And then I could hear her laughing. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. 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 this guy named Bruno. 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.. The FBI investigation was aided by the gang's extravagant spending. In 2020, the television show Super Heists portrayed the heist in Episode 3, "Van Full of Dollars". Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. 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. WebThis real-life . These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. Its easy to get somebody to do something if you know that they are that infatuated with you.. Scary. After this look at David Ghantt and the Loomis Fargo heist, read about a more successful robbery, the Antwerp diamond heist. Hayley Milliman is a former teacher turned writer who blogs about education, history, and technology. (I) bought jewelry, bought a van, Campbell recalled of her own spending. Hello, federal suspicious activity report. Authorities began to hone in on the group and put a wire tap on Campbell's phones. Soon everyone would know about the arrests in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist. Who was the FBI agent in the movie Masterminds? All but one of the defendants pleaded guilty. 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. Said Ghantt, one day life kinda slapped me in the face. hilary farr design assistant 9, Juin, 2022 WebGhantt was joking in the breakroom with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell. Will Mcintyre/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesMichele Chambers 1998 BMW for sale following the prosecutions of the Loomis Fargo heist conspirators. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. Having only brought $50,000 in cash, however, Ghantt soon found himself short on funds. Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. Campbell knew theyd need the help of the warehouses vault supervisor, who just happened to have a crush on her, and she called Ghantt to ask for his help. Theres less security. Ill never pay it off on my paycheck, Ghantt said. Her sentence was delayed until Jan. 1 so she could spend the holidays with her family. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. Inside without a hiccup, he placedthe $17 million cash, in bags that altogether weighed more than 2,700 pounds, onto carts and into a van. Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here: PrepScholar 2013-2018. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. 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. And youre like, Come on parachute. You see, theres a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. 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 Loomis Fargo heist Less than a month later, the family moved from a double-wide to a 7,000-square-foot, $635,000 home in a gated country club community in Gaston County. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. In total, 24 people were convicted and all but one of the What are the principles on which our Constitution is based? Him and I still talk every now and then. Campbell used part of her share of the money to buy a Toyota Sienna minivan in two cash installments. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Meanwhile, Ghantt would take $50,000, as much as could legally be carried across the border without questions, and flee to Mexico. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. When the rest of the Loomis Fargo employees showed up the next morning and found that they couldnt open the vault, they called the police. Instead, the bandits just started throwing as much money as they could into the van until they couldnt fit anymore. They would then load as much cash as they could carry into a van. 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.. The film was produced by Brent Almond. Lindy Hop: The Dance That Defined The Golden Age of Jazz, Inside The Unsolved Disappearance Of Jennifer Kesse, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, David Ghantt attends the 2016 after party for the Hollywood premiere of. I knew that if I did something like that, I would take a huge amount of money, Ghantt said of the brash robbery on an upcoming episode of, To find out more about how the thieves got caught and how long they landed behind bars, tune in the. A Comprehensive Guide. I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. 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. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. We were two paychecks away from being homeless at any given time.. By then, the FBI had become greatly concerned for Ghantt's personal safety; they had learned that Chambers had plotted to have Ghantt killed in a murder for hire scheme using a "hit man" named Michael McKinney. Two days after the heist, the FBI found the missing van with $3.3 million of cash left in it. Learning about US history? This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. His partners, who planned to stay behind, agreed to send him his full cut of the money after the heat from investigators had died down. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Chambers served 11 years before being released. Masterminds is a 2016 American comedy film based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery in North Carolina. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of 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. With the plan in place, Ghantt sent a newly employed co-worker home early (reportedly at 6 p.m) who had been assigned to train with him. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. WebAydin Properties > Uncategorized > real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Items included a velvet Elvis painting, 1998 BMW, 17-foot motorboat and Harley Davidson. 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. He left his wedding ring behind and spent his days spending money on luxury hotels and scuba diving. WebWas Loomis Fargo heist real? On March 1, 1988, Mexican police arrested Ghantt at Playa del Carmen. 7 Is the movie Masterminds based on a true story? By March, Steve Chambers decided he needed to do something more drastic about Ghantt, making plans to send a hitman to Mexico to silence him for good. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. Robbing the 7-Eleven and getting $40 bucks and a pack of Marlboros was not for me. Chambers, his wife, and several of their accomplices were arrested the next day. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. The Dunbar Armored robbery Investigators also found Ghantt's pickup truck, abandoned at the warehouse. 