Thomas Grant, who served three years in prison for bank larceny, paid off restitution of $70,000; brother Eric Grant paid all of his $26,000; as did David Craig, $40,000; and Dennis and Sandra Floyd; $27,000. While David Ghantt trusted Steve Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. The defendants received sentences ranging from probation for several relatives to over 11 years in federal prison for Steve Chambers. The old man me would never survive that, Id have a heart attack.. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. He added that he would be able to send the trainee home at about 6:00 p.m. and would then need about an hour to load the money from carts, shelves, and the floor into a Loomis company van. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. Who all wanted a Rambo movie which explored his time training as a green beret and his time serving in Vietnam as a prequel to first blood WATCH Antebellum 2020 FULL MOVIE. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. 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.. 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. Afterward, everything became comical. 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. Unexplained Mysteries and Strange Things,Cool Interesting stuff has been online since early 2011. He knew it would mean leaving Tammy. These weren't the hardest of criminals, and though there was logic to not knowing each other's names, they had derived some of their methods from Hollywood depictions of crime. 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. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. 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. 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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. 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. 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. contact us to submit an unexplained mystery article, or to join the team on the email address below. Now and again I run into blog posts that tends to make me want to get started on bloggin myself. Loomis Fargo employees could not open the vault the next morning, and called the police. Library Journal "highly entertaining." Of course, this would all be a radical departure for him, and thoughts of his wife and parents did give him pause. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. "But you can still have a cigarette.". Conversations about stealing from the company weren't rare for Loomis employees. Discover some of the worlds strangest ancient places. 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. Cool interesting stuff features everything odd, weird, bizzare, strange or unusual. One number is working in Campbells favor. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. 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. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Worlds Biggest Heists London Hatton Garden 200m Diamond Robbery, Easter 2015. In addition, he also rented Mike his own apartment, paid him $400/weekly and bought him a gun. In the end, the FBI was able to capture the original gang in five months, snaring 21 individuals for their participation in the crime. She sounded incredulous. "What would it take to convince you to do it?" He said at first, they were very proud of what they had been able to do. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Remember why you were elected! FBI video shows the agency searching that home and finding drawers full of cash. David Ghantt And The Loomis Fargo Heist: The Outrageous True Story Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. He also stole both existing sets of vault keys and hurried into the manager's office, where three TV security screens and two VCRs were visible. All but one took plea deals, including Ghantt, who was sentenced to seven years in prison. Its in the ether. she asked. 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. Unexplained Mysteries - owned by Aliens since 2011. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. They had to be extremely careful not to tip off the group, as they could lose potential conspirators or more information important to a conviction. I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. https://www.charlotteagenda.com/67457/loomis-fargo-heist-masterminds-movie/, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/article104506876.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_1997_Loomis_Fargo_robbery#Company, http://retroclt.blogspot.com/2014/07/loomis-fargo-heist.html, . Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.. Clear skies. 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. 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. They swept the surrounding counties, locating Kelly Campbell and Eric Payne in their homes. In this outrageously entertaining book, Jeff Diamant, the Charlotte Observer's lead reporter on the case, offers the definitive inside account of this astonishing. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. He deserved better. A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. Thank you! of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, or America's Dumbest Heist! (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories Jim Gronquist was Campbells defense attorney. But on Oct. 4, 1997, that no longer mattered and Ghantt took off with $17.3 million. 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. 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. After marrying Tammy in 1992, he worked fueling airplanes at the airport in Hilton Head, South Carolina. "Don't back out on us. 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. At about 6:40 p.m., he went back inside. Michelle Chambers received a few more months than Ghantt, because she had violated several bond conditions. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is this really about the needs of the poor? The hillbilly outfit did more that just drop a few breadcrumbs. The van used to move the money was later located a few miles from the warehouse. Its attracted workers like Ghantt. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. And after two years, the case is just a file. