And once he started, he didn't stop with one cartful. 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. We are happy to work with other website publishers. But after a year, they cut it down to two agents. The stated plan was for her to move to Mexico to be with him after the theft. Well they were in some sense celebrities, Gronquist said. Jim Gronquist was Campbells defense attorney. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP). >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. David Ghantt was just an average Joe with an average low-wage job. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. Its said the current owner now has it in storage in Phoenix, Arizona. In Reservoir Dogs, released just five years earlier, the pawns in a robbery knew each other only by assigned colors: Mr. Campbell led Ghantt to think she loved him and they would flee to Mexico together, but she actually wanted to make a better life for herself in the U.S. With the plan in place, Ghantt sent a newly hired employee he had been assigned to train home early (reportedly, at 6 p.m.) and then proceeded to load a little more than $17.3 million in cash (approximately $11 million of which was in$20 bills) into the back of a company van. When they hung up, she called his pager and left the code 1-4-3, beeper-speak for "I love you," based on the number of letters in each word. The FBI was inadvertently aided by the gang members extravagant spending. He added that money can be a motivator for anyone. Their most important conversation occurred one afternoon in August 1997 after Kelly paged him at work. CHARLOTTE (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. 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. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. The October 4 shift was lasting longer than expected, due to delays involving pickups and deliveries. 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. TWO TO ENTER GUILTY PLEAS IN ARMORED-CAR ROBBERY - Greensboro News and Before the robber left Loomis Fargo, he made a trip to the managers office to remove two surveillance tapes in order to conceal his identity. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. The van used to move the money was later located a few miles from the warehouse. In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt about an old high school friend of hers named Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt to execute a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. Expanded two-hour true crime story about the 1997 Loomis-Fargo armored car heist in North Carolina and the serio-comic fate of its bumbling underdog perpetra. Curiously, Payne had recently paid of his Visa in one payment and had been driving around new and rented vehicles for the past weeks. Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty-dollar bills. He knew it would mean leaving Tammy. 2023 Cox Media Group. 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. 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. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. David Scott Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. You have permission to edit this article. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. The figures can be astounding. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. This technically made it abank robbery afederal offense. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. '. From there, the money was moved from the armored car to private vehicles. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. 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. Loomis Fargo defendants owe as much as they stole in 1997 she asked. Who all wanted a Rambo movie which explored his time training as a green beret and his time serving in Vietnam as a prequel to first blood WATCH Antebellum 2020 FULL MOVIE. So that was kind of like this once-in-a-lifetime thing, Wydra said. 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. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. But if you did, youll never forget it. The Loomis Fargo Heist Over the next months, Ghantt, Campbell, and Chambers developed a plan. 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. The inspiration behind the major motion picture Masterminds starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis! In the first couple of weeks, they had heard both Steve and Shelley bragging about their new-found fortune, and spending remarkable amounts of money. But with Kelly's new idea on the table, several dark realities converged on him. Loomis has received $978,983.79, according to Sally Butcher, an assistant clerk in the federal courts of the Western District of North Carolina who specializes in criminal debt. Heist! The next day, before Mike was able to leave the country, the FBI arrested him in his hotel room. 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. It has a certain feel, a smell and weight to it. She will never get beyond the debt. In all, they recovered $6.6 million. 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. "Don't double-cross us," the woman on the phone told David Ghantt. Chambers had no intention of wiring any money to Ghantt and intended to have him killed to keep him from implicating the others. It was released in 2016 and Wydra was invited to the premiere. Then they returned it. While Ghantt trusted Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. 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 played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . They had to be extremely careful not to tip off the group, as they could lose potential conspirators or more information important to a conviction. Human nature is a flexible part of life, Gronquist said. He had stayed in a luxury hotel and paid for expensive food and activities such asscuba divingandparasailing. The plan to. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. To visit friends.". These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Spunk. Now one of the most wanted men in America with the FBI hot on his heels, Ghantt must figure out how to get his money, get away from a hit man, and get even. How Did David Ghantt, Kelly Campbell, Steve Chambers Steal More Than Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. In addition, he also rented Mike his own apartment, paid him $400/weekly and bought him a gun. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. Kelly called, using David's own cell phone, to ask where he was already, because she and the others were waiting outside for him. The $17 million was stolen last Oct. 4 from the armored-car company's vault in Charlotte. In the end, the FBI was able to capture the original gang in five months, snaring 21 individuals for their participation in the crime. The actual crime itself required none of Hollywood's imagination. Instead he became paranoid, especially after Steve Chambers put a contract out on his life. 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. Ghantt went to Mexico leaving the money with his cohorts, thinking that he could get his share back when he needed it. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. The friend was Steve Chambers, and Kelly said he knew his way around the world of crime. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. CHARLOTTE If you didnt live in the Charlotte area 25 years ago, you might not believe it. A couple by the names of Steve and Shelley Chambers also became people of interest in the investigation due to their extreme sudden increase in spending. (LogOut/ Turns out, most of the thieves and their accomplices have been about as effective coming up with their court-ordered restitution as they were hiding their original crimes. 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. