
Police are looking into the possibility that the Queens holdups are connected to similar robberies on Long Island.
In many of the robberies, a hooded man with a knife targets employees as they close up shop for the night. No one has been injured in any of them.
Officials said late last month that robberies in Forest Hills, Flushing and Howard Beach may be connected to the knife-wielding robber who has targeted Dunkin' Donuts, 7-Eleven, Subway, and other businesses over the past few months.
