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. Steve had hired a bodyguard named Mike McKinney. This website uses cookies and some data tracking to improve your experience and serve adverts, We assume you're ok with this, you can opt-out if you wish. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The plan was for Ghantt to commit the actual robbery and then quickly leave the country forMexico but to leave the bulk of the cash with Chambers. Also charged with money laundering were innocent relatives and friends who had co-signed safe deposit boxes. The inspiration behind the major motion picture Masterminds starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis! In 1994, they moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, where they had grown up, and David took a job driving a forklift. ", Johnson said, "Yeah, that's it. In David's eyes, Johnson's big mistake was that he did it alone. 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.. Curiously, Payne had recently paid of his Visa in one payment and had been driving around new and rented vehicles for the past weeks. 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. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP). >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. More calls between the two men, and also between Steve and Kelly Campbell, made it clear that the group was starting to turn on David Ghantt. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. "Do you know how much there's gonna be?" 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. - 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 purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, or The woman on the phone was Kelly Jane Campbell, and David had a mad crush on her. When you have money, you just have different problems: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Steve Chambers would keep the rest. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. Prosecutors say a vault. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. 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. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Its in the ether. It was the second-largest. 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. Ghantt, in order to conserve this money, curtailed his spending. Unexplained Mysteries and Strange Things,Cool Interesting stuff has been online since early 2011. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. More than 2 million dollars are still missing to this day. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. The investigation ultimately resulted in the conviction of eight people directly involved, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them. You Save 23%. 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. Discover the truth behind unexplained ancient mysteries, UFO mysteries, secret locations and paranormal events. 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. 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. He had since served time in prison for the crime and told our sister station WSOC-TV Channel 9s Glenn Counts he learned a valuable lesson while behind bars. sole discretion of the site administrators and repeat offenders may Despite being caught on camera wheeling the money from the vault to the getaway van, David Ghantt makes off to Mexico before the FBI can blink. Yet their lives seemed far easier and better than his. In Gastonia, David would run into high-school classmates who had never struck him as especially smart. They had met in December 1995 on one of her first days at Loomis. From there, the money was moved from the armored car to private vehicles. Working by himself, Ghantt would commit the robbery and then flee for Mexico, leaving the bulk of the cash with Chambers. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: But where will they park? 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. "What would it take to make you do it?". Ghantt met up with the other members of the plot and offloaded the cash. His eyes widened and he stopped breathing as he realized that something as mundane as a malfunctioning gate might ruin their entire plan. Nathan, Steves cousin, was found in a mobile home the Chambers had abandoned. Afterward, she and David would talk just occasionally on the phone. "But you can still have a cigarette.". So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all., WSOC TV facebook feed(Opens a new window), Part 2: Channel 9 speaks with the man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 years ago, ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east Charlotte, mom says, ALSO READ: Leader of $3M check theft, bank fraud scheme in Charlotte area sentenced to prison, ALSO READ: Man released from jail, accused of robbing banks while wearing electronic monitor, police say, ALSO READ: Suspect from south Charlotte bank robbery found, CMPD says, NCSHP arrest driver accused of nearly hitting 2 students at bus stop in Statesville, CMS delays opening of new school meant to ease overcrowding, Mooresville orders removal of memorial at park after teens death, Chick-fil-A announces app data breach, tells customers how to protect personal information, Charlotte woman celebrates $1 million scratch-off prize, WSOC - TV Public File Contact / Program Director, WAXN - TV Public File Contact / Program Director. But things didnt quite work out that way. That first day in prison was scary, Ghantt said. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. Why do we feel its so necessary to treat people like this, to say, OK, well just ruin the rest of your life because you made a bad decision., Punishment should not last a lifetime. How he and his wife had trouble communicating. They swept the surrounding counties, locating Kelly Campbell and Eric Payne in their homes. Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. Since then, there have been numerous articles, books, documentaries and even a movie about this gang -- the gang that couldnt shoot straight. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. Thank you so much. Growing up, David's family went to Disney World, sent him to religious school, and shopped at places he couldn't afford as a self-supporting adult. As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to edit or "So he stays behind and moving over two thousand pounds of . Kelly had approached David with the idea in the summer, knowing he had a crush on her and winning him over with the promise that a shady friend of hers with Mafia ties would help them. A third surveillance tape was carelessly left behind, and the company was able to identify the man who robbed the vault as David Ghantt. Not every agent has a case like that, he said. He even had to watch what he bought at the grocery store. He had approached her inside the chain-link fence that surrounded the building and said with a flirty smile, "If you give me a cigarette, I'll be your friend. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Was the temptation too much? This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. '. Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. 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 unfairness gnawed at him, stirred by Kelly's questions. 