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie? them. He has been a staff writer for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey since 2000. How he and his wife had trouble communicating. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. Money. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. 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.. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Steve decided to send his cousin, Nathan with money down to Mexico as a ruse, while Mike the bodyguard would follow behind to take care of Ghantt. By now, you probably know the names -- David Ghantt, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle, and Kelly Campbell. In the parking lot, David sat in his pickup truck smoking a cigarette and waving good-bye as the trainee drove home. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. He waffled on the heist idea three or four times from late August to mid-September. "Everything's gonna be all right," she told him. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. An additional tip reached the FBI when Michelle Chambers made a large deposit at a bank. In addition to their extravagant spending, Michelle Chambers made the mistake of loudly asking a bank teller how much cash she could deposit in her account without it being reported to the feds, and then said, its not drug money.. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Its in the ether. When you have money, you just have different problems: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. But he wasn't finished. 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 also took various measures to change his appearance, such asshaving, after a patron at a restaurant pointed out to him that he looked like the man who robbed a bank of $20 million.. David knew this was important from having followed the recent news about a Florida man who had brazenly committed the biggest heist from an armored-car company in United States history, a loner named Philip Noel Johnson, who also had worked for Loomis. When some friends stole a stop sign from a busy intersection, David made them put it back. At about 6:40 p.m., he went back inside. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. At that point, Kelly and David had known each other for two years. (LogOut/ 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. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. The money weighed as much as a compact car and he did it all by himself. 'When you have money, you just have different problems': The Loomis Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. 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. Later, they also arrested Nathans older brother. In 1994, they moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, where they had grown up, and David took a job driving a forklift. 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. Working by himself, Ghantt would commit the robbery and then flee for Mexico, leaving the bulk of the cash with Chambers. The police almost immediately called theFBI, since 95% of the money handled at the facility was owned by banks. Loomis has received $978,983.79, according to Sally Butcher, an assistant clerk in the federal courts of the Western District of North Carolina who specializes in criminal debt. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. Still facing possible unknowns of other people involved, the FBI needed to gather more information without the suspects getting suspicious of them. Asked the purpose of his visit, Johnson had replied, "To visit friends. ", Johnson said, "Yeah, that's it. The FBI heard about the plot and agents knew they could no longer wait. Steve and Michelle Chambers, who had lived in a mobile home, bought a mansion in Cramer Mountain. For people earning $8.15 an hour David's salary the jokes came naturally. He deserved better. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. They also found several stacks of money with Loomis bands still attached throughout all the homes searched. He could even be famous, perhaps joining the ranks of legendary master thieves. 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 Campbells case, Gronquist says his client was buried in court-ordered debt despite the fact that she took responsibility for what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors and the FBI. And Kelly thought he was funny. 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. The FBI became more suspicious after they interviewed Campbell for the third time. Its in the ether. 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. Thank you so much. For example, 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. Not every agent has a case like that, he said. The loot would later be divided among David, Kelly, and Steve. remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats just generally being a jerk. All but one of the 24 defendants pleaded guilty, and the one who didnt take the deal was convicted. He added that he would be able to send the trainee home at about 6:00 p.m. and would then need about an hour to load the money from carts, shelves, and the floor into a Loomis company van. She had previously been making frequent small deposits to avert suspicion. He and his wife, Michele, moved from theirmobile homeinLincoln Countyto a luxury house in the wealthy Cramer Mountain section ofCramerton. The old man me would never survive that, Id have a heart attack.. FBI video shows the agency searching that home and finding drawers full of cash. The investigation ultimately resulted in the conviction of eight people directly involved, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them. Unexplained Mysteries - owned by Aliens since 2011. I ride motorcycles and fish -- normal guy, Ghantt told Counts. He hated his job and his bosses, he'd lost hope in his marriage, he wasn't going to advance at Loomis, and he couldn't afford to quit to enroll in college. 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. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft [Jeff Diamant] on Amazon.com. America's Dumbest Heist! (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories More than 2 million dollars are still missing to this day. They hadn't slept together or even fooled around much, but he was ready to commit. He would then have the bulk of his share sent south of the border. uncanny, eerie, unnatural, preternatural, supernatural, unearthly, other-worldly, unreal, ghostly, mysterious, mystifying, strange, abnormal, unusual. Each cart, holding about $2 million, was taking David seven or eight minutes to stack, push, and empty into the van, and there were about eight cartloads' worth in the vault. The affidavit described Chambers as a former FBI informant who had provided information on another Loomis armored car robbery that never materialized. 'Masterminds' Review: Loomis Fargo Robbery Where Are They Now? - Pajiba He even had to watch what he bought at the grocery store. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.'. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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,. 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In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt about an old high school friend of hers named Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt to execute a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. A third surveillance tape was carelessly left behind, and the company was able to identify the man who robbed the vault as David Ghantt. It was David who was hours away from committing the most daring act of his life, and she was going off about Steve being a serious guy?
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