More than 24 hours after the escape, the robbers, Kenneth Conley, 38, and Joseph Banks, 37, the self-proclaimed “Moor,” remained at large today with dragnets of heavily armed federal and local law enforcement officers on their trail.

The men were last seen in a south suburb and are believed to be traveling together. The FBI offered a $50,000 reward this morning for the escapees’ capture, which is about $550,000 less than Banks reportedly took in just two robberies where, brandishing a pistol, he vaulted bank counters and stuffed stacks of money into a bag.

So-called Moors are typically black nationalists who, like their kissing cousins in the antigovernment “sovereign citizens” movement, deny the jurisdiction and authority of the government. For the Moors, that is based on the theory that they are the real sovereign natives of North America, and the whites who came later and their government have no right to rule them. As a rule, the various Moorish groups have produced little or no violence, even if their view of history is unique.

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