The FBI says Chambers hired a hitman to tie up the ultimate loose end -- Ghantt. Thank you! 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. Aprs de nombreux seconds rles comiques au cinma, elle parvient percer en co-crivant et tenant le rle principal de la 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. The FBI began to question past and current employees of Loomis Fargo. In all, they recovered $6.6 million. Prosecutors say a vault. 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. Thirty years! If a prank seemed dangerous, David backed out. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. Ghantt, in order to conserve this money, curtailed his spending. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. 12) Loomis Fargo heist- The aftermath Ultimately, eight co-conspirators were indicted for the Loomis Fargo bank heist. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. In all, agents arrested 24 people in the heist. 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. How he felt shorted by life. He angrily hung up the phone at Loomis, Fargo & Co., his soon-to-be former employer in Charlotte, North Carolina. In the movie: Campbell invites Ghantt to a restaurant under the auspices of a date, but then springs the idea of the heist on him, as Chambers and two associates join the conversation from an . It just happened to fall on my desk.. He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Campbell used to work for Loomis and continued the friendship with Ghantt, eventually hooking him up with Chambers. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. In Florida, a Loomis Fargo employee had pulled a gun on his coworkers and gotten away with $18 million, a move that FBI agents theorize Ghantt, Campbell and other employees all sat around talking about - and what they would do with that amount of money - for a while. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. How he and his wife had trouble communicating. He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. There was a book published in 2002 as well, by author Jeff Diamant called,Heist! All of the co-defendants were arrested the next day, about six months after the heist. 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,. Its like, me and you sat down, I have access to pie, you like pie, all I want is my share of the pie. She will never get beyond the debt. Oh were not going to talk to anybody, theyre not going to be able to convict us, that bravado happens in the beginning and then it often gets worn down by the reality, Gronquist said. Pink, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blonde. Temptation to do something that you think you normally wouldnt do can change a lot of minds when its that kind of cash, and thats what it was., (WATCH BELOW: VIDEO: The Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later). 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 . Ghantt went to Mexico leaving the money with his cohorts, thinking that he could get his share back when he needed it. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Chambers would then occasionally wire Ghantt money and see to his basic financial needs; when the heat was off, Ghantt was to re-enter the U.S. and the money would be split up among all of the co-conspirators. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. Thank you so much. They had met in December 1995 on one of her first days at Loomis. 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. The same applies to trolling, the use of multiple aliases, or Then, he proceeded to load 2,800 pounds of cash into a van. By now, you probably know the names -- David Ghantt, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle, and Kelly Campbell. If it didn't work out, he could return to the United States later with a new identity. David's share would be sent to Mexico, where he planned to hide and where he expected Kelly to join him. All of the defendants are out of prison -- the longest sentence was 11 years. David was supposed to be showing him the ropes of the job, which included cash pickups and deliveries. David said he needed Kelly to drive to Loomis before the theft that night to remove a duffel bag from his parked pickup truck. At that point, Kelly and David had known each other for two years. I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct.. The plan to. 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. In total, 24 people were convicted and all but one of the accused pleaded guilty. All of the primary players got fined millions of dollars --for example, Kelly Campbell was hit with more than $4 million, an amount that she will never come close to paying. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is this really about the needs of the poor? The property has changed hands several times since then. Library Journal "highly entertaining." He even had to watch what he bought at the grocery store. On the evening ofOctober 4, 1997, the Loomis Fargo & Co branch in Charlotte, North Carolina was in the process of being plundered. But being the vault supervisor at Loomis Fargo had one perk -- exposure to tons of cash. He worked close-by to where the van and over $3 million dollars had been ditched, and was friends with Steve Chambers. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. What it does is put a ball and chain on that person for the rest of their lives, they are walking around and they are basically an indentured servant, Gronquist said. But after a year, they cut it down to two agents. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. It was 2:00 p.m. on October 4, 1997, and tension was building between two planners of what would rank high among the largest heists in United States history. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. 