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. At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. followed by "Don't worry, it is not drug money," the bank filled out a suspicious activity report, which ultimately reached the FBI. They received sentences and probation ranging from several years to 11 years and three months in federal prison for Steve Chambers, who was also fined more than $3,500,000. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. Ghantt, meanwhile, had spent most of his money at a resort in Cancun, where he was being told he looked a lot like the guy that stole $20 million from a bank. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. Within two days, the investigators found the van with $3 million in cash and the security camera tapes inside. 9 Where did the masterminds live after the heist? We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. He has been a staff writer for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey since 2000. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com, allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. Also charged were several innocent relatives that the robbers had enlisted to help get safety deposit boxes in various banks. Ghantts wife was reportedly nothing like the bizarre, robotic fiance character in the film, for instance. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. The Loomis Fargo heist became something of a media lightning rod. He also took various measures to change his appearance, such as shaving, after a patron at a restaurant pointed out to him that he "looked like the man who robbed a bank of $20 million. And with that, David Ghantt took off for Mexico. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off the s Ghantt was joking in the breakroom with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell. 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. 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. There was also no dramatic showdown between Chambers and Ghantt as the movie suggests. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. And I was thinking about just showing up there. 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. cheap beachfront property for sale in italy. ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. Ask below and we'll reply! He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. From there, hed meet Campbell, Chambers and Grant, a friend of Chambers, in a parking lot, from where they would head to an industrial warehouse and load all but $50,000 into a rental van. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. Husband and wife Steven and Michelle Chambers, whose conspicuous consumption of a luxury home, a BMW convertible, breast implants and a $600 wooden Indian, among other purchases, helped the FBI solve the crime, were assessed $3.81 million and $4.8 million, respectively. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. The leader was Allen Pace, who turned out to be the worst safety inspector the Dunbar Armored trucking company ever employed. Product details Publisher : John F Blair Pub (October 1, 2005) Former Cramerton Police Chief David Young soon got wind of the Chambers excessive spending spree and reached out to the FBI. His name was Corey. Cool, I say. WebWord trickled in to the FBI that Ghantt had a romantic interest in a former coworker, Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty All of the defendants except for one pleaded guilty and accepted their sentences. This meant a bump in pay, up to $8.15 an hour. Inside the truck, they found Ghantt's ring and surmised this was a sign of Ghantt's intention to end his relationship with his wife. Finally, in March 1998, the FBI traced a call from Ghantts phone and he was arrested in Mexico. 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. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. It happened on October 4, a Saturday. 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. The figures can be astounding. Some of that money is just gone. More than 2 million dollars is still missing to this day. There was one problem: he forgot to remove the tape from the third security camera. [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. Twice a week over the next 12 months, we will take you back to the winter of sheep cloning and the summer of Con Air. In February 2009 the Associated Press reported that Chambers had chosen to describe himself as "changed". Campbell was another employee at Loomis Fargo and she and Ghantt quickly struck up a relationship, one that Campbell denies was ever romantic though FBI evidence says otherwise, and one that continued after she left the company. It changes you. Fed up, exhausted, and seeing a way out, Ghantt agreed. Campbellwho was married herselfrepresented something new and exciting. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded daily by millions of dollars-worth of temptation. 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. WebGhantt was joking in the breakroom with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell. Todd Williamson/Getty ImagesDavid Ghantt attends the 2016 after party for the Hollywood premiere of Masterminds, based on the Loomis Fargo heist that he helped carry out. What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For? Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. They got to work planning the straightforward heist that would rely on Ghantts existing access to the vault, fewer staff at the warehouse on the weekends, and the ability to use one of the companys armored trucks to make the successful getaway. Most high schools offer a variety of history classes, so make sure youre taking the right ones for you. The U.S. They had initially agreed to control their spending for a year or two, in the belief that the government would vigorously track the spending habits of any and all suspects for at least a year before relenting. WebAydin Properties > Uncategorized > real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. But there was just one thing the group hadnt been counting on: the massive weight of that amount of cash. 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. David Ghantt, a Gulf War veteran, had never been in trouble with the law. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. You know Loomis because of their armored cash vehicles, and when they acquired Wells Fargo Armored, turned into Loomis, Fargo & Co. Ghantt, who had been with the bank since 1994, was promoted from driver to vault supervisor in 1997, where he earned $360 a week and befriended Kelly Campbell (Wiig), who got Ghantt mixed up in the plans for the heist after she left Loomis. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. Loomis Fargo employee David Ghantt and his partners nearly pulled off the perfect crime, but it would be their lavish spending, and an alleged murder plot, that would be their undoing. To say nothing of their art purchases like the aforementioned velvet Elvis portrait and a painting of a bulldog dressed as General George S. Patton. There are two ideas as to how the plan was created. