Toronto

For the third time in less than two months a collector booth at a TTC station has been robbed at gunpoint.

And investigators believe the same “brazen” gunman is behind all three heists.

Toronto Police say the latest TTC staffer to stare down the barrel of a handgun was working in the fare collection booth at Chester subway station, located off Danforth Ave. just west of Pape Ave., when the crook struck around 10:30 p.m. Sunday.

“This individual had his face masked and pointed the gun through the hole where the money is passed through, pointing it at the collector and making a demand for cash,” Staff-Insp. Mike Earl, who heads up the Holdup Squad, said at police headquarters Monday. “The collect complied, a quantity of cash was handed to the (crook) and he fled.”

He said the robbery was over in “a matter of seconds.”

Investigators have since reviewed TTC security video of the latest heist and compared it to footage from the two earlier holdups.

“It’s our belief...that this is the same individual who committed all three of these robberies,” Earl said.

The collector booth at Chester station was also robbed Aug. 6, shortly after 11 p.m., by a gun-toting bandit in a hoodie who had his face covered with a bandana.

And on Aug. 26, just after 11 p.m., a gunman wearing a similar disguise held up the collector booth at Christie station, west of Bathurst St.

Earl said the bandit was armed with a black handgun in all of the heists.

“His mannerisms, his words and his description is very similar in all three robberies,” he said.

Earl expressed concern just last week, at a news conference regarding the two previous holdups, that the crook may strike again if not caught soon.

“Obviously my concern came to fruition,” he said Monday.

Earl claims the robberies are “carefully” planned and carried out at a time of night when few witnesses are in the station.

And the crook’s decision to target Chest station for a second time just days after video images of a suspect were released to the public was “brazen, bold and almost a slap in the face to the TTC and the police,” he said.

Earl is even more anxious to nab the thief and lock him behind bars before the robberies escalate and someone gets hurt.

“He’s bold...and becoming more brazen as the days go on, so we want to apprehend him as quickly as possible,” he said.

An undisclosed amount of money and TTC Metropasses were stolen in the previous heists, but Earl said only cash was snatched in the latest robbery.

“The money isn’t significant, in my view,” he said. “The important thing is the protection of the public, the protection of the employees and getting this individual off the street.”

Earl urged anyone who knows anything about the robberies to come forward to help point investigators in the right direction.

The crook is described as white, 25 to 30, 5-foot-10 to 6-feet-tall, wearing a black toque, black hoodie, blue and white paisley bandana and a white glove with a grey palm on his left hand.

Anyone with information should call the Holdup Unit at 416-808-7350 or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477).