According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. 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. David Ghantt was just an average Joe with an average low-wage job. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. I ride motorcycles and fish -- normal guy, Ghantt told Counts. Its attracted workers like Ghantt. But things didnt quite work out that way. 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. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The hillbilly outfit did more that just drop a few breadcrumbs. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. To visit friends.". There was a book published in 2002 as well, by author Jeff Diamant called,Heist! He realized his life wouldn't improve unless he did something drastic. Tips had led the FBI to begin monitoring Chambers (and his wifes) activities, but it was not until the FBIrecorded a phone callfrom Ghantt in Mexico that the final connection was made. ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east. A customs inspector, asking routine questions of bus passengers, focused her attention on him when his answers reminded her of Tommy Flanagan, the pathological-liar character played by Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live. Steve Chambers and his wife were living in a trailer and upgraded to what would today be a multi-million-dollar mansion at Cramer Mountain. Afterward, everything became comical. 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. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. 2023 Cox Media Group. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. 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. I was relieved emotionally because I knew there was a good chance my luck might run out, Ghantt said. Its said the current owner now has it in storage in Phoenix, Arizona. He called Kelly to say he was coming and hopped into the driver's seat of the loaded Loomis van. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. Loomis Fargo employees could not open the vault the next morning, and called the police. https://www.charlotteagenda.com/67457/loomis-fargo-heist-masterminds-movie/, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/article104506876.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_1997_Loomis_Fargo_robbery#Company, http://retroclt.blogspot.com/2014/07/loomis-fargo-heist.html, . First, they tapped the Chambers phone, and began listening in on February 11th, 1998. By then, the FBI had become greatly concerned for Ghantts personal safety; they had learned of Chambersmurder for hirescheme. 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. He had joined the army and earned an honorable discharge, but because of defense-industry cutbacks he hadn't been able to find a good job for himself. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Two days later, when the FBI found the Loomis Fargo armored van, they discovered almost $3.3 million in cash left in the back of the van; it was later discovered that the thieves had miscalculated the sheer bulk of the small denomination currency, and that they simply left the cash that they could not take with them in the back of the van. Instead he became paranoid, especially after Steve Chambers put a contract out on his life. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. The government does not run debtors prisons, says 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. them. The world is full of unexplained events, strange mysteries, and mysterious legends. We went on a mission to calculate exactly how much size-wise the money was, $11.3 million in $20 bills, and it weighed over 2,000 pounds, former FBI agent John Wydra said. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). Ms. Campbell worked at Loomis for 11 months, leaving in November 1996, according to court papers. 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. As it neared its end, David stealthily left the vault door ajar. She'd left Loomis in November 1996 to take a job elsewhere as a security guard. It, too, has changed hands several times. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later 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. Some of that money is just gone. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Inside the truck, they found Ghantts ring and surmised this as a sign of Ghantts intention to end his relationship with his wife. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. He was on a budget for clothes, even for work boots; he had recently needed to check seven stores before finding a pair in his price range. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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. Ghantt had fled to Mexico with $50,000 in cash, leaving the rest of the money with Steve Chambers. Ghantt didnt know the full extent of what was happening back home -- how that lay low plan turned into a flurry of extravagant spending. The property has changed hands several times since then. Libraries without that edition should consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel. 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. 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. Jeff Diamant was a reporter for the Charlotte Observer when the heist took place. People dont seem to understand human nature. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. The police almost immediately called theFBI, since 95% of the money handled at the facility was owned by banks. Asked the purpose of his visit, Johnson had replied, "To visit friends. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. The 2016 comedy movie, Masterminds is based on the story of the Loomis Fargo Heist. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Of course, this would all be a radical departure for him, and thoughts of his wife and parents did give him pause. "Everything's gonna be all right," she told him. contact us to submit an unexplained mystery article, or to join the team on the email address below. Steve was a serious guy? You can seize property. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. The trainee didn't yet know how the place worked, a fact David planned to use to his advantage. Meanwhile, Ghantt's gang spent wildly and paid their family members and friends to hide money. In order to receive more evidence, the FBI decided to listen. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft [Jeff Diamant] on Amazon.com. 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. The loot would later be divided among David, Kelly, and Steve. Well she was a pretty happy-go-lucky person, he said. Prosecutors say a vault. 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. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. Change). 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. There's just one hitch: Ghantt has entrusted the money to an oddball crew of accomplices who had wooed him into committing this massive theft in the first placeand who, he soon learns, are trying to take him out. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing Her case closes in 2025. Kelly had approached David with the idea in the summer, knowing he had a crush on her and winning him over with the promise that a shady friend of hers with Mafia ties would help them. It just happened to fall on my desk.. Steve had hired a bodyguard named Mike McKinney. More than 2 million dollars are still missing to this day. 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Marine Fisheries Commission advocates for water quality, North Carolina the only state allowing unnecessary killing of sea turtles, 'Pagan' bike gang leader in N. Carolina sentenced to prison, Deputy cleared in shooting death of Gloucester woman, Beaufort amends charter to allow four-year mayoral term. 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.. "What would it take to make you do it?". According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. 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. Although the FBI investigation was able to quickly connect Ghantt to Campbell, connecting Ghantt to Chambers was a more difficult task. You should definitely start your own blog, I highly recommend it. Chambers would then occasionally wire Ghantt money and see to his basic financial needs; when the heat was off, Ghantt was to re-enter the U.S. and the money would be split up among all of the co-conspirators. One number is working in Campbells favor. 