He angrily hung up the phone at Loomis, Fargo & Co., his soon-to-be former employer in Charlotte, North Carolina. While Ghantt waited for the heat from the robbery to die down, Chambers would send Ghantt small amounts of money. If the American Dream involved being better off as adults than your parents were, David was experiencing a version of the American Nightmare. Just after the last employees left that day, surveillance footage shows a man enter the vault, and begin to load more than 2,740 pounds in cash into a nearby van, totaling around over $17 million. Conversations about stealing from the company weren't rare for Loomis employees. First, they tapped the Chambers phone, and began listening in on February 11th, 1998. From my standpoint, it was just a business deal, Ghantt said. Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty-dollar bills. He said at first, they were very proud of what they had been able to do. It took me going to prison to realize I was a bag of worms, and it took me years of work to be somebody worthy to come back into our society, he said. The reason David didn't know Steve's last name was so they couldn't identify each other to the police or FBI, should cops or G-men ever enter the picture. 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. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 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. 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. 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. Not every agent has a case like that, he said. Some of that money is just gone. He called Kelly to say he was coming and hopped into the driver's seat of the loaded Loomis van. Ghantt had worked with the branch since 1994, and had been promoted from a driver to the vault supervisor. You should definitely start your own blog, I highly recommend it. One number is working in Campbells favor. : The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft. Growing up, David had been a nice kid, a decent student who was at worst a minor troublemaker and prankster. The Charlotte area's economy was booming all around him, and he felt passed over. Of course the most famous thing inside the home was a velvet Elvis portrait. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. But this time on the phone, Kelly wasn't joking. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. personal/abusive/condescending attacks on other users or goading Ghantt was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. Johnson had stolen $18.8 million earlier in the year, on March 19, 1997, only to be caught five months later, in late August, while crossing into Texas from Mexico to retrieve some of the money, which he'd hidden in a shed in mountainous western North Carolina. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft [Jeff Diamant] on Amazon.com. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. She had attitude. The FBI was inadvertently aided by the gang members extravagant spending. Tuesday marked 25 years since a group of buddies pulled off the third-largest money grab in U.S. history -- the Loomis Fargo heist. Action News Jax facebook feed(Opens a new window), Action News Jax twitter feed(Opens a new window), Action News Jax youtube feed(Opens a new window), JSO K9 escapes kennel, bites three people in Jacksonville neighborhood, To know Nancy was to love Nancy: St. Johns County woman killed in suspected DUI crash, JSO says missing child alert results in deadly drowning, Senator proposes bill giving state emergency jurisdiction over custody of kids with trans parents, Florida woman accused of killing terminally ill husband released from jail. He realized his bosses would know he had worked that day and that he was missing, but maybe without a video they would think he'd been held at gunpoint and taken hostage, or even better, that he'd been killed. The principals here are David Ghantt, a driver for Loomis, Fargo and Co.; Kelly Campbell, the woman Ghantt had a crush on, and who convinced him to commit the crime; and Steve and Michele Chambers. He knew they were nervous outside waiting for him, but he also knew he wouldn't stop stealing until he had taken everything. If it didn't work out, he could return to the United States later with a new identity. An additional tip reached the FBI when Michelle Chambers made a large deposit at a bank. Nathan, Steves cousin, was found in a mobile home the Chambers had abandoned. Now, at 7:45 p.m., with all the money finally inside the van, his aching muscles could take a breather. The trainee didn't know to check to make sure it was closed. He was the only employee unaccounted for the next morning, and videotapes recovered at the Loomis Fargo Charlotte office showed Ghantt removing cubes of cash and loading it into a Loomis Fargo armored van for over an hour. 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. 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. she asked. They could talk about anything, even topics he couldn't discuss with his wife. After discussing his job, his marriage, and his everyday struggles, they joked about Loomis and about how easy it would be to steal from the place. The plan to. When Ghantt called Campbell asking for more money, a plan was set in motion to take him out. uncanny, eerie, unnatural, preternatural, supernatural, unearthly, other-worldly, unreal, ghostly, mysterious, mystifying, strange, abnormal, unusual. From there, the money was moved from the armored car to private vehicles. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. The $17 million Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, North Carolina, was the second largest armored car robbery in U.S. history. The 2016 comedy movie, Masterminds is based on the story of the Loomis Fargo Heist. It, too, has changed hands several times. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. 2023 Cox Media Group. When I put that cash in the back of the car, by the time I got to the office the whole car smelled like that. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP). Well they were in some sense celebrities, Gronquist said. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. David got a kick out of her. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east. There was a book published in 2002 as well, by author Jeff Diamant called,Heist! In March 1997, after Loomis Fargo & Company has been robbed of $18.8 million in Jacksonville by company security guard Philip Noel Johnson, Steve Eugene Chambers and Kelly Campbell, a former employee of Loomis, decides to rob the company. Ghantt had struck up a relationship with a fellow Loomis Fargo employee, Kelly Campbell; they continued to maintain contact even after Campbell left the company. 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. I think if you remember some of her early photographic opportunities, shall we put it that way, she was sort of laughing, not seeming to take it seriously.. 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. The figures can be astounding. But with Kelly's new idea on the table, several dark realities converged on him. Also charged with money laundering were innocent relatives and friends who had co-signed safe deposit boxes. In order to receive more evidence, the FBI decided to listen. Heist! La vie de David Ghantt n'a rien de compliqu. Ghantt studied how to rob his employer and advised the others not to spend the money lavishly. Except for the kiss in the pickup truck a few weeks before the heist, Kelly had kept things platonic. Low 46F. 