Kelly drove David to the airport. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. She also must . In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. And youre like, Come on parachute. So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. In the following months, Steve persisted, even floating the notion of placing phony hand grenades on a Loomis truck to scare away the drivers, Kelly said. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. 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. Besides her prison sentence . Its in the ether. So I was glad it was over. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. Ghantt:It's a comedy. At the time of the real robbery, Chambers was facing criminal charges hed written 30K worth of bad checks and was facing jail time for it. 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. David thought about it. You can seize property. By . "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' Dependent care account. 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. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter and happy. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. 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. It was the first Saturday in October. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. They cursed. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Was Queen Charlotte Black? About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. I was just going to get the money into the van. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. He goes, My name is Bruno. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. . He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. 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. His name was Corey. Thats one of my personality flaws. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. He couldn't even bear to stick around for the final tally--though when he left he didn't forget to take $6,000, the first cut of his expected $100,000 share. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. Visit us at Loomis.us. In a word, "Teamwork. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. Thomas Grant, who served three years in prison for bank larceny, paid off restitution of $70,000; brother Eric Grant paid all of his $26,000; as did David Craig, $40,000; and Dennis and Sandra Floyd; $27,000. That was great. Theres no management around. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. What made her do it? Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. It was one of those things everyone (at Loomis Fargo) joked about, but in time, it became serious. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. Its really just a matter of timing, more than anything. And she says, How much do you think wed get out of there? I said, Ten to 15 million. But I didnt really know.. I've got a good woman.". I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. Ghantt simply got ready for work one morning knowing it would be his last day on the job. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. 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 just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. Hes very articulate. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. Careers. And I was thinking about just showing up there. Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" Ghantt was working as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte in 1997, earning about $8 an hour and tired of his humdrum life. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. Steve and Michele invited everyone back for a Christmas party, where they gave Michele's stepfather a special gift--the pickup truck he'd always wanted. Not a documentary. Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. . Explain? According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". David was excited, jabbering about their future together. In real life: False. Industry leading Training and Development. Everybody seemed stunned. 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 will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. 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. "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. That week, the FBI designated the theft its 142nd "major case," putting it on a list--begun in the 1970s--that includes such other infamous crimes as the World Trade Center bombing. We got this guy named Bruno. He was also a former FBI informant who had tipped the bureau off to a planned robbery of a Loomis Fargo armored truck that never came to fruition. Steven Chambers [Misc. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. Michele received the best gift of the night. 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. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. Its a yes: Clover teen shakes off nerves to earn American Idol golden ticket, Mail carrier cant believe his eyes after seeing NC lottery win. Truth was, David wanted more than help leaving, he wanted company. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. Now two NC men face prison. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? Two more defendants in the $17 million Loomis Fargo & Co. robbery last year have agreed to plead guilty, and a third person entered a formal plea in court. 27 febrero, 2023 . When he finished, the van was filled with $17 million. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. Steve now needed a hit man. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. 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. One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. And robbing a truck was dangerous. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. Kelly told the FBI she had done drugs with David but denied knowing about the theft. David trusted her. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. The name she gave the pup is apropos. When Ghantt was on the plane home from Mexico with the FBI, he admitted to the agents that while Campbell had been integral to why hed done it and that he did indeed have a crush on her it was never his true motivation. So Im like, Can you get a move on with my money? After a couple of weeks passed, I get a phone call from Kelly: Okay, Brunos coming to you, blah, blah, blah. So I get a phone call from this guy, and I tell him where to meet me. In Florida, a Loomis Fargo employee had pulled a gun on his coworkers and gotten away with $18 million, a move that FBI agents theorize Ghantt, Campbell and other employees all sat around talking about - and what they would do with that amount of money - for a while. 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. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. 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. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. 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. Kelly was lying. You can garnish wages. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. He was an old friend from East Gaston High School, tough and sure of himself. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. Ultimately, though, the heist wasnt Ghantts idea, which meant he didnt decide who else was involved. You've violated that trust. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. "But I had to know.". . David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. In real life: False. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. I wish them all a happy life and that's about it. I would call us friends. Scott, 26, had a larceny conviction as a teenager, but he'd since cleaned up his act and now had a steady job, a daughter and a girlfriend. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. 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. Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. "It probably should bother me," he said. Mine did. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. He didn't want to abandon his parents. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . On Oct. 7, 1997, two FBI agents arrived at Kelly Campbell's home after two Loomis employees had told agents she and David had once dated. We need to set up some way for me to get my money. She said, We got it all worked out. He would pay McKinney $250,000, half upfront. I thought, Okay, if I get out of that bubble because the cops depend on that, even the feds my chances to get away go way up.. 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. "I've moved on with my life," he said Tuesday. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? She didn't plan to move to Mexico. October was "a blast," he said. He appeared happily matched with his high-spirited wife, Michele, and the two children from her first marriage. . At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. In real life: True. They put up mauve wallpaper. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Eric watched. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. Then he and Campbell drove 90 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where Ghantt planned to purchase a ticket to Mexico so he could be out of the country before news of the robbery broke the next morning. More agents waited outside to arrest them. . CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. Chambers did hire McKinney to kill Ghantt, but initially McKinney was making personal cash deliveries to Ghantt in Mexico on behalf of Chambers. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. 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. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. He didnt even really question me. There it was, "The Heist." And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. Im a very deliberate person. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. In real life: False. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. . And then I could hear her laughing. But it didnt really hit me until later., On March 2nd, when the FBI agents walked up to Ghantt in Playa del Carmen and told him he was under arrest, Ghantt was relieved. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. The figures can be astounding. Question: Should people go see this movie? Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. 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. 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. Yes, happy. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. His collection case closes in two years. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. At one point, the hoodlum shows up and Ghantt is wearing a Jerome Bettis Pittsburgh Steelers jersey; the hoodlums favorite team is the Steelers, and he caves and tells Ghantt that McKinney wants him dead. Ghantt was never in Chamberss presence until he actually handed off the money to him. There was, however, one problem with his plan. In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. The only person not to plead guilty in the case, former Gastonia attorney Jeff Guller, ended up doing eight years for money laundering. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. The cash was covered with dog food. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. A report by the General Accounting Office found that as of budget year 2016, $110 billion in restitution ordered by the federal courts was outstanding and that more than 90% of the amount had been classified as uncollectible.. She was devastated, Diamant said. It was his goodbye. Based on a true story, the premise itself is fascinating, which makes Masterminds all the more a waste. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. Then Steve pushed Scott inside, and he began throwing plastic-wrapped bundles of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds to Eric and Steve, who placed them in three blue 55-gallon barrels. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4,. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. 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. Her marriage--at which she was making another ambivalent effort after multiple separations--and even the jobs she'd been able to get with a diploma couldn't come close to providing the kind of life she dreamed about, the life she felt she deserved: a house in the country, a swimming pool, and enough cash so she didn't need to rely on men. 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." But McKinney never stopped trying to kill Ghantt although, initally, McKinney thought Chambers had paid for the hit over a drug deal gone bad, Diamant said. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. Michelle Chambers received seven years and eight months, while Steve Chambers was handed an 11-year sentence. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. You might as well go all the way now.". In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. ". I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. "He was in tears. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. ". As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. 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. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. "Think of how many women would have stood by. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. All rights reserved. It affects everybody different. Just head on out. And so, he did. That time in prison was actually good for me. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000.
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