Teen accused bank robbers indicted by US grand jury

Accused teenage bank robbers Luke Carroll and Anthony Prince have lost their first court battle in the United States.

Carroll, a 19-year-old Australian, and Prince, also 19 from New Zealand, have been indicted by a grand jury in the US.

The jury, in a secret hearing in Denver late yesterday, found there "was probable cause" the teenagers armed themselves with BB guns and robbed a bank in the Colorado ski resort town of Vail of approximately US$130,000 (NZ$183,175)

Carroll and Prince, who are locked up in a federal prison in Denver, face up to 25 years in a US prison if convicted of the March 21 robbery of the Weststar Bank.

The FBI has alleged Carroll and Prince confessed to the robbery after their arrest on March 22.

The grand jury was the first test of the US authorities' case against the Australasian friends, who arrived in America last November and were working in a Vail sports store.

"Individuals charged with a federal offence have a constitutional right to be indicted by a grand jury," US Attorney's Office spokesman Jeff Dorschner told AAP today.

"A grand jury is nothing more than a group of citizens who sit and hear evidence presented by the government and determine whether based on the evidence presented by the government there is probable cause that the defendants committed the crime as alleged."

The hearing is held in secret.

Carroll and Prince are expected to make their next court appearance on Monday in the US District Court in Denver for a bail hearing.

It is also possible they will be arraigned at the hearing and asked to enter a plea.

The robbery has grabbed the attention of the US media as the accused robbers appeared to have made a number of bumbling mistakes.

Two women attendants at the bank noted the robbers may have had "Australian" accents. Name tags worn by the robbers were similar to name tags used by the sports store where Carroll and Prince worked.

In a separate incident, Prince and Carroll were arrested in January by Vail police for allegedly using BB guns to shoot windows in the town. Police remembered that arrest and the accused's accents, which pointed to Prince and Carroll potentially being the bank robbers.

The pair had also allegedly attempted to buy one-way air tickets to Mexico after the robbery, but when told by the ticket salesperson they couldn't they bought return flights.

When Prince and Carroll were arrested at Denver International Airport, Prince allegedly had US$7,600 hidden in his pants and more cash stashed away in his ski luggage.

- AAP