Were others involved? Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. And then I could hear her laughing. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. . Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. "I thought he was goofing around.". Eric watched. Kelly called David at. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. 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. "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. 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. 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. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. In real life: False. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. He flew in an ultra-light plane. 27 febrero, 2023 . Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? That's the kind of movie they wanted to make. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. His mobile home was nicely furnished, on eight acres with a stream in the back. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". She was devastated, Diamant said. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. . 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 . Everybody seemed stunned. In real life: Mostly true. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Now two NC men face prison. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. She was a wife and mother with two children. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. Dental plans . . Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. Question: You were a consultant? Steven Chambers [Misc. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. He had an endearing smile, a beautiful wife and two children. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. 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. 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. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. I would call us friends. Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. "You" has three. You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. 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. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? Mine did. 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. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. In real life: False. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. It changes you. That October, the Chamberses' bank accounts ballooned. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. From Mexico, David usually spoke with Kelly on the phone once a week, paying with calling cards. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. 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. Things were spiraling fast. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. 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. 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. Its in the ether. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. 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. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. Then another. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. He has no contact with any of those convicted with him in the crime, including his former wife, and doesn't plan to see the movie, he said. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. An officer rang the doorbell. The next week, they heard Steve plan to send Mike McKinney to Mexico to kill David Ghantt. The only person not to plead guilty in the case, former Gastonia attorney Jeff Guller, ended up doing eight years for money laundering. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Just head on out. And so, he did. Him and I still talk every now and then. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' Did you get paid? He said every year he files his taxes and the IRS takes all of his tax return. Hes well thought-out. 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. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. In real life: False. Things started to go south the night of the robbery. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. I mentioned it to Kelly. Ghantt fled to Mexico. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. 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. Kelly, using David's cell phone, kept beeping him. 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. Some of that money is just gone. 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. He para-sailed, power-skied and scuba-dived. In early November, Steve lured the real Mike McKinney, an ex-Marine, to North Carolina from his Illinois home. At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. 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. No hard feelings. . That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. David didn't even know Steve's name. He gave the rest to Kelly. I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. Visit us at Loomis.us. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. The cash was covered with dog food. In real life: False. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. One of them tapped him on the back. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. Ghantt went on to explain that he rarely even looks at his debt statement to the government, but believes the IRS says he still owes them $3.8 million. In the following months, Steve persisted, even floating the notion of placing phony hand grenades on a Loomis truck to scare away the drivers, Kelly said. 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. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. I knew it was just a matter of time. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. Sweat soaked David's uniform. ". Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. Not Ghantt. Scary. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. I don't blame him.". I missed my wife. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. And I was thinking about just showing up there. Besides her prison sentence . She could walk under the trees, with the chickens and goats and dogs that live around her mobile home. She could visit friends. There it was, "The Heist." David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. . 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. Ghantt:I've always known that story had potential to be a comedy or a drama. Chambers never held Campbell hostage by locking her in a shed on his property. "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). Explain? All were convicted. 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. At 7:45, David had finished loading. 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. By . One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. 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. . >> 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. 4,. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. They stocked a wine cellar. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. In real life: True. Kelly says she underestimated the value of her life before the heist. "But I had to know.". She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said.
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