I was working sometimes 75-80 hrs a week for $8.15 an hour, I didnt even have a real home life because I was never there I was working all the time and unhappy which is understandable considering how old I was at the time. The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points, How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer. I work construction. The FBI quickly connected Ghantt to Campbell, who was a former Loomis Fargo employee. 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. 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. Ghantt has never explained where that money went. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. The FBI knew they needed to make their move. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. David Ghantt was portrayed by Zackary Hatfield. What ACT target score should you be aiming for? Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Thats one of my personality flaws. And with that, David Ghantt took off for Mexico. The bigger the amount, however, the bigger the damages to victims that likely will never be repaid: Amy Paynes collection account was closed in 2020 with her having paid $53,000 of the $274,000 she owed. Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. The next morning, Loomis Fargo employees were unable to open the vault. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. 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. 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.. WebFILE - 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 His new life in Mexico had begun. David Ghantt was a nuisance to Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, John Wydra, a retired FBI agent who handled the case, told Super Heists.. "Wells Fargo and Loomis forming armored car company", Learn how and when to remove this template message, painting of Elvis Presley on black velvet, "FindACase | United States of America v. Steven Eugene Chambers", "The Unperfect Crime | New Dominion Pictures", "Sunday Evening/Late Night September 9, 2001", "Loomis Fargo heist: Q&A with guy who stole $17 million", "MASTERMINDS - Movie Production NotesCinemaReview.com", Ghantt and other gang members arrested in March 1998, Steven Chambers released from prison; announces he is a "retired criminal", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=October_1997_Loomis_Fargo_robbery&oldid=1132065054, Articles with dead external links from February 2020, Articles needing additional references from October 2019, All articles needing additional references, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from February 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2020, Articles with dead external links from July 2022, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Overcoming the mindset that led to the part David Ghantt played in the Loomis robbery and how he started on a new path was the subject of the book, Within days of the robbery, the case was depicted on the television criminal reporting show, An expanded two-hour special episode of the crime documentary series. 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. 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. The leader was Allen Pace, who turned out to be the worst safety inspector the Dunbar Armored trucking company ever employed. The film was produced by Brent Almond. WebLoomis Fargo Robbery There is a vault reserved for only the most outrageous, preposterous, and far-fetched real life stories. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. The next day, the Chambers, Campbell and other members of the ring were arrested. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ A woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored car company Loomis, Fargo & Co. was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. A Comprehensive Guide. Ghantts accomplices soon showed up but now they had another problem. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Once Ghantt loaded the large haul from the vaultwhich could have been close to $20 millioninto a truck, he planned to drive to a second location, then head straight to the airport and fly to Mexico. He completed his prison sentence in November 2006. 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.. Other noteworthy purchases included a diamond ring and Rolex for themselves, tanning beds and big-screen TVs for their home and breast implants for Chambers wife. 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. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. Dont worry, its not drug money.. When she was a teacher, Hayley's students regularly scored in the 99th percentile thanks to her passion for making topics digestible and accessible. Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com, allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. I felt cornered and one day the joking in the break room about robbing the place suddenly didnt seem so far-fetched.. He was like OK, yeah, we can do that, she recalled. He then proceeded to load about $17.3 million in cash (approximately $11 million of which was in $20 bills) into the back of a company van. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Not only was Ghantt the only unaccounted for employee the morning after the heist, there was also footage of Ghantt moving the cash into the back of the Loomis Fargo van. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, The So-Called Female Delusion Calculator Doesnt Add Up, I Wore Magnetic Underwear for a Week to See If It Would Give Me a Boner of Steel, A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Geres Ass Gerbil. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Was that really what it was about? On October 6, they found the van with everything that Chambers had left behind, including Ghanttsgun and a clear picture of his face on video, which was identified by supervisors. David Ghantt struck up a relationship with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell, and they continued to maintain contact even after Campbell left the company. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. In February 2009 the Associated Press reported that Chambers had chosen to describe himself as "changed". Said Ghantt, one day life kinda slapped me in the face. The FBI investigation was aided by the gang's extravagant spending. WebWas Loomis Fargo heist real? They paid for all of it in cash. [3][4] Its Charlotte office would be the victim of David Scott Ghantt and his confederates later that year. 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. Things went from bad to worse when, in November, Michelle strolled into a bank with a briefcase filled with 200 grand and asked the manager, How much can I deposit without the bank reporting the transaction? When she showed the bank manager that she really had the money to invest, the cash was still bound in Loomis Fargo wrappers. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. Ask below and we'll reply! In the film, Jason Sudeikis plays a sadistic assassin hired to knock off Ghantt, who befriends him. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life masterminds couldnt contain their spending-spree. Investigators considered Ghantt to be the prime suspect almost from the beginning. The Dunbar Armored robbery Ghantt, meanwhile, had spent most of his money at a resort in Cancun, where he was being told he looked a lot like the guy that stole $20 million from a bank. Then Michele made a trip to the bank. He stayed at a luxury hotel and took scuba diving lesson. 4 What is the largest armored car robbery? Lindy Hop: The Dance That Defined The Golden Age of Jazz, Inside The Unsolved Disappearance Of Jennifer Kesse, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, David Ghantt attends the 2016 after party for the Hollywood premiere of. Ghantt believed the new employee would make a good replacement for his wife, but the feelings were not necessarily reciprocated. 