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Facial recognition technology leads to arrest in bank robbery

Photo courtesy Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

Surveillance video from a bank robbery was fed into a database, and facial recognition software produced this match.

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TBO.com

Published: May 7, 2009

Using a vast database that contains more than six million images of criminals, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office today helped south Florida detectives arrest a man wanted in connection to a bank robbery.

North Miami Police detectives had high-quality video of the suspect from the May 1 heist but didn't have a name. Scott McCallum of the sheriff's technical services division got the request from North Miami detectives this morning and ran the surveillance photo of the man through the database.

The Pinellas sheriff's facial recognition database is the largest in the country. McCallum was able to come up with several possible matches and provide North Miami authorities with a photo pack, the sheriff's office said.

Using the photos, witnesses identified George Meulener as the man who robbed the North Miami bank, the sheriff's office said.

The request for the photos came at about 9 a.m. today; Meulener was arrested at work by 1 p.m., authorities say.

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