That was the most painful truth to come to. Michelle Chambers received seven years and eight months, while Steve Chambers was handed an 11-year sentence. Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. Exciting. shes now Miss USA. Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. Now he offered to pay him to carry cash to David--Steve said he was a friend hiding out after a bad drug deal, McKinney recalled. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. Scary. She just called me up on the phone and said, Hey, lets meet one day after work. And then, we were talking and she says, How do you feel about robbing Loomis Fargo? Ghantt tells me. The name she gave the pup is apropos. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. 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. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 millionliterally more than one ton of cash. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. More agents waited outside to arrest them. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. 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. I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. 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. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. He gave the rest to Kelly. Dental plans . 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. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. 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. They paid for all of it in cash. 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. . 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. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. 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. 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. But in November, money ran low. Explain? Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. It affects everybody different. I wanted to get as far away as I could. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. 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. 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. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. >> 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,. Hes well thought-out. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home. At 7:45, David had finished loading. 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. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. They soon realized David had stolen more money than would fit in their 55-gallon barrels. From Mexico, David usually spoke with Kelly on the phone once a week, paying with calling cards. In a word, "Teamwork. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? David thought about it. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. He went deep-sea fishing. Given his position at the bank, hed be the one to pull off the robbery, and he intended to be ready. . Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. I hope everyone has moved on. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. And I knew that by that time, Id be in Cancun no matter what. She came from a blue-collar background, a high school dropout who had grown tired of working in a mill and gotten an equivalency diploma. 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. I loved it. 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. 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. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". Ghantt was in fact hiding out in Mexico using McKinneys I.D., which had been sold to Chambers months earlier. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. "For the first year, they're all over you. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. Few who were living in the area at the time can forget the "Velvet Elvis" painting Chambers had hanging in his mansion or the tales of cosmetic surgery, BMW convertibles and other signs of excess. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. 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.. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. 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. For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. . So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. His new life in Mexico had begun. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. Then another. He was an old friend from East Gaston High School, tough and sure of himself. All rights reserved. Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. Things were spiraling fast. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. ". She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. 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. We got this guy named Bruno. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. She was devastated, Diamant said. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. The money was heavy. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. See all of the stories here. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. All were convicted. 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. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. . 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. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. He told him McKinney was in Mexico to kill somebody. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. "Love" has four. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. Kelly drove David to the airport. "He said, 'Yeah, right,' and turned his head. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. Theres less security. 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. "I missed my family. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. In real life: False. 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. Chambers, now 32, didn't grant an interview for this article, but last year, in response to written questions, he said the biggest lesson he learned was: "Family is more important and valuable than money. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. Question: Should people go see this movie? (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. It was one of those things everyone (at Loomis Fargo) joked about, but in time, it became serious. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. 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. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. 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 . He has no contact with any of those convicted with him in the crime, including his former wife, and doesn't plan to see the movie, he said. Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. This real-life crime is the core of "Untitled Armored Car Project," which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig. . Its in the ether. Everybody seemed stunned. 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. Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. 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. In real life: False. 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. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. They ditched the Loomis van, then drove the cash-heavy Budget van to Steve's mobile home in Lincoln County, where his wife, Michele, waited with a calculator and rubber bands. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Loomis Armored Shreveport, LA, 1124 Forum Dr, Shreveport, LA, USA Shreveport, LA, USA Req #1990. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. Now that Kelly believes she has found Jesus, she has become more analytical about her past. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. 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. Military + Veterans. 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. I studied up on the FBI. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP), Police: Officer Who Shot Black Man Retired 'In Bad Standing', 3 Kansas City Officers Who Were Shot Released From Hospital, 1 Killed When Business Jet Encounters Severe Turbulence. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. "You" has three. 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. Him and I still talk every now and then. 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. ". 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. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. 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. So I guess I have no regrets. ", "Even then . David was excited, jabbering about their future together. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. I didn't think I had the guts. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. There was, however, one problem with his plan. I don't want to be mean, but that's probably the dumbest thing they could do. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. It's about the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery also known as the "hillbillly heist" the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?'

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