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. After marrying Tammy in 1992, he worked fueling airplanes at the airport in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Conversations about stealing from the company weren't rare for Loomis employees. In addition, he also rented Mike his own apartment, paid him $400/weekly and bought him a gun. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP). Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. She was five-foot-seven, had dirty-blond hair, and had worked with him for about a year at Loomis Fargo, until she left for another job in 1996. Four-wheeling. Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. It was released in 2016 and Wydra was invited to the premiere. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! The supervisor liked him and gave him the job. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. La vie de David Ghantt n'a rien de compliqu. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. 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.. 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. And if that gives people out there a little bit of hope, then Ive served my purpose on this earth.. David and Steve had never met, but Steve had already secured somebody else's birth certificate and social security card for him and given it to Kelly to pass along. Their most important conversation occurred one afternoon in August 1997 after Kelly paged him at work. All but one took plea deals, including Ghantt, who was sentenced to seven years in prison. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later While David Ghantt trusted Steve Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. Then one day, while reviewing his and Tammy's credit card bill, he did some quick math and realized that even if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take thirty years to pay. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Agents raided safe deposit boxes, where they recovered more than $11 million. In all, they recovered $6.6 million. The movie was called Masterminds and stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. In the parking lot, David sat in his pickup truck smoking a cigarette and waving good-bye as the trainee drove home. 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. 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) LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Remember why you were elected! Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. David and Kelly had driven to Rock Hill, South Carolina, and used the documents to obtain a fake ID that David would also rely on after the theft. Unexplained Mysteries - owned by Aliens since 2011. David didn't appreciate her tone. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. 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. 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. He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. The woman on the phone was Kelly Jane Campbell, and David had a mad crush on her. He quickly found out when you have money, you just have different problems, Wydra said. When some friends stole a stop sign from a busy intersection, David made them put it back. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. She will never get beyond the debt. 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. This technically made it abank robbery afederal offense. He and Tammy could have one or two meals each week that he really liked, but the rest were hot dogs or Hamburger Helper. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Later, they also arrested Nathans older brother. 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. Of course the most famous thing inside the home was a velvet Elvis portrait. By this time, agents knew where he was and had a general idea who the other players were, so they went to every bank in town to see if any of them rented a safe deposit box. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. 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. 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. In total, 24 people were convicted and all but one of the accused pleaded guilty. He shut the empty vault and set its timer so the vault could not be opened for two or three days. The October 4 shift was lasting longer than expected, due to delays involving pickups and deliveries. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. To be brutally honest, it was that morning, Ghantt replied. The unsolved crime mystery of Marilyn Sheppard. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. In all, agents arrested 24 people in the heist. The theft at the time the second-largest cash robbery in U.S. history has been the brunt of mocking movies and books, mostly on how the thieves, who had little money to begin with, could not control their spending habits once they did. "I'm busy," he said. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. The figures can be astounding. But they'd stayed in touch, and now they were poised to attempt a crime like almost no other. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Winds light and variable. This was several years before the advent of smartphones and the post-9/11 increase in federal surveillance of electronic communications, and public knowledge about this tracking was less widespread. But he wasn't finished. On the evening ofOctober 4, 1997, the Loomis Fargo & Co branch in Charlotte, North Carolina was in the process of being plundered. And Kelly thought he was funny. 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. David told Kelly they would have to control themselves and not spend the money too quickly, because the FBI could electronically trace a suspect's recent spending activity through bank papers, credit card records, and land transactions. 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. 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. His eyes widened and he stopped breathing as he realized that something as mundane as a malfunctioning gate might ruin their entire plan. He had since held one low-paying job after another. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. David said he needed Kelly to drive to Loomis before the theft that night to remove a duffel bag from his parked pickup truck. The FBI began to question past and current employees of Loomis Fargo. Get an email notification whenever someone contributes to the discussion. Living with his wife, Tammy, in a mobile home, he had longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood that had come to seem luxurious, a pipe dream for him now. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Ghantt studied how to rob his employer and advised the others not to spend the money lavishly. She had attitude. I dont know if Steve would have done it himself, but he definitely was capable of buying someone to do it for him and I think that was going to happen if we didnt step in and arrest Ghantt, Wydra said. Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty-dollar bills. In fact, he had recently finished a book about the FBI and felt it provided insight into the agency's investigative techniques, insight he thought could help the little gang succeed. David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis), an employee of Loomis Fargo, robbed his own vault, left the $17.3 million in cash with his co-conspirators, Kelly Campbell (Kristen Wiig) and Steve Chambers (Owen Wilson) and fled the country to Mexico. Sun, sand and beaches are all part of why Jacksonville is a popular destination. Her case closes in 2025. 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 stayed at it until the vault was empty. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Friends of Campbell had also begun spending large amounts of cash. The plan was for Ghantt to commit the actual robbery and then quickly leave the country forMexico but to leave the bulk of the cash with Chambers.
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