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. Eight people were indicted for bank larceny and money laundering,whichnine friends and relatives were also charged for, as theyd co-signed safe deposit boxes to store some of the cash. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. Websacramento drug bust; montage los cabos wedding cost. Ghantt, in order to conserve this money, curtailed his spending. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. I felt cornered and one day the joking in the break room about robbing the place suddenly didnt seem so far-fetched.. WebLoomis Fargo Robbery There is a vault reserved for only the most outrageous, preposterous, and far-fetched real life stories. The Dunbar Armored robbery is the largest cash robbery to have occurred in the United States. In the film, Jason Sudeikis plays a sadistic assassin hired to knock off Ghantt, who befriends him. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. speedway of nations manchester 2021. rossignol skis experience 88 The conversations werent made up of much more than daydreams that took the vague shape of plansuntilCampbell mentioned that she had a high school friend with connections that could actually get it done. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. [citation needed], It was later confirmed by the FBI that more than 88% of the stolen cash had been located or otherwise accounted for. Its kind of out of sight, out of mind, she said of the reasoning. Campbell helped plot the robbery of Loomis Charlotte vault on Oct. 4, 1997, with David Ghantt, a Loomis supervisor who stole the money, and Steve Chambers, a longtime Campbell friend. David Ghantt was the vault supervisor for Loomis, Fargo & Co. armored cars, which managed the transportation of large sums of cash between banks in North Carolina. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. wydd radio pittsburgh; dumb military bases Ghantt called Chambers asking for more money, and was promptly arrested near Comuzel, which was a good thing for Ghantt, who had been targeted by a hitman hired by Chambers. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. At that same time, Steve was growing sick of the calls to send more money to Ghantt, and was looking for a way to end that issue. You can garnish wages. I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. But after one visit, she asked a teller "How much can I deposit before you have to report it to the feds?" 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. On the evening of October 4, 1997, one man loaded $17.3 million in cash from the vaults of Loomis, Fargo & Co. into the back of a van. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. The next morning, Loomis Fargo employees were unable to open the vault. wydd radio pittsburgh; dumb military bases And I said, Hey, man, I got this. The FBI quickly connected Ghantt to Campbell, who was a former Loomis Fargo employee. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Ghantt was caught on videotape loading large amounts of cash into a truck. Ghantt and his compatriots, it turns out, had underestimated how bulky money is. Chambers and his wife also made some cash payments on a few cars. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. While she made small deposits at first, she became more reckless, eventually making a deposit of thousands of dollars in cash, telling the teller not to worry: Its not drug money.. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. While listening in, they uncovered another more sinister alleged plan to kill Ghantt. Its in the ether. [citation needed], The defendants were the targets of many barbed jokes in Charlotte and across the country, in part because of their extravagant spending. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off She had previously been making frequent small deposits to avert suspicion. Was Loomis Fargo heist real? The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. The reason Ghantt got involved wasalways the same: he realized that he couldnt make his credit card payments, and was thus unable to support his family. In fact, David Ghantt was about to commit the heist of a lifetime. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. 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. As soon as you put that first bag of stolen money in that van, theres no going back. Axios Charlotte is a local news initiative. 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. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. After meeting up with Chambers, Campbell, and some other co-conspirators, Ghantt hightailed it to Mexico with $50,000 in cash in his car. 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. Ghantt didnt actually meet Chambers until the night of the heist, though, according to Diamant, who would go on to write a book about it. I studied up on the FBI. How to Market Your Business with Webinars? Something was going on in Cramerton, the multiple callers said. But as Ghantt admitted, the film took some liberties with specific details and characters to make the film funnier. But of course, then they had to decorate that spectacular new space and so they spent tens of thousands of dollars on things like cigar store Indians, paintings of Elvis, and a bulldog dressed up like George Patton. While Ghantt moved to Mexico to let things cool down after the heist, his robbery cohorts stayed in North Carolina with the bulk of the money. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. I knew it was over then, Ghantt said. Hes very articulate. First, Chambers and his wife each deposited $5,000 into each of their bank accounts. As you probably know, its loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. Was that really what it was about? An additional tip reached the FBI when Michelle Chambers made a large deposit at a bank. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. He was like OK, yeah, we can do that, she recalled. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Then, keeping with the plan, Ghantt took $50,000 (the maximum that could by law be taken across the border without further authorization) with him and left for Mexico, winding up at the popular Yucatan Peninsula resort-island of Cozumel. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. ), and having explosive diarrhea in a public swimming pool (who knew Zach Galifianakis was filled with caramel syrup?). Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. Theres no management around. I was working all the time and unhappy I felt cornered and one day the joking in the break room about robbing the place suddenly didnt seem so far-fetched.. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. The next day, the Chambers, Campbell, and some other notable parties were arrested in Charlotte.