This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Two more defendants in the $17 million Loomis Fargo & Co. robbery last year have agreed to plead guilty, Steven Chambers and Kelly Jane Campbell, also are charged with plotting to kill Ghantt. She laughed for like 45 minutes. We got this guy named Bruno. $17.3 million in cash was robbed from the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis, Fargo & Co. on the evening of October 4, 1997. The U.S. I didnt even know about it and overlooked it, he said. wydd radio pittsburgh; dumb military bases This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Phillip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery. The next morning, Loomis Fargo employees were unable to open the vault. Pocketing $50,000 for himself, that man, named David Ghantt, hopped into a car of his own and headed towards Mexico. I was working sometimes 75-80 hours a week at $8.15 an hour. After his release, Ghantt took a job as a construction worker and was eventually brought on as a consultant for the 2016 movie Masterminds, based on the Loomis Fargo Heist. [1], Steven Chambers finished serving his sentence in November 2006. You can read more at, Dilworth Coffee is coming to the Fifth Third Center. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. I said, Listen, You all need to get your shit together, or Im just going to walk over here to the government building and tell them who the fuck I am. That lit a little fire under her ass, for a bit.. Ghantt was joking in the breakroom with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell. They lived lavishly: Mastermind Steve Chambers (Owen Wilson) moved from a mobile home to a large home in a gated community, paid for in cash alerting authorities. 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. The FBI knew they needed to make their move. The College Entrance Examination BoardTM does not endorse, nor is it affiliated in any way with the owner or any content of this site. I started just chucking it as fast as I could, he said, adding the sweat was pouring off of me.. The other, suggested bythen-Observer reporter Jeff Diamant, says that Campbell created the plan with Steve Chambers,a drug dealer who was facing charges for writing $30,000 worth of bad checks, and later got Ghantt involved. What ACT target score should you be aiming for? Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Phillip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.October 1997 Loomis Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? [citation needed], The defendants were the targets of many barbed jokes in Charlotte and across the country, in part because of their extravagant spending. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt of an old high school friend of hers, Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt in executing a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. 9 Where did the masterminds live after the heist? After his release, Ghantt took a job as a construction worker and was eventually brought on as a consultant for the 2016 movie Masterminds, based on the Loomis Fargo Heist. Ghantt's spending in Mexico was extravagant at first. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. Will Mcintyre/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images. Finally, in March 1998, the FBI traced a call from Ghantts phone and he was arrested in Mexico. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. She had previously been making frequent small deposits to avert suspicion. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off Once the hitman Chambers had hired arrived in Mexico, he found that he couldnt bring himself to kill Ghantt. Because Ghantt was the only employee who wasnt there that morning, he became the obvious suspect. Websacramento drug bust; montage los cabos wedding cost. Ghantt was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, though he was released on parole after five. Chambers would hold on to most of the remaining cash and wire it to Ghantt as needed. But as he later recalled to the media, as soon as he stepped through those big-box doors, he realized he was flush with cash, and he didnt need to shop at Walmart ever again. Except the person he offered $150,000 to mule $2.5 million down to Ghantt in Mexico turned him down and instead went to the FBI. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. Ron DeSantis has awarded $100 million for beach erosion projects and other restoration efforts in 16 coastal counties damaged by Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole, A Tennessee judge has ruled that video detailing the treatment of a death row inmate who cut off his penis while on suicide watch must be made public, An Indiana man faces felony charges after his diaper-clad 4-year-old son was seen pointing a loaded handgun at people outside their apartment. Galifianakis is game for anything, including eating a dead tarantula (who knew tarantulas were filled with caramel syrup? I mentioned it to Kelly. How to Market Your Business with Webinars? Bubbling under the surface, however, was a deep frustration at the way he was treated. In the meantime, Ghantts wife reported him missing and the CMPD had found his truck in the parking lot of Loomis Fargo. Campbellwho was married herselfrepresented something new and exciting. Chambers and his wife Michele moved out of a trailer and into a luxury mansion in a nice neighborhood. The bigger the amount, however, the bigger the damages to victims that likely will never be repaid: Amy Paynes collection account was closed in 2020 with her having paid $53,000 of the $274,000 she owed. new mexico state police vin inspection; does white vinegar lower blood pressure; prudential tcfd report Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. The jokes between Ghantt and Campbell about their disgruntlement with their jobs took on a more serious note when Campbell introduced Ghantt to an old high school classmate of hers named Steve Chambers. Get all your true crime news from Oxygen. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. WebAydin Properties > Uncategorized > real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Ghantts wife was reportedly nothing like the bizarre, robotic fiance character in the film, for instance. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. After loading the massive cache of loot into the armored truck, Ghantt set the time lock on the vault, which locked the door for days unless the employees drilled through the lock. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. Ask questions; get answers. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. From the beginning, the FBIs prime suspect was David Ghantt. 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. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. The connection to Chambers took more time. We were two paychecks away from being homeless at any given time.. Ghantt sent home a new employee and quickly loaded the money into the back of a bank van. Investigators considered Ghantt to be the prime suspect almost from the beginning. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. There was also no dramatic showdown between Chambers and Ghantt as the movie suggests. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. He was the only employee unaccounted for the next morning, and videotapes recovered at the Loomis Fargo Charlotte office showed Ghantt removing "cubes of cash" and loading it into a Loomis Fargo armored van for over an hour. The thieves had simply abandoned whatever they couldnt carry away. Exciting. In the end, eight co-conspirators were indicted for the Loomis Fargo heist. Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com, allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. Not only was Ghantt the only unaccounted for employee the morning after the heist, there was also footage of Ghantt moving the cash into the back of the Loomis Fargo van. Investigators also found Ghantt's pickup truck, abandoned at the warehouse. Ghantt and one other employee were the last to leave. Also charged were several innocent relatives that the robbers had enlisted to help get safety deposit boxes in various banks. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. WebCampbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantts feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. Hes very articulate. The FBI investigation was aided by the gang's extravagant spending. WebPerry identified the other six people arrested as Steve and Michelle Chambers; Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney; Thomas Nathan Grant; That was great. On the night of October 4, the plan went into action. 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. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Learning about US history? The leader was Allen Pace, who turned out to be the worst safety inspector the Dunbar Armored trucking company ever employed. [citation needed], It was later confirmed by the FBI that more than 88% of the stolen cash had been located or otherwise accounted for. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. More than 2 million dollars is still missing to this day. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. Loomis Fargo employees could not open the vault the next morning and called the police. Once Ghantt loaded the large haul from the vaultwhich could have been close to $20 millioninto a truck, he planned to drive to a second location, then head straight to the airport and fly to Mexico. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LCR9zyGkbo. On Oct. 5, 1997, Ghantt carried out the heist during his regular shift after sending another employee home, stealing more than $17 million from the bank vault. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. The only defendant to not plead guilty, Chambers's attorney Jeff Guller, was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to eight years in prison. This is the person I counted as my friend. Hes well thought-out. David Ghantt was a technical consultant for the film, but due to outstanding court-ordered restitution for his part in the heist he was not paid. Campbell and Chambers made themselves easy to catch, what with their lavish spending. They paid for all of it in cash. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Ghantt and Campbell couldnt get to Mexico from Columbia, as there were no international flights being offered out of the hub, which they would have known, had they called ahead. ), and having explosive diarrhea in a public swimming pool (who knew Zach Galifianakis was filled with caramel syrup?). [7][8], Rocket Science, a 1998 double-disc album by Charlotte-based radio personalities John Boy & Billy, includes a track ("Marvin: The Loomis Caper") mocking the defendants. Meanwhile, David Ghantt was relaxing on a beach in Cozumel, Mexico. 1997 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items bought after Loomis, Fargo armored car facility heist by Steven Chambers, wife Michele, Kelly Jane Campbell & David Scott Ghanntt (Photo by Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images) Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. On similar grounds, four other people were ultimately also charged with money laundering. Authorities said they hired a man named Michael McKinney to meet up with Ghantt and kill him, under the guise that he was planning to give Ghantt more of the money he was owed. One number is working in Campbells favor. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. Dozens of FBI agents everywhere. 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