They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. On the evening of October 4, 1997, one man loaded $17.3 million in cash from the vaults of Loomis, Fargo & Co. into the back of a van. In real life: False. He went deep-sea fishing. 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. 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. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." There used to be a consulate in Cancun. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. >> 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,. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. We got this guy named Bruno. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. "We had David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell tied together, and we had Steven Chambers and Eric Payne with unexplained wealth, but we didn't have a tie between them," Agent John Wydra said. 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. "He was in tears. Is he telling the truth? At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. Careers. See all of the stories here. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. Dependent care account. No dry runs, no rehearsals. That's the kind of movie they wanted to make. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. This is the person I counted as my friend. Was that really what it was about? In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. When Ghantt was on the plane home from Mexico with the FBI, he admitted to the agents that while Campbell had been integral to why hed done it and that he did indeed have a crush on her it was never his true motivation. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. She will never get beyond the debt. Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. Question: Should people go see this movie? and "I love money!" I wanted to get as far away as I could. I said, Listen, You all need to get your shit together, or Im just going to walk over here to the government building and tell them who the fuck I am. That lit a little fire under her ass, for a bit.. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. He said every year he files his taxes and the IRS takes all of his tax return. 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. More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". And then I could hear her laughing. I learned something that was valuable at the time: Most criminals never leave a 250, maybe 300-mile circle from their home base. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Because surprise! "I missed my family. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Ghantt went on to explain that he rarely even looks at his debt statement to the government, but believes the IRS says he still owes them $3.8 million. The van door opened. We need to set up some way for me to get my money. She said, We got it all worked out. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. 27 febrero, 2023 . 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. But it wasnt. 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. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? Before long, the tales of high living by Chambers and his now former wife, Michelle, led the thieves to be labeled either the "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" or "The gang that couldn't steal straight." Jim Gronquist, Campbells defense attorney during the Loomis case, says the financial penalties levied against his client and her co-defendants are grossly excessive and unjust, particularly since most of the stolen Loomis money was actually recovered. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. Hed be in contact. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. 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. Steve told me to tell [David] whatever was necessary to keep him happy.". Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997, 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. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." She declined to take a lie-detector test. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. . "I thought he was goofing around.". Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. "Think of how many women would have stood by. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Instead of lobster, the man who stole $17 million survived on home-cooked pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Hes well thought-out. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. In real life: True. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Geres Ass Gerbil. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. 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. Where was Ghantt? After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. I would call us friends. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. "Love" has four. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. "I" has one letter. He and his wife, Tammy, lived in a mobile home in Kings Mountain, N.C. Money was always tight. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. I studied up on the FBI. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? 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. 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,. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Its everything thats coming north.. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. But it was the rural, Southern backgrounds of many of the key players, along with the many botched twists and bungled turns, that led the media to dub it the hillbilly heist.. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . Kelly called David at. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. Scott, 26, had a larceny conviction as a teenager, but he'd since cleaned up his act and now had a steady job, a daughter and a girlfriend. 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. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. ". I don't want to be mean, but that's probably the dumbest thing they could do. Chambers never held Campbell hostage by locking her in a shed on his property. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. 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. Chambers did hire McKinney to kill Ghantt, but initially McKinney was making personal cash deliveries to Ghantt in Mexico on behalf of Chambers. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. 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. It will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. Yes, happy. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. 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. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. You might as well go all the way now.". Industry leading Training and Development. 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. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. . 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. By March, Steve Chambers decided he needed to do something more drastic about Ghantt, making plans to send a hitman to Mexico to silence him for good. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. The Chambers, however, didnt fit in with the other members of the gated community. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Once I start something, Im going to the end., As for how he felt in the moment, he says, Imagine me and you went on an airplane. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. . An Ohio police officer who shot and killed a Black man as he lay in bed in his home last summer is no longer on the force, Three Kansas City police officers who were shot while serving a search warrant have been released from the hospital, Officials say one passenger died when a business jet experienced severe turbulence, forcing a landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. (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. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Besides her prison sentence . He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. 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. He told him McKinney was in Mexico to kill somebody. He flew in an ultra-light plane. Were others involved? Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. Will Vin Sant Leave You Jacked or Scammed? To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. His collection case closes in two years. I didn't think I had the guts. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. David thought about it. I was just going to get the money into the van. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. Its hilarious. In real life: False. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. David complained it wasn't enough. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. 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. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. . Looking for Kelly Loomis? On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. They sweated, though the night was cool. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. Agents began picking up signs that David definitely had help: The abandoned Loomis van with $3.3 million in small bills still inside, and phone records showing that somebody beeped him while he stole the money, using David's own cell phone. . Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. Campbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantt's feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. "I was trying to figure out a way to [leave my husband] and take care of my kids without having to depend on him or any other man," Kelly said. Explain? No regrets. At the party, Steve invited Michele's stepfather, truck driver Dennis Floyd, to the basement to play pool. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Her husband gave her a brown teddy bear. Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. 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. . They cursed. If you were one of the much-smaller-than-expected group of people who caught Masterminds at the theater this weekend, and are looking for a fact-check of the events depicted on screen, here are some of the highlights of our chat with Diamant. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. He worked fueling airplanes, driving a forklift, and in 1994 he got a job as a vault superintendent at Loomis. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. The authorities didn't know yet how much was missing from the armored-car company, but Steve did. 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. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. About 200 keys dangled from it. ", "I wouldn't do it. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. I can take it.". Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" 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. . "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. All were convicted. 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. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft.
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