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. The same applies to trolling, the use of multiple aliases, or But after one visit, she asked a teller How much can I deposit before you have to report it to the feds? followed by Dont worry, it is notdrug money, the bank filled out asuspicious activity report, which ultimately reached the FBI. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. 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. 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. OWLS director fired in wake of new board taking over, New rules will require flood history disclosure in real estate, North Carolina recreational spring flounder season canceled for 2023, Supreme Court seems ready to sink student loan forgiveness, Beach commission gets update on search for new sources of sand for beach nourishment. 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. Steve and Michelle Chambers, who had lived in a mobile home, bought a mansion in Cramer Mountain. 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 plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. The phone calls began to get more intense when Steve and Eric got suspicious of a man who was running hismouth about them and the vault job over in Charlotte. 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. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. So the pieces were falling into place for investigators. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. The $17 million Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, North Carolina, was the second largest armored car robbery in U.S. history. Loomis Fargo, the nation's largest privately held armored- car company, used vans to transport hundreds of millions of dollars a day belonging to banks and other businesses, stocking automated teller machines and storing money in the Loomis vault between deliveries. It's still the hot topic . 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. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Her case closes in 2025. He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. He quickly found out when you have money, you just have different problems, Wydra said. Friends of Campbell had also begun spending large amounts of cash. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Inside $3.3 million was located along with the two stolen surveillance tapes, apparently left due to the robber and his accomplices being sloppy, or in a hurry. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. 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. Perry identified the other six people arrested as Steve and Michelle Chambers; Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney; Thomas Nathan Grant; and Eric Haley Payne.. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. 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Marine Fisheries Commission advocates for water quality, North Carolina the only state allowing unnecessary killing of sea turtles, 'Pagan' bike gang leader in N. Carolina sentenced to prison, Deputy cleared in shooting death of Gloucester woman, Beaufort amends charter to allow four-year mayoral term. Ghantt was working as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte in 1997, earning about $8 an hour and tired of his humdrum life. So the original gang was all totally shocked, Wydra said. And once he started, he didn't stop with one cartful. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Library Journal "highly entertaining." Booklist "Librariesshould consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel." 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. Jeff Diamant was a reporter for the Charlotte Observer when the heist took place. David said he needed Kelly to drive to Loomis before the theft that night to remove a duffel bag from his parked pickup truck. "I was unhappy with my life. He could even be famous, perhaps joining the ranks of legendary master thieves. 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. 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.. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. Enforcement of this policy is at the Getting that off his chest calmed him some, and the conversation returned to the plan. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. them. Ghantts spending in Mexico was extravagant at first. CHARLOTTE If you didnt live in the Charlotte area 25 years ago, you might not believe it. She sounded incredulous. (LogOut/ You should definitely start your own blog, I highly recommend it. Ghantt said he believes in redemption, and that his mistake 25 years ago brought him all the things that are important in his life today. I appreciate your kind words! 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 . His collection case closes in two years. 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. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. After marrying Tammy in 1992, he worked fueling airplanes at the airport in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The old man me would never survive that, Id have a heart attack.. 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.. Ghantt had fled to Mexico with $50,000 in cash, leaving the rest of the money with Steve Chambers. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. He ejected the two VCR tapes that he knew had recorded him stealing the money, took them, and prepared to leave. Cool interesting stuff features everything odd, weird, bizzare, strange or unusual. Ghantt reported to Chambers that his supply of money was running low, but Chambers sent Ghantt just $8,000. He had stayed in a luxury hotel and paid for expensive food and activities such asscuba divingandparasailing. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Although the FBI investigation was able to quickly connect Ghantt to Campbell, connecting Ghantt to Chambers was a more difficult task. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. When did you conclude Yeah, Im actually going to do this? Counts asked. 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. He would then have the bulk of his share sent south of the border. 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. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. People dont seem to understand human nature. As a child, he had preferred reading to playing sports, and he would say, as an adult, that although he couldn't have told you "who was on first," he knew as a kid who the Egyptian god of the dead was. An additional tip reached the FBI when Michelle Chambers made a large deposit at a bank. These cookies do not store any personal information. Instead he became paranoid, especially after Steve Chambers put a contract out on his life. It was released in 2016 and Wydra was invited to the premiere. 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. 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. 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. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. "I'll need help moving the money, getting a new ID, and leaving the country," he told her. 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