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. Curiously, Payne had recently paid of his Visa in one payment and had been driving around new and rented vehicles for the past weeks. But if you did, youll never forget it. He is a graduate of Yale and has worked for the Connecticut Post, the Associated Press, and the Palm Beach Post. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. Campbell led Ghantt to think she loved him and they would flee to Mexico together, but she actually wanted to make a better life for herself in the U.S. With the plan in place, Ghantt sent a newly hired employee he had been assigned to train home early (reportedly, at 6 p.m.) and then proceeded to load a little more than $17.3 million in cash (approximately $11 million of which was in$20 bills) into the back of a company van. 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. Theres no way to get it back,, And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. This was several years before the advent of smartphones and the post-9/11 increase in federal surveillance of electronic communications, and public knowledge about this tracking was less widespread. The unsolved crime mystery of Marilyn Sheppard. The inspiration behind the major motion picture Masterminds starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis! 'When you have money, you just have different problems': The Loomis Aprs de nombreux seconds rles comiques au cinma, elle parvient percer en co-crivant et tenant le rle principal de la All of the co-defendants were arrested the next day, about six months after the heist. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. He hated his job and his bosses, he'd lost hope in his marriage, he wasn't going to advance at Loomis, and he couldn't afford to quit to enroll in college. The gang made numerous mistakes. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. (LogOut/ David's vision for all of this actually derived more from books than from movies. Though much of the cash was already stacked on pushcarts in the vault, other stacks were on shelves or the floor, and they were heavy. A couple by the names of Steve and Shelley Chambers also became people of interest in the investigation due to their extreme sudden increase in spending. Probably very egotistical of me, I thought, Yeah, sure, I can beat them, theyre college smart and thats about it, Ghantt said. 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. He had joined the army and earned an honorable discharge, but because of defense-industry cutbacks he hadn't been able to find a good job for himself. just generally being a jerk. Driving away, he said he felt a mix of fear, confidence and excitement that he outsmarted the FBI. You can seize property. Inside the truck, they found Ghantts ring and surmised this as a sign of Ghantts intention to end his relationship with his wife. 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. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. "So he stays behind and moving over two thousand pounds of . 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. At that point, Kelly and David had known each other for two years. 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. uncanny, eerie, unnatural, preternatural, supernatural, unearthly, other-worldly, unreal, ghostly, mysterious, mystifying, strange, abnormal, unusual. Yet their lives seemed far easier and better than his. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later While David Ghantt trusted Steve Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. CHARLOTTE (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. When you have money, you just have different problems: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. While Ghantt trusted Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. By then, the FBI had become greatly concerned for Ghantts personal safety; they had learned of Chambersmurder for hirescheme. Getting that off his chest calmed him some, and the conversation returned to the plan. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. He waffled on the heist idea three or four times from late August to mid-September. Accompanying her was Steve Chambers, who, though unemployed, had recently moved . But he wasn't finished. He angrily hung up the phone at Loomis, Fargo & Co., his soon-to-be former employer in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Just think about it," she said. They knew Steve Chambers had worked as an informant in the past, and were nervous he would smell out an undercover. It was the second-largest. David would simply empty the vault and deliver the money to the others. 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,. The FBI says Chambers hired a hitman to tie up the ultimate loose end -- Ghantt. 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. 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. 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. "For the first year after a crime," he told her, "they're all over you, with six to ten agents. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. 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. He was on a budget for clothes, even for work boots; he had recently needed to check seven stores before finding a pair in his price range. 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. Was the temptation too much? Ghantt didnt know the full extent of what was happening back home -- how that lay low plan turned into a flurry of extravagant spending. In the first couple of weeks, they had heard both Steve and Shelley bragging about their new-found fortune, and spending remarkable amounts of money. Once they were in custody, the overwhelming task of clearing out possessions possibly purchased with the stolen money began. They Had 17 Million Dollars and No Sense at All - AMW Magazine Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. Some of that money is just gone. 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. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. The participants in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry, fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. 'Can I Keep the Velvet Elvis?': The Great Hillbilly Heist of 1997 "Don't double-cross us," the woman on the phone told David Ghantt. Not all of them, but some of them are going to forgive you, theyre going to overlook it., he said. Instead he became paranoid, especially after Steve Chambers put a contract out on his life. 