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. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. Posted on . He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. >> 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,. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. Kelly called David at Loomis; he told her he'd be ready for them with the cash at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Alone in the building, David was trying to finish loading cash from the vault into an unmarked white Ford Econoline van belonging to Loomis. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. The robbery was committed by Loomis vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell (a former Loomis co-worker), Steven Eugene Chambers (a one-time FBI informant), his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies, and four other co-conspirators. Based on a true story, the premise itself is fascinating, which makes Masterminds all the more a waste. He gave the rest to Kelly. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - hankyboy.com "I" has one letter. He kept looking over his shoulder. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. No hard feelings. Loomis - Home 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. Looking for Kelly Loomis? Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. Scary. . What made her do it? They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' In real life: False. I don't want to be mean, but that's probably the dumbest thing they could do. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. 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. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. In real life: False. More agents waited outside to arrest them. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. That was great. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. Did you get paid? Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. 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. 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. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. Not a documentary. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. 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. I don't blame him.". Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. Now two NC men face prison. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. And youre like, Come on parachute. In real life: True. It was the first Saturday in October. Seven Charged In $17M Heist - CBS News Michele received the best gift of the night. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. 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. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. . ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. kellis@gastongazette.com 0:04 0:57 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. He's a very likable person. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. Hes well thought-out. 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. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie? ". In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. The True Story of David Ghantt and the Loomis Fargo Heist - PrepScholar Chambers never held Campbell hostage by locking her in a shed on his property. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. Him and I still talk every now and then. 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. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery - Wikipedia 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. 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. 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. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. I was just going to get the money into the van. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. Updated: 11:31 AM EDT October 4, 2022 CHARLOTTE, N.C. Tuesday is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, where a bank worker, with the help of two accomplices,. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. But because David's relationship with his Loomis bosses had been rocky, he says, he doesn't feel sorry about what he did to the company. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? ". As he and Kelly met in a field behind a shooting range to refine the plan, she allowed him to believe she was falling for him. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 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. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. I told them, Take it, box it up, and youll be able to ship it to me in Mexico. Back in the 1990s, you couldve probably boxed up a hot pink elephant and shipped it to Mexico; no one wouldve ever noticed. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. She was devastated, Diamant said. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. And going to see the Mayan ruins. Going south, nobody really looks at what youre shipping. Mine did. She could spend time with her children and parents. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. . He appeared happily matched with his high-spirited wife, Michele, and the two children from her first marriage. Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. "Love" has four. Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. Ghantt went on to explain that he left for his flight to Mexico with about $25,000, and that two or three deliveries of extra money was made to him by the man Chambers would pay to kill him. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? Was Queen Charlotte Black? The Chambers, however, didnt fit in with the other members of the gated community. This real-life crime is the core of "Untitled Armored Car Project," which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. ". Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. She was a wife and mother with two children. She declined to take a lie-detector test. Military + Veterans. . Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. and "I love money!" I'd probably change jobs. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. . I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - legal-innovation.com Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward after the theft. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. . Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. 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) When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. Ghantt was already married when he took part in the heist, to a woman named Tammy who author Diamant described as very nice. It is true, however, that she had no idea about the plot and that he fled to Mexico without telling her. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' 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. You're an idiot.'". Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. Looking back at the Loomis heist - Gaston Gazette Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. Ghantt ultimately agreed to the plan, largely, due to a mountain of credit-card debt and in hopes of changing his life for the better. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. 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.. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. In real life: True. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. I loved it. First, they loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels into a rental van. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. In real life: Mostly true. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? Heist!: The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft - amazon.com When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. ". The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. One of them tapped him on the back. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. As with many recent historic events, this one had been caught on videotape, a fact that a few dozen Charlotte FBI agents would learn in a hastily organized Sunday morning meeting. Two days after theyd robbed the Loomis Fargo truck the very same day the police found the abandoned van in the woods Steve and Michelle Chambers walked into a bank and deposited their cut of the stolen money into their account. 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. . "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. She laughed for like 45 minutes. Job Search - Career Portal - Dayforce HCM Thats nearly $11 million less than former Kings Mountain resident David Ghantt (played by Galifianakis in the film) helped steal from the vault where he worked in Charlotte back in October 1997. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. 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.
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