As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. Thats one of my personality flaws. . Hed be in contact. Two more defendants in the $17 million Loomis Fargo & Co. robbery last year have agreed to plead guilty, and a third person entered a formal plea in court. 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. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. 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. . Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. It just happened to fall on my desk.. Its said the current owner now has it in storage in Phoenix, Arizona. I was just going to get the money into the van. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. Hed never really been in trouble, he wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent John Wydra. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. Al hacer clic en Aceptar todo, aceptas que Yahoo y nuestros socios procesarn tu informacin personal y utilizarn tecnologas como cookies para presentarte anuncios y contenido personalizados, evaluar anuncios y contenido, obtener datos clave sobre la audiencia y desarrollar productos. Its hilarious. . Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. He allegedly hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. 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.. The modern company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armoured security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc. Their international network covers over 200 operating locations in the US and eleven western European countries. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. His new life in Mexico had begun. Access to this system is reviewed and violators will be subject to prosecution. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. Theyre meant to be trailer-park trash, but they come off as character experiments on a bad night at the Groundlings. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. I thought, Okay, if I get out of that bubble because the cops depend on that, even the feds my chances to get away go way up.. Loomis, then known as Loomis Fargo, experienced two inside jobs in 1997, for $17.3 million and $18.8 million. The next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. Exciting. And after two years, you're just a file." She didn't plan to move to Mexico. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. I loved it. 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. his keys and wedding ring. In the first heist, a regional vault supervisor loaded money into a branded truck and . Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. She laughed for like 45 minutes. 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. Here, he amps up the most obnoxious excesses of his entire cast and lets their grating bad-improv skills run amok. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. 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. Its a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I went down and talked to them, got to meet Zach Galifianakis and the director, Ghantt said. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. . Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. 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. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they 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.. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. AP 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. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. Then Steve pushed Scott inside, and he began throwing plastic-wrapped bundles of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds to Eric and Steve, who placed them in three blue 55-gallon barrels. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. 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. I hear her typing. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. This is the person I counted as my friend. This machine is the property of Loomis. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home. Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. I was relieved emotionally because I knew there was a good chance my luck might run out, Ghantt 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. 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. "You" has three. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. It, too, has changed hands several times. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. 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. 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. RELATED: When you have money, you just have different problems: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later, How I held it together is beyond me, Ghantt said. "She just called me up on the phone and said, 'Hey, let's meet one day after work.' Baltimore leaders have agreed to pay a $6 million settlement to the family of a driver who was killed during a 2010 police chase involving Gun Trace Task Force officers, Four family members from Australia who were injured during a crash-landing of a sightseeing helicopter in December are suing a Las Vegas-based tour operator, Massachusetts Gov. Loomis (formerly Loomis, Fargo & Co.) is a cash handling company. And then I realized that a lot of people knew who I was and they had followed the case.. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. 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. It premiered in Los Angeles on September 26, 2016 and was theatrically released in the . And going to see the Mayan ruins. He couldn't talk.". Ghantt didn't actually meet Chambers until the night of the heist, though, according to Diamant, who would go on to write a book about it.The reason Ghantt got involved was always the . As soon as you put that first bag of stolen money in that van, theres no going back. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. The FBI heard about the plot and agents knew they could no longer wait. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. ", "I wouldn't do it. In a word, "Teamwork. And robbing a truck was dangerous. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. Sweat soaked David's uniform. ", "Even then . In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. You can have your whole career and not have a case like that. Jim Gronquist was Campbells defense attorney. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. Agents raided safe deposit boxes, where they recovered more than $11 million. "I was thinking, 'They aren't paying me enough,' " McKinney recalled. Things started to go south the night of the robbery. That was the thing that sticks in my mind to this day., ALSO READ: Man released from jail, accused of robbing banks while wearing electronic monitor, police say. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? Even the outtakes during the credits are bad. People dont seem to understand human nature. And then I could hear her laughing. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. 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. "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. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. So its one thing to go from up here, thought, to action, he said. He added that money can be a motivator for anyone. Hes very articulate. Kelly Campbell arrested 11) Finally, the FBI successfully tracked down Ghantt and arrested him at Playa del Carmen. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. Its attracted workers like Ghantt. He had an endearing smile, a beautiful wife and two children. I've got a good woman.". David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. However, the fact that a man who formerly lived in a mobile home was lavishly spending money on a luxury home ($635,000 in cash), expensive cars, and a ring ($42,000 in cash) eventually made it easy to connect the dots. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? She later hired someone to kill Ghantt, though the murder never took place. Well they were in some sense celebrities, Gronquist said. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. . 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. And so, he told her, Google my name. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded daily by millions of dollars worth of temptation. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. Name. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Its about the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery also known as the hillbillly heist the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. Kelly's company. Of course the most famous thing inside the home was a velvet Elvis portrait. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. Will Vin Sant Leave You Jacked or Scammed. . Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. . The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. A guard at an armored car company in the Southern U.S. organizes one of the biggest bank heists in American history. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. Kelly Loomis. Haz clic en Gestionar ajustes para obtener ms informacin y gestionar tus opciones. He said at first, they were very proud of what they had been able to do. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. She came from a blue-collar background, a high school dropout who had grown tired of working in a mill and gotten an equivalency diploma. . Was that really what it was about? You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. About six months before the Charlotte theft, on March 29, a total of $18.8 million was taken from Loomis, Fargo in Jacksonville, Fla., in what was believed to be the largest heist in U.S.. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. So Im like, Can you get a move on with my money? After a couple of weeks passed, I get a phone call from Kelly: Okay, Brunos coming to you, blah, blah, blah. So I get a phone call from this guy, and I tell him where to meet me. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Connected with David wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a Airways... Had followed the case purchased tanning beds, a Harley-Davidson Road King and., but never had the time or the money into the back door slot idea or. 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Had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality challenge is finding the remaining $ 2 million from and! The cheek on the morning of Oct. 4 my way for a cash handling company, 'What it!

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