Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997, 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. "I thought he was goofing around.". Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. 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. He goes, My name is Bruno. When Ghantt was on the plane home from Mexico with the FBI, he admitted to the agents that while Campbell had been integral to why hed done it and that he did indeed have a crush on her it was never his true motivation. Loomis Fargo Heist of 1997 - History and Other Things "For the first year, they're all over you. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. Ghantt was working a late shift, and just after 6:30 p.m., his coworkers were packing up and heading for home. So I guess I have no regrets. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. It affects everybody different. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. Hed be in contact. Then, on a mid-September day, as he reviewed a credit card bill, David did some math. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. Military + Veterans. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. 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. 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. I don't want to be mean, but that's probably the dumbest thing they could do. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. Ghantt was already married when he took part in the heist, to a woman named Tammy who author Diamant described as very nice. It is true, however, that she had no idea about the plot and that he fled to Mexico without telling her. 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. When he was done, the man drove off to a nearby printing press, where the money was distributed into private vehicles amongst a handful of people. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. You're an idiot.'". It was the first Saturday in October. Hes very articulate. 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. 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. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? . Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. How Did David Ghantt, Kelly Campbell, Steve Chambers Steal More Than The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. Theres less security. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. 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. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. 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.. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter . And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. What made her do it? 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. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. Given his position at the bank, hed be the one to pull off the robbery, and he intended to be ready. I would call us friends. He learned to parachute. 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. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. I've got a good woman.". Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. 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. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. There it was, "The Heist." Too stupid to be true? Five 'Masterminds' missteps that actually happened The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. I was burned out and just didn't know it. I hope everyone has moved on. David trusted her. Before David left for the airport, he had handed Scott an eight-inch key ring. Yes, happy. He and his wife, Tammy, lived in a mobile home in Kings Mountain, N.C. Money was always tight. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? That time in prison was actually good for me. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. The authorities didn't know yet how much was missing from the armored-car company, but Steve did. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. ". LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. 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. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. and "I'm rich!". Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. 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. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? An officer rang the doorbell. I was just going to get the money into the van. Him and I still talk every now and then. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. 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. Kelly was lying. 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. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. It's about the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery also known as the "hillbillly heist" the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. 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. October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery - Wikipedia This time, David told McKinney the truth. There were times when I drank really heavily.". But because David's relationship with his Loomis bosses had been rocky, he says, he doesn't feel sorry about what he did to the company. Hes going to start bringing you money. Alright. The true crime behind Asheville-based Galifianakis film I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. Heist!: The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft - amazon.com In real life: True. 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. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. . shes now Miss USA. David didn't even know Steve's name. Instead of lobster, the man who stole $17 million survived on home-cooked pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches. . They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. 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.. In real life: True. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. In real life: Mostly true. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. The name she gave the pup is apropos. SEVEN NABBED IN CHARLOTTE HEIST\ - Greensboro News and Record Then Steve pushed Scott inside, and he began throwing plastic-wrapped bundles of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds to Eric and Steve, who placed them in three blue 55-gallon barrels. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. At that same time, Steve was growing sick of the calls to send more money to Ghantt, and was looking for a way to end that issue. Or that it was an inheritance. You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. 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. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. I wish them all a happy life and that's about it. He went deep-sea fishing. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter and happy. Cool, I say. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. "He was in tears. No dry runs, no rehearsals. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. I mentioned it to Kelly. Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. "I" has one letter. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. 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. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. He's a very likable person. The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. ". It was late in 1996. Kelly had recently left a job driving an armored-car for Loomis, Fargo & Co. "He's the one who brought it up first," said Kelly, a year after her arrest. See all of the stories here. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. There had been no signs. "I've moved on with my life," he said Tuesday. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. In March 1997, after Loomis Fargo & Company has been robbed of $18.8 million in Jacksonville by company security guard Philip Noel Johnson, Steve Eugene Chambers and Kelly Campbell, a former employee of Loomis, decides to rob the company. 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. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. and "I love money!" Steve tried keys on a side door. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. Steve led the planning. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' But what did that mean? It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - phnxathletica.com We need to set up some way for me to get my money. She said, We got it all worked out. Ghantt was in fact hiding out in Mexico using McKinneys I.D., which had been sold to Chambers months earlier. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. 'Can I Keep the Velvet Elvis?': The Great Hillbilly Heist of 1997 CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. 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. Contact Us | Loomis US . 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. First, they loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels into a rental van. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. Looking for Kelly Loomis? David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. 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. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward after the theft. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. 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. 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. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. . Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. 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. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. I missed my wife. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. . . 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. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. You've violated that trust. ". You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - hankyboy.com I didn't think I had the guts. About 200 keys dangled from it. 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. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. Michele received the best gift of the night. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. More agents waited outside to arrest them. As he and Kelly met in a field behind a shooting range to refine the plan, she allowed him to believe she was falling for him. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. The plan was to split the money three ways: Chambers, Campbell and Ghantt would each walk away with what Ghantt estimated to be $5 million a piece the kind of money that changes lives forever. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. 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. He was an old friend from East Gaston High School, tough and sure of himself. 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery - Strange Unexplained Mysteries That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24.