"I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. More agents waited outside to arrest them. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. In real life: True. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. "But I had to know.". One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. . Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. I knew it was just a matter of time. In real life: False. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? Why had he ever believed he'd get it? Explain? At 7:45, David had finished loading. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. Eric Payne got out of prison in 2006 for his role in the heist and has since paid $11,357 on his $292,000 debt. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - molecularrecipes.com In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. Mine did. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. He's a very likable person. But because David's relationship with his Loomis bosses had been rocky, he says, he doesn't feel sorry about what he did to the company. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. 25th anniversary of the incredible Loomis Fargo bank heist | wcnc.com Some of the biggest numbers remaining on the Loomis collection board, as is the case with Campbell, belong to those who played the biggest role in the crime: David Ghantt, the Loomis employee who loaded all that money 2,800 pounds in all into the back of a company van before escaping to Mexico, has paid just under $50,000 of the $3.81 million he was assessed. Its hilarious. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was the $17.3 million cash robbery of the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis Fargo & Company on the evening of October 4, 1997, by armored car driver and vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery - Wikipedia Should David be killed after he gave them the money? I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. Sweat soaked David's uniform. "I was trying to figure out a way to [leave my husband] and take care of my kids without having to depend on him or any other man," Kelly said. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. The plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. Turns out, most of the thieves and their accomplices have been about as effective coming up with their court-ordered restitution as they were hiding their original crimes. Twelve hours later, at 6 that evening, Eric Payne drove a rented Budget van to his workplace, a graphics company on Performance Road in western Mecklenburg County called Reynolds & Reynolds, which was closed for the night and had a secluded parking lot where they intended to transfer the cash. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? October was "a blast," he said. They put up mauve wallpaper. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. The case resurfaced in the federal courts on Thursday, Sept. 1, when the U.S. Attorneys Office in Charlotte posted a public reminder in the case file of Loomis defendant Kelly Campbell that she had fallen behind in her restitution. "He was in tears. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - phnxathletica.com About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. By . No dry runs, no rehearsals. David trusted her. But what did that mean? Two days after theyd robbed the Loomis Fargo truck the very same day the police found the abandoned van in the woods Steve and Michelle Chambers walked into a bank and deposited their cut of the stolen money into their account. When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. Michelle Chambers received seven years and eight months, while Steve Chambers was handed an 11-year sentence. . Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. This real-life crime is the core of "Untitled Armored Car Project," which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig. Starting Pay Rate: $15.50 per hour Shift: Monday - Friday from 1:00pm to 9:00pm Job Description As a Coin Processor, you work with your team to maintain inventory in our cash vaults for our Loomis customers. SEVEN NABBED IN CHARLOTTE HEIST\ - Greensboro News and Record Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. Some of that money is just gone. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. It was the first Saturday in October. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. Campbell, a former Loomis employee and one of the original masterminds of the caper, has paid off less than $21,000 of the $4,701,694.18 she was docked. Careers. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. She didn't plan to move to Mexico. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. The name she gave the pup is apropos. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - legal-innovation.com In real life: Mostly true. Campbell and her husband had always been just scraping by, however in the weeks following the robbery, the two seemed to have more money than they've ever had. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. They ditched the Loomis van, then drove the cash-heavy Budget van to Steve's mobile home in Lincoln County, where his wife, Michele, waited with a calculator and rubber bands. FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount. He didnt even really question me. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist (No Ratings Yet) . Steve tried keys on a side door. Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, who had been friends on and off since growing up together in the mid-1980s, were at a cookout, playing cards and drinking Budweiser at Steve's Lincoln County, N.C., mobile home, Kelly recalled. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. Why do we feel its so necessary to treat people like this, to say, OK, well just ruin the rest of your life because you made a bad decision., Punishment should not last a lifetime. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. He couldn't talk.". He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. David Ghantt, who pulled off the Loomis, Fargo & Co. vault robbery in 1997 and was sentenced to seven years in prison for the crime, served as a consultant for the film (in theaters Friday). Is he telling the truth? These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. TWO TO ENTER GUILTY PLEAS IN ARMORED-CAR ROBBERY - Greensboro News and Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. In real life: False. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. . Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997, FILE - Kelly Campbell, one of the 21 people convicted for their involvement in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist, awaits sentencing for her part in the theft at her mobile home near Mount Holly, N.C. on Aug 16, 1999. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. Campbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantt's feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. It changes you. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. When I call Ghantt to discuss his involvement in the Loomis Fargo heist, he confesses that hes feeling a bit tired from a day of honest labor. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. David Ghantt And The Loomis Fargo Heist: The Outrageous True Story Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer Mountain. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997 The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. I didn't think I had the guts. It was one of those things everyone (at Loomis Fargo) joked about, but in time, it became serious. Going south, nobody really looks at what youre shipping. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. One of them tapped him on the back. On October 5, 1997, FBI agents gathered at the Loomis, Fargo & Co. warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, to watch a security videotape of a man loading stacks of cash into a pushcart and wheeling them from the vault. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. He kept looking over his shoulder. You can seize property. David didn't even know Steve's name. Kelly called David at. Question: Should people go see this movie? A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. Him and I still talk every now and then. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. . Ultimately, though, the heist wasnt Ghantts idea, which meant he didnt decide who else was involved. Theres less security. Steve now needed a hit man. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. . Its everything thats coming north.. Contact Us | Loomis US Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. They hatched the idea half-jokingly, over a game of Uno, never dreaming they were about to make Bonnie and Clyde look like bottom feeders. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. In March 1997, after Loomis Fargo & Company has been robbed of $18.8 million in Jacksonville by company security guard Philip Noel Johnson, Steve Eugene Chambers and Kelly Campbell, a former employee of Loomis, decides to rob the company. The cash was covered with dog food. Looking back at the Loomis heist - Gaston Gazette Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. Chambers, now 32, didn't grant an interview for this article, but last year, in response to written questions, he said the biggest lesson he learned was: "Family is more important and valuable than money. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. Now he offered to pay him to carry cash to David--Steve said he was a friend hiding out after a bad drug deal, McKinney recalled. ". She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. They Had 17 Million Dollars and No Sense at All - AMW Magazine CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. You can garnish wages. They soon realized David had stolen more money than would fit in their 55-gallon barrels. Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. . They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. . Purchases included a pool table, jewelry (including a $43,000 diamond ring), a minivan, $20,000 worth of cigars, and the 7,000-square-foot home on the side of Cramer. Not a documentary. Before long, the tales of high living by Chambers and his now former wife, Michelle, led the thieves to be labeled either the "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" or "The gang that couldn't steal straight." 27 febrero, 2023 . In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Channel 9 speaks with the man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 As with many recent historic events, this one had been caught on videotape, a fact that a few dozen Charlotte FBI agents would learn in a hastily organized Sunday morning meeting. Things went from bad to worse when, in November, Michelle strolled into a bank with a briefcase filled with 200 grand and asked the manager, How much can I deposit without the bank reporting the transaction? When she showed the bank manager that she really had the money to invest, the cash was still bound in Loomis Fargo wrappers. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. I said, It comes down to picking the right day, and the right time of the month, and all that good stuff. I even told her, It wouldnt be all that difficult.
Starting An Iv Therapy Business In Florida,
Dale Walksler Type Of Cancer,
Drexel Imitator Plus Mixing Directions,
Gender Reveal Party Death 2021,
Articles R