Reach our Customer Contact Center by calling 877.877.0560 from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM CT every day or by completing the provided form. 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. Steven Chambers [Misc. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. 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. Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. In real life: False. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. It was one of those things everyone (at Loomis Fargo) joked about, but in time, it became serious. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. They hatched the idea half-jokingly, over a game of Uno, never dreaming they were about to make Bonnie and Clyde look like bottom feeders. This is the person I counted as my friend. . He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. . real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. 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. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. 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. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. Eric watched. 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.. Her marriage--at which she was making another ambivalent effort after multiple separations--and even the jobs she'd been able to get with a diploma couldn't come close to providing the kind of life she dreamed about, the life she felt she deserved: a house in the country, a swimming pool, and enough cash so she didn't need to rely on men. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. 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. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. 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. She laughed for like 45 minutes. Then another. You might as well go all the way now.". Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. At the party, Steve invited Michele's stepfather, truck driver Dennis Floyd, to the basement to play pool. Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. 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. . Or that it was an inheritance. An Ohio police officer who shot and killed a Black man as he lay in bed in his home last summer is no longer on the force, Three Kansas City police officers who were shot while serving a search warrant have been released from the hospital, Officials say one passenger died when a business jet experienced severe turbulence, forcing a landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. The next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. He worked fueling airplanes, driving a forklift, and in 1994 he got a job as a vault superintendent at Loomis. Michele received the best gift of the night. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. 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.. . Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. Ghantt ultimately agreed to the plan, largely, due to a mountain of credit-card debt and in hopes of changing his life for the better. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. Once in a lifetime, Murdaugh verdict sends a Lowcountry message: No one is above the law | Opinion, Charlotte Waffle House found with live roach, unclean equipment during health inspection. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. Things started to go south the night of the robbery. Cool, I say. ". Kelly's company. They bought a BMW roadster. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. They sweated, though the night was cool. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. You can seize property. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. 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. Theres no management around. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. . 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. But in November, money ran low. 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. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. Thats nearly $11 million less than former Kings Mountain resident David Ghantt (played by Galifianakis in the film) helped steal from the vault where he worked in Charlotte back in October 1997. Its a yes: Clover teen shakes off nerves to earn American Idol golden ticket, Mail carrier cant believe his eyes after seeing NC lottery win. And then I could hear her laughing. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. 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. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. On October 5, 1997, FBI agents gathered at the Loomis, Fargo & Co. warehouse in Charlotte, North Carolina, to watch a security videotape of a man loading stacks of cash into a pushcart and wheeling them from the vault. 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. And after two years, you're just a file." 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 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. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. I studied up on the FBI. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. . Everybody seemed stunned. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. He would pay McKinney $250,000, half upfront. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. And youre like, Come on parachute. Though he never found the right moment to carry out the hit, McKinney did find time to make a friend--a shady character named Robert, to whom he revealed more than was prudent. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. It was the first Saturday in October. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. He para-sailed, power-skied and scuba-dived. 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. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. In early November, Steve lured the real Mike McKinney, an ex-Marine, to North Carolina from his Illinois home. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Hed be in contact. ". Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? The plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. And I was thinking about just showing up there. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Theres less security. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? She declined to take a lie-detector test. See all of the stories here. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' 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. (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). But it didnt really hit me until later., On March 2nd, when the FBI agents walked up to Ghantt in Playa del Carmen and told him he was under arrest, Ghantt was relieved. 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,. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. Question: Should people go see this movie? 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. I don't blame him.". As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. The Columbia airport had no available flights. And so, he told her, Google my name. She just called me up on the phone and said, Hey, lets meet one day after work. And then, we were talking and she says, How do you feel about robbing Loomis Fargo? Ghantt tells me. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. Exciting. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. I was burned out and just didn't know it. and "I love money!" His mobile home was nicely furnished, on eight acres with a stream in the back. . I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. 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 . CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. 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. He figured Tammy wouldn't go for it, and though his marriage had been troubled, he wasn't certain he wanted to leave her. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. In a word, "Teamwork. 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.. This real-life crime is the core of "Untitled Armored Car Project," which stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. David thought about it. 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. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? He didnt even really question me. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. He's a very likable person. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. Kelly drove David to the airport. 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. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. 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. Then another. 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. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. I can take it.". It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. 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. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. 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. 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. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. 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. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Visit us at Loomis.us. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. . Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. His collection case closes in two years. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 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. That was great. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. Health savings account and flexible spending account. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. Kelly called David at. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. She never really worried about the moral end of it--she was focused only on getting what she wanted out of life, what so many others seemed to have in this booming part of the South. Is he telling the truth? Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. Ghantt:I hate to say it, but I had six years of sitting in a box to think about my life. His name was Corey. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. 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. So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. Where was Ghantt? 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. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. 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. Starting Pay Rate: $15.50 per hour Shift: Monday - Friday from 1:00pm to 9:00pm Job Description As a Coin Processor, you work with your team to maintain inventory in our cash vaults for our Loomis customers. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. The money was heavy. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. If you were one of the much-smaller-than-expected group of people who caught Masterminds at the theater this weekend, and are looking for a fact-check of the events depicted on screen, here are some of the highlights of our chat with Diamant. When McKinney realized Ghantt was wanted for the Loomis Fargo robbery, he backed off personally because he didnt want to be anywhere near a federal investigation.