real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist

And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. The plan went off with few problems, but after Ghantt was safely in Mexico, his partners were left storing large amounts of cash. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. But it wasnt. The first is that this was the same year, 1997, that the largest cash robbery in history took place within the same company. Ghantt and one other employee were the last to leave. [1], 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, Philip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.[2]. Michelle Chambers received a harsher sentence than Ghantt seven years and eight months because she had violated several bond conditions. Although the history of the predecessor Wells Fargo & Company dates back to 1852, Loomis Fargo & Company was established in 1997 by the consolidation of Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc.; the resulting corporation employed 8,500 people and provided armored transportation, cash handling services, and automatic teller machine maintenance. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off the second biggest cash heist in U.S. history, fleeing with more than $17 million in untraceable bills in 1997. Going south, nobody really looks at what youre shipping. 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. Chambers would hold on to most of the remaining cash and wire it to Ghantt as needed. He became the target of a nationwide FBI manhunt and was arrested five months later near the Mexican resort of Cozumel. In addition to her work for PrepScholar, Hayley is the author of Museum Hack's Guide to History's Fiercest Females. 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. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. 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. 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. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. Him and I still talk every now and then. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. The figures can be astounding. Before he decided to steal $17 million from the bank, Ghantt had worked for years as a relatively taciturn and compliant employee. Wyatt Redd is a freelance writer from Nashville, Tennessee. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. On March 12, a Charlotte grand jury indicted the eight co-conspirators for bank larceny and money laundering; the latter offense was included because of how they spent the stolen money. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. According to an Observer report, this was seven times larger than their trailer. He was also a former FBI informant who had tipped the bureau off to a planned robbery of a Loomis Fargo armored truck that never came to fruition. As Campbell would later explain, If David got killed, there couldnt be any finger pointing. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. I started just chucking it as fast as I could, he said, adding the sweat was pouring off of me.. Marshals Service auctioned off the purchased items in Charlotte, most of which came from the Chambers and Cramers. 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. Ghantt and his compatriots, it turns out, had underestimated how bulky money is. 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. 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. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, the film stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis. 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. "Wells Fargo and Loomis forming armored car company", Learn how and when to remove this template message, painting of Elvis Presley on black velvet, "FindACase | United States of America v. Steven Eugene Chambers", "The Unperfect Crime | New Dominion Pictures", "Sunday Evening/Late Night September 9, 2001", "Loomis Fargo heist: Q&A with guy who stole $17 million", "MASTERMINDS - Movie Production NotesCinemaReview.com", Ghantt and other gang members arrested in March 1998, Steven Chambers released from prison; announces he is a "retired criminal", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=October_1997_Loomis_Fargo_robbery&oldid=1132065054, Articles with dead external links from February 2020, Articles needing additional references from October 2019, All articles needing additional references, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from February 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2020, Articles with dead external links from July 2022, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Overcoming the mindset that led to the part David Ghantt played in the Loomis robbery and how he started on a new path was the subject of the book, Within days of the robbery, the case was depicted on the television criminal reporting show, An expanded two-hour special episode of the crime documentary series. I was working sometimes 75-80 hrs a week for $8.15 an hour, I didnt even have a real home life because I was never there I was working all the time and unhappy which is understandable considering how old I was at the time. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. The FBI quickly connected Ghantt to Campbell, who was a former Loomis Fargo employee. 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. All of the cash from the Loomis Fargo heist was recovered or accounted for, except for $2 million. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. The thieves had simply abandoned whatever they couldnt carry away. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. 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. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. 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) After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. 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. 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. wydd radio pittsburgh; dumb military bases Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. 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. Then Michele made a trip to the bank. As for his new wife, when the two just started dating, he was nervous about letting her know about his past, but he wanted to be honest. It affects everybody different. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. 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 did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. This article will teach you more about the SAT subject tests. When Ghantt called Chambers to have the latter wire him more money, Chambers sent just a few thousand dollars. 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. I learned something that was valuable at the time: Most criminals never leave a 250, maybe 300-mile circle from their home base. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. 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. For the New York State assemblyman, see. kellis@gastongazette.com View Comments 0:03 1:14 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. So he hatched a plan to rob his employers. I work construction. As he later recalled about his life before the 1997 heist that changed his life forever: Prior to, I would have never even considered it but one day life kinda slapped me in the face. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Ill never pay it off on my paycheck, Ghantt said. WebTwo days after the heist, the FBI found the missing van with $3.3 million of cash left in it. 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. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. They paid for all of it in cash. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. The next day, Steve and Michelle Chambers, Kelly Campbell, and four others were arrested.[6]. Ghantt, in order to conserve this money, curtailed his spending. Webbird adoption adelaide real life kelly campbell loomis fargo. To make a successful getaway, Ghantt had to lift nearly 2,800 pounds of currency. For a time, it was nicknamed "the hillbilly heist" because nearly all of the major players in the case came from small towns around Charlotte. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. Heres your money. Then he turns around and leaves., The problem was, it was nowhere near the amount Ghantt had expected: Im looking at it, and theres maybe $8,000. Ghantt and his compatriots, it turns out, had underestimated how bulky money is. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. The FBI investigation was aided by the gang's extravagant spending. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. 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 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. His books money is there couldnt be any finger pointing a truck, Rolex! An Observer report, this was seven times larger than their trailer Hack 's Guide to History Fiercest... 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