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.. The October 4 shift was lasting longer than expected, due to delays involving pickups and deliveries. 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. sole discretion of the site administrators and repeat offenders may 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. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. The investigation ultimately resulted in the conviction of eight people directly involved, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them. David knew this was important from having followed the recent news about a Florida man who had brazenly committed the biggest heist from an armored-car company in United States history, a loner named Philip Noel Johnson, who also had worked for Loomis. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. And they hit the jackpot -- FBI video shows agents recovering most of the stolen cash. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. So that was kind of like this once-in-a-lifetime thing, Wydra said. In all, agents arrested 24 people in the heist. 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. Change). The plan was to maintain a low profile and wait for things to cool off, allowing Ghantt to return to the states and collect his cut. All but one of the defendants pleaded guilty. Steve had hired a bodyguard named Mike McKinney. Thirty years! That movie, Masterminds, was filmed in 2014. So its one thing to go from up here, thought, to action, he said. Masterminds (2016 film) - Wikipedia Later, they also arrested Nathans older brother. He shut the empty vault and set its timer so the vault could not be opened for two or three days. Thank you so much. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: But where will they park? How he and his wife had trouble communicating. Their only intimate physical contact had been kissing on a mid-September night when they had driven her pickup truck to a field behind a shooting range in Gaston County to discuss their plans and the theft's chance of success. The trainee didn't yet know how the place worked, a fact David planned to use to his advantage. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. You can garnish wages. 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. The gang made numerous mistakes. Diamant, a journalist who reported on the case at the time, goes into meticulous detail on how the heist was pulled off and its aftermath. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft [Jeff Diamant] on Amazon.com. Also charged with money laundering were innocent relatives and friends who had co-signed safe deposit boxes. 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. The woman on the phone was Kelly Jane Campbell, and David had a mad crush on her. 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. Heist! 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. That first day in prison was scary, Ghantt said. The 2016 comedy movie, Masterminds is based on the story of the Loomis Fargo Heist. In 1994, they moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, where they had grown up, and David took a job driving a forklift. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! 'Masterminds' Review: Loomis Fargo Robbery Where Are They Now? - Pajiba 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. 2023 Cox Media Group. Outside of the building, Ghantt met up with Campbell, Chambers, and others who were involved in the plot, and drove off to a printing business called Reynolds & Reynolds in northwest Charlotte. - 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. 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. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. People dont seem to understand human nature. Steve Chambers would keep the rest. 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. Even with several vehicles, they underestimated how much space they would need and they had to leave $3 million behind. Holding her hands behind her back, Michele Chambers was sentenced Tuesday to seven years and eight months in prison for her role in the $17 million heist from Loomis, Fargo & Co. She was also. The movie was called Masterminds and stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. 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. They located Steve and Shelley Chambers in their newly-purchased home at the top of a hill. Human nature is a flexible part of life, Gronquist said. I was relieved emotionally because I knew there was a good chance my luck might run out, Ghantt said. The towns booming construction industry attracts workers from around the country. 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. 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. How he felt shorted by life. In the grand scheme of things, the prison sentence for stealing $20 million wouldn't be much worse than for stealing just $500,000 maybe a few extra years behind bars. You have permission to edit this article. Enforcement of this policy is at the He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. To visit friends.". When Ghantt called Campbell however, the FBI was able to track his location, and arrested him with the help of the Mexican police onMarch 1, 1998. Over the next two weeks, David thought about it. 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. Before the robber left Loomis Fargo, he made a trip to the managers office to remove two surveillance tapes in order to conceal his identity. 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. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Although the FBI investigation was able to quickly connect Ghantt to Campbell, connecting Ghantt to Chambers was a more difficult task. The real 'Masterminds' *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. But with Kelly's new idea on the table, several dark realities converged on him. Kelly Campbell - Wikipedia 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. All but one of the 24 defendants pleaded guilty, and the one who didnt take the deal was convicted.

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