Not a documentary. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. 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. 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. Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. The name she gave the pup is apropos. Her case closes in 2025. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. They stocked a wine cellar. "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. Charlotte hotel chef who serves with a smile recognized as outstanding ambassador, Eritrean, Ethiopian restaurant owner was a big brother and father to many in Charlotte, Home tours: This wired-up Weddington smart home has a pool big enough for the neighborhood. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. Visit us at Loomis.us. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. Because surprise! But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. All I needed was a change of pace.". The figures can be astounding. ". 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. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? "I work construction. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. Besides her prison sentence . In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. . 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. What made her do 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. He worked fueling airplanes, driving a forklift, and in 1994 he got a job as a vault superintendent at Loomis. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. The plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. Kelly found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. 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.. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. 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. See all of the stories here. 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. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. David trusted her. They decorated their 6,000-square-foot stucco house with antiques, paintings and statues, including a six-foot wooden Indian that Michele had bought for $600. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. I was just going to get the money into the van. Was Queen Charlotte Black? Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. . 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 Mountain. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? 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. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was the $17.3 million cash robbery of the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis Fargo & Company on the evening of October 4, 1997, by armored car driver and vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. 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. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. Despite a mega-watt cast featuring Zach Galifianakis and a handful of some of Saturday Night Lives biggest current and former stars, Masterminds, the comedy about Loomis Fargo robbery completely tanked at the box office in its opening weekend, bowing in sixth place with just $6.6 million. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. Kelly called David at Loomis; he told her he'd be ready for them with the cash at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Alone in the building, David was trying to finish loading cash from the vault into an unmarked white Ford Econoline van belonging to Loomis. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. So I guess I have no regrets. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. Health savings account and flexible spending account. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. . But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. In real life: True. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. Explain? They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. 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. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. And robbing a truck was dangerous. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. Our success depends on our team members, and that's why it's important for us to offer an employee benefits program that is not only extremely comprehensive but also one of the best in the industry. Posted on . Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. Our Benefits. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. When he was done, the man drove off to a nearby printing press, where the money was distributed into private vehicles amongst a handful of people. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. Except the person he offered $150,000 to mule $2.5 million down to Ghantt in Mexico turned him down and instead went to the FBI. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. As soon as you put that first bag of stolen money in that van, theres no going back. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. 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. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' . I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. Kelly's company. Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, who had been friends on and off since growing up together in the mid-1980s, were at a cookout, playing cards and drinking Budweiser at Steve's Lincoln County, N.C., mobile home, Kelly recalled. Ghantt:I hate to say it, but I had six years of sitting in a box to think about my life. Its hilarious. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. As with many recent historic events, this one had been caught on videotape, a fact that a few dozen Charlotte FBI agents would learn in a hastily organized Sunday morning meeting. There had been no signs. Kelly would only discover later that leading up to the heist, Steve had been writing bad checks, $17,000 worth, for which he would later be convicted. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. Ghantt was never in Chamberss presence until he actually handed off the money to him. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. At first, David Ghantt said, "I didn't take her seriously. In the wee hours of the morning, Chambers and the Erics drove back to the town of Vale, North Carolina, and holed up in a double-wide trailer while counting their cash. But it wasnt. He flew in an ultra-light plane. At one point, the hoodlum shows up and Ghantt is wearing a Jerome Bettis Pittsburgh Steelers jersey; the hoodlums favorite team is the Steelers, and he caves and tells Ghantt that McKinney wants him dead. I mentioned it to Kelly. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. They put up mauve wallpaper. To say nothing of their art purchases like the aforementioned velvet Elvis portrait and a painting of a bulldog dressed as General George S. Patton. Its really just a matter of timing, more than anything. And she says, How much do you think wed get out of there? I said, Ten to 15 million. But I didnt really know.. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Hes very articulate. Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. "I thought he was goofing around.". In real life: False. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Ghantt was apprehended in Mexico and returned to the United States in custody. Steven Chambers [Misc. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. Were others involved? Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' The pager entry was 1-4-3. 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. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. The plan was to split the money three ways: Chambers, Campbell and Ghantt would each walk away with what Ghantt estimated to be $5 million a piece the kind of money that changes lives forever. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. 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 and happy. Michele received the best gift of the night. 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. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. I knew it was just a matter of time. Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. That day, FBI agents also would arrest Scott Grant and Eric Payne, who had spent his share of the money on a motorcycle and breast implants for his wife and two sisters. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. In real life: True. And after two years, you're just a file." David didn't even know Steve's name. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. 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." He gave the rest to Kelly. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. How Bridgerton restarted buzz about her ancestry. "I" has one letter. Question: Should people go see this movie? The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. "Think of how many women would have stood by. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. Hed be in contact. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. Truth was, David wanted more than help leaving, he wanted company. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. They sweated, though the night was cool. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. They paid for all of it in cash. They were the butt of a national joke. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. And then I could hear her laughing. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Mine did. 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. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. "I said, 'I don't want him killed.' ", "I wouldn't do it. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Hes well thought-out. This time, David told McKinney the truth. At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. In a word, "Teamwork. . Theres no management around. 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. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. 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. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. His mobile home was nicely furnished, on eight acres with a stream in the back. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Was that really what it was about? At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. I said, It comes down to picking the right day, and the right time of the month, and all that good stuff. I even told her, It wouldnt be all that difficult. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. No regrets. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. Did you get paid? 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.
Examples Of God's Grace In Everyday Life, Broyhill Furniture Catalog, Steve Pemberton Siblings, All Inclusive Cosmetic Surgery Packages, Articles R
Examples Of God's Grace In Everyday Life, Broyhill Furniture Catalog, Steve Pemberton Siblings, All Inclusive Cosmetic Surgery Packages, Articles R