Super-mask gives crime a new face

Conrad Zdzierak wearing a mask while robbing a bank in Springfield Township, Ohio. Photo / Supplied.

A company that sells silicone masks incorporating human hair to achieve what its advertisements call "ultra high realism" is at the centre of a police investigation after detectives discovered it had become the favoured supplier of disguises to America's most wanted bank robbers.

The Los Angeles company SPFX Masks, set up to cater to the film industry, says it is proud of the realistic appearance of its hand-painted products, "but not proud of the way they are being used" after learning that they had been linked to a string of crimes.

In Ohio, Polish immigrant Conrad Zdzierak last week pleaded guilty to using one of the masks to transform himself from a 30-year-old white man into a black character he called "The Player," who committed a string of robberies in the state.

The disguise was so effective that local police arrested a young African American for the crimes, holding him in custody for several months.

Witnesses, including six of the seven bank employees who took part in a photo line-up, wrongly identified the innocent black man as the culprit.

"We showed the picture [of the masked perpetrator] to his mother, and even she thought it was him," the detective in charge of the case, Keenan Riordan, said.

Once that little misunderstanding had been ironed out, Zdzierak was convicted on six counts of robbery.

Authorities are now wondering if the notorious "Geezer Bandit," an elderly man who has held up a string of banks in Southern California, might be a younger person wearing one of the SPFX masks, which sell for retail for as much as US$1200 ($1600).

The masks are hand-made by a crew of six craftsmen who use a silicone that looks and feels like skin, down to its individual pores. They are individually painted by hand, and finished with real human hairs are individually stitched in place.

SPFX customers have included the makers of the horror film Hallows Point.

Wearing the masks is like being in Mission Impossible, the company's owner, Rusty Slusser, told the Los Angeles Times .

"You pull it over your head and that's it. It's like a 10-hour make-up job in 10 seconds."

In October, a Chinese man seeking asylum in Canada used one of the masks to disguise himself as an elderly male as he went through airport security in Hong Kong.

"We're very embarrassed this has happened," said Slusser, of his company's sudden notoriety.

The masks, which have been on the market for a couple of years, are particularly effective because they move in sync with facial muscles. Slusser says Hollywood stars have used them to evade paparazzi, though he would not name names.

Zdzierak can no doubt testify to their effectiveness. He would have got away with his crimes had his girlfriend not gone to the police after finding a large stash of money and one of the masks in his hotel room.

When detectives searched Zdzierak's home, they found two masks in a safe, one of a young black man, and another of an ageing white man known as "The Elder".

They also found videos of Zdzierak modelling "The Elder" mask and trying to speak like a person of that age, and emails he had sent to Slusser claiming to be a film producer wanting to know if a white man could pass himself off as an African American in one, and whether silicone hand coverings sold with the masks might tear in a fight.

- Independent