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. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth., White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money,, Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with., She will never get beyond the debt. While Ghantt trusted Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. Another time, the day after a Christmas in the late 1980s, David and some friends planted all the discarded Christmas trees from the area in one neighbor's front yard. "I don't have time to mess with you. For people earning $8.15 an hour David's salary the jokes came naturally. Some of that money is just gone. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later 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. And then I realized that a lot of people knew who I was and they had followed the case.. 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. She'd left Loomis in November 1996 to take a job elsewhere as a security guard. Then 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, Wydra said. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. The next day, before Mike was able to leave the country, the FBI arrested him in his hotel room. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. Sunny. The movie was called Masterminds and stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is this really about the needs of the poor? Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. He couldn't understand the gap, why he wasn't more successful, why he couldn't at least match the financial stability of his father, who earned a comfortable salary driving a truck. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. In preparation for what lay ahead, David had backed an unmarked company Ford Econoline van near the vault entrance and opened the van's back door. "About fourteen or fifteen million dollars," he said. 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. All of the primary players got fined millions of dollars --for example, Kelly Campbell was hit with more than $4 million, an amount that she will never come close to paying. It all went down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the man at the center of that heist, David Scott Ghantt, now lives in Jacksonville. She sounded incredulous. The inspiration behind the major motion picture Masterminds starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis! One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. He and his wife, Michele, moved from theirmobile homeinLincoln Countyto a luxury house in the wealthy Cramer Mountain section ofCramerton. Her case closes in 2025. The Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later 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. That way, outsiders couldn't see money being loaded. He has been a staff writer for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey since 2000. 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 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. The walk-in vault was a fortified gray room, more wide than long, with shelves, cabinets, desks, and multiple pushcarts stocked with shrink-wrapped cash. The October 4 shift was lasting longer than expected, due to delays involving pickups and deliveries. Since then, there have been numerous articles, books, documentaries and even a movie about this gang -- the gang that couldnt shoot straight. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. But after a year, they cut it down to two agents. It was the second-largest. If a prank seemed dangerous, David backed out. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. "Are you serious?" 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. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. 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. Later that year, he saw a newspaper ad for a job at Loomis Fargo. They also purchased expensive cars, jewelry and a breast enhancement or two. Probably very egotistical of me, I thought, Yeah, sure, I can beat them, theyre college smart and thats about it, Ghantt said. Ghantt went to Mexico leaving the money with his cohorts, thinking that he could get his share back when he needed it. The world is full of unexplained events, strange mysteries, and mysterious legends. What it does is put a ball and chain on that person for the rest of their lives, they are walking around and they are basically an indentured servant, Gronquist said. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. You have permission to edit this article. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. 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. 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. 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Oh were not going to talk to anybody, theyre not going to be able to convict us, that bravado happens in the beginning and then it often gets worn down by the reality, Gronquist said. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. 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 theyve ever had. 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. Friends of Campbell had also begun spending large amounts of cash. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Thank you so much. 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. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Chambers had told Campbell to do whatever she needed to do to get Ghantt to commit the robbery. 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. Some of that money is just gone. A former FBI agent 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. I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. My knee-jerk reaction was to be angry, and then the sarcastic ass side of me started laughing about it, Ghantt said. In this outrageously entertaining book, Jeff Diamant, the Charlotte Observer's lead reporter on the case, offers the definitive inside account of this astonishing. Investigators also found Ghantts pickup truck, abandoned at the warehouse. All of the co-defendants were arrested the next day, about six months after the heist. David's vision for all of this actually derived more from books than from movies. Hes a family man with a wife and daughter. He added that money can be a motivator for anyone. 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. But you cant get blood from a stone,, Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. Worlds Biggest Heists London Hatton Garden 200m Diamond Robbery, Easter 2015. The $17 million was stolen last Oct. 4 from the armored-car company's vault in 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. Heist! Copyright The Nashua Telegraph | https://www.nashuatelegraph.com | 110 Main St, Ste 1, Nashua, NH 03060 | 603-882-2741, Loomis Fargo defendants owe as much as they stole in 1997, Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. That movie, Masterminds, was filmed in 2014. 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. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. 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. David said he needed Kelly to drive to Loomis before the theft that night to remove a duffel bag from his parked pickup truck.