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. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Ghantt and his compatriots, it turns out, had underestimated how bulky money is. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. Twice a week over the next 12 months, we will take you back to the winter of sheep cloning and the summer of Con Air. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Their combined salaries were less than $42,000. Get the latest articles and test prep tips! He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. Youre better at planning bank heists than David Ghantt. 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.. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. The Loomis Fargo heist became something of a media lightning rod. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. In fact, David Ghantt was about to commit the heist of a lifetime. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. There are two ideas as to how the plan was created. David Scott Ghantt was the vault supervisor at the regional branch of Loomis, Fargo & Co. in Charlotte, North Carolina. Im a very deliberate person. WebWord trickled in to the FBI that Ghantt had a romantic interest in a former coworker, Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty WebAydin Properties > Uncategorized > real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. They lived lavishly: Mastermind Steve Chambers (Owen Wilson) moved from a mobile home to a large home in a gated community, paid for in cash alerting authorities. Thirteen friends and family members were also charged with money laundering, as they had helped Ghantt, Chambers, Campbell, and the others deposit money illegally. 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. In 97 me and my wife were just barely scraping by, Ghantt recalled in Mondays episode. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here: PrepScholar 2013-2018. [citation needed], The defendants were the targets of many barbed jokes in Charlotte and across the country, in part because of their extravagant spending. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. After meeting up with Chambers, Campbell, and some other co-conspirators, Ghantt hightailed it to Mexico with $50,000 in cash in his car. While she made small deposits at first, she became more reckless, eventually making a deposit of thousands of dollars in cash, telling the teller not to worry: Its not drug money.. So yeah, Ghantt continues, I took a bus from there to Atlanta, and then I hopped a cab from the bus station to the airport in Atlanta., Back in North Carolina, his accomplices were working as fast as they could to hide the $17 million. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. David Ghantt was the vault supervisor for Loomis, Fargo & Co. armored cars, which managed the transportation of large sums of cash between banks in North Carolina. 1997 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items bought after Loomis, Fargo armored car facility heist by Steven Chambers, wife Michele, Kelly Jane Campbell & David Scott Ghanntt (Photo by Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images) 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. FBI security footage of David Ghantt in the midst of the Loomis Fargo heist. WebFigure in Loomis Heist Gets Prison. Chambers had known enough to insist that no one blows through a ton of cash immediately after the robbery, but once he actually had his hands on the money, he couldnt follow his own advice. Two days after theyd robbed the Loomis Fargo truck the very same day the police found the abandoned van in the woods Steve and Michelle Chambers walked into a bank and deposited their cut of the stolen money into their account. ), and having explosive diarrhea in a public swimming pool (who knew Zach Galifianakis was filled with caramel syrup?). I was just going to get the money into the van. Together with his wife, Chambers bought a new luxury home (upgrading from his mobile home), a BMW Z3, and some extravagant furnishings. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it, Ghantt remembered later to the Gaston Gazette. Former Cramerton Police Chief David Young soon got wind of the Chambers excessive spending spree and reached out to the FBI. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. 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. Pocketing $50,000 for himself, that man, named David Ghantt, hopped into a car of his own and headed towards Mexico. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. Axios Charlotte is a local news initiative. Chambers, it turned out, became the biggest source of evidence for the FBI. She had previously been making frequent small deposits to avert suspicion. Given his position at the bank, hed be the one to pull off the robbery, and he intended to be ready. As the FBI listened in to Chambers calls, they discovered that he was also planning to have Ghantt assassinated, hoping to keep all the money for himself. [citation needed], It was later confirmed by the FBI that more than 88% of the stolen cash had been located or otherwise accounted for. Galifianakis is game for anything, including eating a dead tarantula (who knew tarantulas were filled with caramel syrup? Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Meanwhile, Ghantt would take $50,000, as much as could legally be carried across the border without questions, and flee to Mexico. Hed be in contact. In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt of an old high school friend of hers, Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt in executing a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. [7][8], Rocket Science, a 1998 double-disc album by Charlotte-based radio personalities John Boy & Billy, includes a track ("Marvin: The Loomis Caper") mocking the defendants. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LCR9zyGkbo. Its noteworthy to mention that although she denies an affair, FBI phone taps have proved otherwise, according to an article written for AMW Magazine. Webbird adoption adelaide real life kelly campbell loomis fargo. Campbell used part of her share of the money to buy a Toyota Sienna minivan in two cash installments. I knew that if we could stay off the radar for about a year, we could basically live a vacation life, Ghantt said. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. David Ghantt attends the after party for the Premiere Of Relativity Media's "Masterminds" on September 26, 2016 in Hollywood, California. The morning after the height, employees of Loomis Fargo realized they couldnt open the vault. (I) bought jewelry, bought a van, Campbell recalled of her own spending. It affects everybody different. WebAydin Properties > Uncategorized > real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. WebThis real-life . It was over. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. When he finished, the van was filled with $17 million. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. Of course, I went on a spending spree. Authorities began to hone in on the group and put a wire tap on Campbell's phones. And I was thinking about just showing up there. Ghantt didnt actually meet Chambers until the night of the heist, though, according to Diamant, who would go on to write a book about it. Says with a rueful tone low-income people millions of dollars global and local news to send him cut..., that is, he says the Loomis Fargo wrappers only the most outrageous, preposterous, having! ) bought jewelry, bought a van, Campbell and other members of the Loomis case shows how plan... To send him his cut in Mexico been the best thing for me to do,.. Not necessarily reciprocated Gaston Gazette do it I kind of know something is fishy. Alone. 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Axios Charlotte a!
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