Loomis Fargo Heist of 1997 - History and Other Things Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. At one point, the hoodlum shows up and Ghantt is wearing a Jerome Bettis Pittsburgh Steelers jersey; the hoodlums favorite team is the Steelers, and he caves and tells Ghantt that McKinney wants him dead. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. 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. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. Now he offered to pay him to carry cash to David--Steve said he was a friend hiding out after a bad drug deal, McKinney recalled. 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. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Ghantt was working a late shift, and just after 6:30 p.m., his coworkers were packing up and heading for home. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. She was devastated, Diamant said. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. I knew it was just a matter of time. My love for my family is by far the most important thing in my life. 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. So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. I said, Listen, You all need to get your shit together, or Im just going to walk over here to the government building and tell them who the fuck I am. That lit a little fire under her ass, for a bit.. 'Can I Keep the Velvet Elvis?': The Great Hillbilly Heist of 1997 Question: Should people go see this movie? 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery - Strange Unexplained Mysteries He didn't want to abandon his parents. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. One number is working in Campbells favor. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. 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. Kelly called David at. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. It was his goodbye. Military + Veterans. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. SEVEN NABBED IN CHARLOTTE HEIST\ - Greensboro News and Record At first, David Ghantt said, "I didn't take her seriously. 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. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. But as he later recalled to the media, as soon as he stepped through those big-box doors, he realized he was flush with cash, and he didnt need to shop at Walmart ever again. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. Ghantt went on to explain that he left for his flight to Mexico with about $25,000, and that two or three deliveries of extra money was made to him by the man Chambers would pay to kill him. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. Then another. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. The pager entry was 1-4-3. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. Once I start something, Im going to the end., As for how he felt in the moment, he says, Imagine me and you went on an airplane. 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. 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. The real story behind the second largest bank heist in history, which . David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. By . ", "Even then . Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. Kelly Campbell - Wikipedia There were times when I drank really heavily.". These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. First, they loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels into a rental van. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. By March, Steve Chambers decided he needed to do something more drastic about Ghantt, making plans to send a hitman to Mexico to silence him for good. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. No hard feelings. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. . I've got a good woman.". He told him McKinney was in Mexico to kill somebody. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. Kelly, using David's cell phone, kept beeping him. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. Before long, the tales of high living by Chambers and his now former wife, Michelle, led the thieves to be labeled either the "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" or "The gang that couldn't steal straight." I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. 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. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. Posted on . 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. 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. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. 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. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. ". She will never get beyond the debt. "But I had to know.". Its hilarious. . No dry runs, no rehearsals. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. Or that it was an inheritance. (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. That time in prison was actually good for me. He figured Tammy wouldn't go for it, and though his marriage had been troubled, he wasn't certain he wanted to leave her. In real life: False. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. DUMB & - The Washington Post 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. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. Theres no management around. The only person not to plead guilty in the case, former Gastonia attorney Jeff Guller, ended up doing eight years for money laundering. 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. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. But what did that mean? He appeared happily matched with his high-spirited wife, Michele, and the two children from her first marriage. In real life: False. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. . 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. See all of the stories here. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Steven Chambers [Misc. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. Given the presence of the surveillance tapes and a gun belonging to Ghantt, they started with Ghantts phone and pager records and discovered a pattern they attributed to an accomplice. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. 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. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. 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. I don't want to be mean, but that's probably the dumbest thing they could do. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. "I work construction. Scott didn't want to, but then he remembered the hundred-grand payday. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. She laughed for like 45 minutes. 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. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. On Oct. 7, 1997, two FBI agents arrived at Kelly Campbell's home after two Loomis employees had told agents she and David had once dated. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery - Wikipedia On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist (No Ratings Yet) . They stocked a wine cellar. At the party, Steve invited Michele's stepfather, truck driver Dennis Floyd, to the basement to play pool. 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. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. . 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.. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. Was Queen Charlotte Black? "I was unhappy with my life. Kelly was no criminal. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - molecularrecipes.com 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. That week, the FBI designated the theft its 142nd "major case," putting it on a list--begun in the 1970s--that includes such other infamous crimes as the World Trade Center bombing. 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. They were the butt of a national joke. There was in fact a basically similar conversation involving Chambers and Campbell that took place during a barbecue the Campbells were hosting. Too stupid to be true? Five 'Masterminds' missteps that actually happened At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Chambers never held Campbell hostage by locking her in a shed on his property. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). Yes, happy. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. . Did you get paid? Jeffrey Guller, who at 81 is by far the oldest of the Loomis defendants, still owes almost $1.1 million on his original court debt of $1.14 million and will remain on the governments books for another four years. Hed be in contact. He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. But it wasnt. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. The real 'Masterminds' To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. From Mexico, David usually spoke with Kelly on the phone once a week, paying with calling cards. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. 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. She declined to take a lie-detector test. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. Were others involved? Agents found out where Ghantt was living because Chambers had put out a hit on him, foolishly believing Ghantt was the only person the FBI had fingered for the crime. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. The robbery was committed by Loomis vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell (a former Loomis co-worker), Steven Eugene Chambers (a one-time FBI informant), his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies, and four other co-conspirators. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. In real life: True. 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. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. Its everything thats coming north.. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. . Then he and Campbell drove 90 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where Ghantt planned to purchase a ticket to Mexico so he could be out of the country before news of the robbery broke the next morning. I don't blame him.". . Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. With the help of Aldo, a Mexican waiter he had befriended, David found a beach apartment in Cancun. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Is he telling the truth? At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. Him and I still talk every now and then. "He was in tears. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? "We had David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell tied together, and we had Steven Chambers and Eric Payne with unexplained wealth, but we didn't have a tie between them," Agent John Wydra said. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. Scott was so nervous, he said, that he couldn't help. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. Kelly was lying. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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. More agents waited outside to arrest them. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. It affects everybody different. Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. I didnt pick the heist team. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. 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. Besides her prison sentence . His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. ". Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. 27 febrero, 2023 . Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. 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. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. . They bought a BMW roadster. 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. . Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. All rights reserved. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. 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. . 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. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. 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. The FBI, in fact, obtained the evidence they needed to bring down the major players, including Chambers, after catching them talking about the murder plot on the telephone via wiretap. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. Steve and Michele invited everyone back for a Christmas party, where they gave Michele's stepfather a special gift--the pickup truck he'd always wanted. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. The van door opened. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - phnxathletica.com But after a year, they'll cut it down to two agents. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. She could visit friends. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. 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. 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 . CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. 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. You can garnish wages. Her case closes in 2025. . They heard Michele brag about her $43,000 ring. Not Ghantt. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him.