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. After hanging up on her, David returned to work. How did they get away with stealing more than $17 million? When I put that cash in the back of the car, by the time I got to the office the whole car smelled like that. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. The police almost immediately called theFBI, since 95% of the money handled at the facility was owned by banks. She had attitude. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. 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. 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. Well she was a pretty happy-go-lucky person, he said. The corporation handled armored transportation, ATM maintenance and other cash handling services, and had millions of currency stashed in the vault of the North Carolina branch. The old man me would never survive that, Id have a heart attack.. Two days later, when the FBI found the Loomis Fargo armored van, they discovered almost $3.3 million in cash left in the back of the van; it was later discovered that the thieves had miscalculated the sheer bulk of the small denomination currency, and that they simply left the cash that they could not take with them in the back of the van. 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.. "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. I gotta go.". "Just think about it," she said. 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. Over 88% of the money has been recovered since the heist. So the original gang was all totally shocked, Wydra said. Kelly called, using David's own cell phone, to ask where he was already, because she and the others were waiting outside for him. 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. : The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft. David placed their odds of success at 85 percent, a confidence inspired by faith not just in his planning but also in his feelings for Kelly. 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. 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. By using this website, you accept the terms of our Visitor Agreement and Privacy Policy, and understand your options regarding Ad Choices. He waffled on the heist idea three or four times from late August to mid-September. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Once they were in custody, the overwhelming task of clearing out possessions possibly purchased with the stolen money began. Meanwhile, Ghantt's gang spent wildly and paid their family members and friends to hide money. All but one of the defendants pleaded guilty. Ghantt met up with the other members of the plot and offloaded the cash. "its a great readsuspenseful, often funny, just the thing for those wondering what it might feel like to have, as these hapless, small-town criminals did, literally too darn much cash lying around. " Yet their lives seemed far easier and better than his. Lacking a college degree, he found that his army skills felt meaningless in the 1990s job market. 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. Another time, the day after a Christmas in the late 1980s, David and some friends planted all the discarded Christmas trees from the area in one neighbor's front yard. Campbell used part of her share of the money to buy aToyota Siennaminivanin two cash installments. Not every agent has a case like that, he said. People dont seem to understand human nature. "I'm busy," he said. The affidavit described Chambers as a former FBI informant who had provided information on another Loomis armored car robbery that never materialized. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). Ghantt had worked with the branch since 1994, and had been promoted from a driver to the vault supervisor. 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. So the pieces were falling into place for investigators. Most people are going to forgive you. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. David told Kelly they would have to control themselves and not spend the money too quickly, because the FBI could electronically trace a suspect's recent spending activity through bank papers, credit card records, and land transactions. To be brutally honest, it was that morning, Ghantt replied. 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.. And they could barely afford the minimum payments, given the power bills, phone bills, car insurance bills, and home payments they had to meet. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. 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. remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats The figures can be astounding. 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. Loomis Fargo defendants owe as much as they stole in 1997, Incident raises concerns about LGBTQ safety in Carteret County, Drug deal gone bad claims the life of former Marine, Man charged with DWI after SUV takes out gas pumps, fire hydrant in Morehead City, Norfolk Southern train derails in Lexington No hazmat, no anger, Beaufort Housing Authority to replace public housing apartments, New Gamer's Guildhall looks to build community, comradery, DA: 'A very dangerous individual' from Swansboro has been removed, EDITORIAL: Government derails in response to disasters, EDITORIAL: Traffic growth demands a third bridge addition, Commentary: Close look at family history disturbing, Commentary: Second Amendment subverts democracy, EDITORIAL: Attorney General Stein ignores his constitutional responsibility. Accompanying her was Steve Chambers, who, though unemployed, had recently moved . You can garnish wages. 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. 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. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Jim Gronquist was Campbells defense attorney. "What would it take to convince you to do it?" The gang made numerous mistakes. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs..
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