Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. In all, they recovered $6.6 million. Afterward, she and David would talk just occasionally on the phone. In total, 24 people were convicted and all but one of the accused pleaded guilty. Their only intimate physical contact had been kissing on a mid-September night when they had driven her pickup truck to a field behind a shooting range in Gaston County to discuss their plans and the theft's chance of success. Library Journal "highly entertaining." The FBI began to question past and current employees of Loomis Fargo. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) As a child, he had preferred reading to playing sports, and he would say, as an adult, that although he couldn't have told you "who was on first," he knew as a kid who the Egyptian god of the dead was. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. Steve and Michelle Chambers, who had lived in a mobile home, bought a mansion in Cramer Mountain. Ghantt met up with the other members of the plot and offloaded the cash. Winds light and variable. Johnson had stolen $18.8 million earlier in the year, on March 19, 1997, only to be caught five months later, in late August, while crossing into Texas from Mexico to retrieve some of the money, which he'd hidden in a shed in mountainous western North Carolina. If we can sit on the money for a year, maybe two, it could work.". He wanted to leave his wife for her, and Kelly, who also was married, let him think she wanted the same. I think if you remember some of her early photographic opportunities, shall we put it that way, she was sort of laughing, not seeming to take it seriously.. More than half of the amount came from the seizure of a luxury home purchased by husband-and-wife defendants during their post-heist spending spree. Chambers had no intention of wiring any money to Ghantt and intended to have him killed to keep him from implicating the others. He decided at that moment that if Kelly called again, he would go for it. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Diamant, a journalist who reported on the case at the time, goes into meticulous detail on how the heist was pulled off and its aftermath. 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. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Spunk. All but one of the defendants pleaded guilty. Arrests Made in $17 Mil. N.C. Heist | AP News His eyes widened and he stopped breathing as he realized that something as mundane as a malfunctioning gate might ruin their entire plan. David's vision for all of this actually derived more from books than from movies. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. This month marked 25 years since one of the biggest armored car heists in U.S. history. It wasn't how much you stole that mattered most; it was that you had stolen in the first place. And once he started, he didn't stop with one cartful. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east. The woman on the phone was Kelly Jane Campbell, and David had a mad crush on her. It was 2:00 p.m. on October 4, 1997, and tension was building between two planners of what would rank high among the largest heists in United States history. She had attitude. He would then have the bulk of his share sent south of the border. From my standpoint, it was just a business deal, Ghantt said. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP). The movie was called Masterminds and stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. Though Wydra is retired, 25 years ago, he was an agent with the FBI. Aprs de nombreux seconds rles comiques au cinma, elle parvient percer en co-crivant et tenant le rle principal de la Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. The trainee didn't yet know how the place worked, a fact David planned to use to his advantage. Outside of the building, Ghantt met up with Campbell, Chambers, and others who were involved in the plot, and drove off to a printing business called Reynolds & Reynolds in northwest Charlotte. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. "Don't double-cross us," the woman on the phone told David Ghantt. In the end, the FBI was able to capture the original gang in five months, snaring 21 individuals for their participation in the crime. 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 reason David didn't know Steve's last name was so they couldn't identify each other to the police or FBI, should cops or G-men ever enter the picture. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. When some friends stole a stop sign from a busy intersection, David made them put it back. The robbery was committed by David Scott Ghantt who was the vault supervisor and accomplices Kelly Campbell, Steve Chambers, Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobies, and other four members. But on Oct. 4, 1997, that no longer mattered and Ghantt took off with $17.3 million. Some of that money is just gone. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.'. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. The van used to move the money was later located a few miles from the warehouse. Steve Chambers would keep the rest. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. You Save 23%. How did they get away with stealing more than $17 million? The towns booming construction industry attracts workers from around the country. About six months before the Charlotte theft, on March 29, a total of $18.8 million was taken from Loomis, Fargo in Jacksonville, Fla., in what was believed to be the largest heist in U.S.. 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. David knew this was important from having followed the recent news about a Florida man who had brazenly committed the biggest heist from an armored-car company in United States history, a loner named Philip Noel Johnson, who also had worked for Loomis. Former FBI agent John Wydra, who helped crack the case, sat down with Channel 9 Reporter Glenn Counts to talk about the clues that led to solving the crime, and how the group got caught. As it neared its end, David stealthily left the vault door ajar. The inspiration behind the major motion picture Masterminds starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis! Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. David Ghantt And The Loomis Fargo Heist: The Outrageous True Story He loves his motorcycle and enjoys going fishing and, while hes sorry for the past, hes not ashamed to talk about it. He added that money can be a motivator for anyone. (LogOut/ Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. But that only tells part of the story. The FBI began to question past and current employees of Loomis Fargo. And Kelly thought he was funny. We dont have the manpower to track all that (restitution) money down I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs., Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it,, You can garnish wages. He and Tammy could have one or two meals each week that he really liked, but the rest were hot dogs or Hamburger Helper. FBI video shows the agency searching that home and finding drawers full of cash. An additional tip reached the FBI when Michelle Chambers made a large deposit at a bank. "Just think about it," she said. The plan was to exit through the building's electronic back gate, which consisted of horizontal metal plates that opened at the touch of a button. One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 millionliterally more than one ton of cash. Loomis Fargo defendants owe as much as they stole in 1997 There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Learning from this error, David planned to leave the stolen money behind with his coconspirators while he fled to Mexico. 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. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt about an old high school friend of hers named Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt to execute a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. Figure in Loomis Heist Gets Prison | AP News Oh were not going to talk to anybody, theyre not going to be able to convict us, that bravado happens in the beginning and then it often gets worn down by the reality, Gronquist said. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. personal/abusive/condescending attacks on other users or goading David Ghantt was just an average Joe with an average low-wage job. Growing up, David had been a nice kid, a decent student who was at worst a minor troublemaker and prankster. The gang made numerous mistakes. The site features a collection of unexplained, strange and odd mysteries. What it does is put a ball and chain on that person for the rest of their lives, they are walking around and they are basically an indentured servant, Gronquist said. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. That was the thing that sticks in my mind to this day.. It took me going to prison to realize I was a bag of worms, and it took me years of work to be somebody worthy to come back into our society, he said. 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. Over 88% of the money has been recovered since the heist. A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. The True Story of David Ghantt and the Loomis Fargo Heist - PrepScholar The money weighed as much as a compact car and he did it all by himself. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter. In the parking lot, David sat in his pickup truck smoking a cigarette and waving good-bye as the trainee drove home. Later that year, he saw a newspaper ad for a job at Loomis Fargo. They swept the surrounding counties, locating Kelly Campbell and Eric Payne in their homes. Thank you! The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. Tuesday marked 25 years since a group of buddies pulled off the third-largest money grab in U.S. history -- the Loomis Fargo heist. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. David got a kick out of her. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Then, keeping with the plan, Ghantt took $50,000 (the maximum that could be taken across the border by law without further authorization) with him and left for Mexico, winding up at the popularYucatan Peninsularesort ofCozumel. He has been a staff writer for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey since 2000. "I'll need help moving the money, getting a new ID, and leaving the country," he told her. The corporation handled armored transportation, ATM maintenance and other cash handling services, and had millions of currency stashed in the vault of the North Carolina branch. CHARLOTTE If you didnt live in the Charlotte area 25 years ago, you might not believe it. 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. Another time, the day after a Christmas in the late 1980s, David and some friends planted all the discarded Christmas trees from the area in one neighbor's front yard. In the movie: Campbell invites Ghantt to a restaurant under the auspices of a date, but then springs the idea of the heist on him, as Chambers and two associates join the conversation from an . He couldn't understand the gap, why he wasn't more successful, why he couldn't at least match the financial stability of his father, who earned a comfortable salary driving a truck. What kind of surprised me is how much the car smelled like money, like if you ever hold money up to your nose it has a distinct smell, Wydra said. While Ghantt trusted Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. 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. The participants in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry, fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries. He worked close-by to where the van and over $3 million dollars had been ditched, and was friends with Steve Chambers. He had stayed in a luxury hotel and paid for expensive food and activities such asscuba divingandparasailing. He angrily hung up the phone at Loomis, Fargo & Co., his soon-to-be former employer in Charlotte, North Carolina. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. While David Ghantt trusted Steve Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. Libraries without that edition should consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. The October 4 shift was lasting longer than expected, due to delays involving pickups and deliveries. They also found several stacks of money with Loomis bands still attached throughout all the homes searched. Friends of Campbell had also begun spending large amounts of cash. So that was kind of like this once-in-a-lifetime thing, Wydra said. Cool interesting stuff features everything odd, weird, bizzare, strange or unusual. Campbell used to work for Loomis and continued the friendship with Ghantt, eventually hooking him up with Chambers. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. In this outrageously entertaining book, Jeff Diamant, the Charlotte Observer's lead reporter on the case, offers the definitive inside account of this astonishing. They Had 17 Million Dollars and No Sense at All - AMW Magazine 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. These cookies do not store any personal information. Was the temptation too much? OWLS director fired in wake of new board taking over, New rules will require flood history disclosure in real estate, North Carolina recreational spring flounder season canceled for 2023, Supreme Court seems ready to sink student loan forgiveness, Beach commission gets update on search for new sources of sand for beach nourishment. In preparation for what lay ahead, David had backed an unmarked company Ford Econoline van near the vault entrance and opened the van's back door. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. He allegedly hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. Expanded two-hour true crime story about the 1997 Loomis-Fargo armored car heist in North Carolina and the serio-comic fate of its bumbling underdog perpetra. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. In Campbells case, Gronquist says his client was buried in court-ordered debt despite the fact that she took responsibility for what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors and the FBI. Get an email notification whenever someone contributes to the discussion. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP). Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. Driving away, he said he felt a mix of fear, confidence and excitement that he outsmarted the FBI. Inside the truck, they found Ghantts ring and surmised this as a sign of Ghantts intention to end his relationship with his wife. However, Chambers had no intention of following those rules, believing the FBI would never connect him to Ghantt. Twenty years ago this Wednesday, a small group of people stole $17 million in cash from the main vault of a Loomis Fargo & Co. armored-car warehouse in west Charlotte. That movie, Masterminds, was filmed in 2014. The building was configured so vans could drive inside and pull up next to the vault. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997 she asked again. she asked. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. The principals here are David Ghantt, a driver for Loomis, Fargo and Co.; Kelly Campbell, the woman Ghantt had a crush on, and who convinced him to commit the crime; and Steve and Michele Chambers. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. About the worst he had done as a teenager was stealing a construction company's Porta-Jon with a friend, tying it to the back of a pickup truck, and driving around for about fifteen minutes. The supervisor liked him and gave him the job. 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. But if you did, youll never forget it. Once they were in custody, the overwhelming task of clearing out possessions possibly purchased with the stolen money began. Not every agent has a case like that, he said. He realized his life wouldn't improve unless he did something drastic. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! uncanny, eerie, unnatural, preternatural, supernatural, unearthly, other-worldly, unreal, ghostly, mysterious, mystifying, strange, abnormal, unusual. shaka wear graphic tees is candy digital publicly traded ellen lawson wife of ted lawson real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist 25 Feb/23 (No Ratings Yet) Jeffrey Guller, who at 81 is by far the oldest of the Loomis defendants, still owes almost $1.1 million on his original court debt of $1.14 million and will remain on the governments books for another four years. It just happened to fall on my desk.. In 1994, they moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, where they had grown up, and David took a job driving a forklift. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. He deserved better. He'd already done enough, he realized, to get himself fired and arrested, even if the gate prevented him from moving the money outside the building. ", Johnson said, "Yeah, that's it. They didnt expect it.. All of the co-defendants were arrested the next day, about six months after the heist. They succeeded in removing $17 million from the safe. They could talk about anything, even topics he couldn't discuss with his wife. A few of the Loomis restitution cases have already been closed either because the amount was paid in full or because the 20-year clock wound down. Asked the purpose of his visit, Johnson had replied, "To visit friends. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. Stealing from Loomis Fargo could make him rich, if he got away with it. The real story behind the second largest bank heist in history, which Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. Heist! them. Yet their lives seemed far easier and better than his.