Steven Chambers [Misc. . Dental plans . His new life in Mexico had begun. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? 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. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. Scary. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. I was just going to get the money into the van. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. "For the first year, they're all over you. He flew in an ultra-light plane. And going to see the Mayan ruins. All were convicted. . Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. The plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers' home. 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. 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. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. He couldn't talk.". David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. and "I'm rich!". 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. He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. She could spend time with her children and parents. And youre like, Come on parachute. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. 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. Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. Where was Ghantt? And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". 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. 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. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. 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. Just head on out. And so, he did. 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. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. And I was thinking about just showing up there. October was "a blast," he said. It was the first Saturday in October. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. You can seize property. He didnt even really question me. Some of that money is just gone. David complained it wasn't enough. . He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. 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. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. Kelly called David at Loomis; he told her he'd be ready for them with the cash at 6:30 or 7 p.m. Alone in the building, David was trying to finish loading cash from the vault into an unmarked white Ford Econoline van belonging to Loomis. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. All rights reserved. Still, she wasn't happy. Campbell, a former Loomis employee and one of the original masterminds of the caper, has paid off less than $21,000 of the $4,701,694.18 she was docked. 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. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. 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. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. In real life: False. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. 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. 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. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. But McKinney never stopped trying to kill Ghantt although, initally, McKinney thought Chambers had paid for the hit over a drug deal gone bad, Diamant said. ". A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. David thought about it. And then I could hear her laughing. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. So I guess I have no regrets. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." Inside the Mazda, Steve told Scott Grant to get out and help David. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. Ghantt:It's a comedy. I can take it.". The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. In real life: Mostly true. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. 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. 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. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. I've got a good woman.". But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. . "I was unhappy with my life. 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. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. 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. Ghantt fled to Mexico. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. I was burned out and just didn't know it. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. 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. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. She laughed for like 45 minutes. ". We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. 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. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Visit us at Loomis.us. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Because surprise! But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. "I've moved on with my life," he said Tuesday. . Things started to go south the night of the robbery. Things were spiraling fast. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. 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. 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. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. ];Kelly Jane Campbell [Misc. 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. . It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. 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. Kelly was no criminal. At 7:45, David had finished loading. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. . Theres less security. Exciting. Explain? I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. . You can garnish wages. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. "He was in tears. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. The name she gave the pup is apropos. So I was glad it was over. 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. He told him McKinney was in Mexico to kill somebody. and "I love money!" I wish them all a happy life and that's about it. Twelve hours later, at 6 that evening, Eric Payne drove a rented Budget van to his workplace, a graphics company on Performance Road in western Mecklenburg County called Reynolds & Reynolds, which was closed for the night and had a secluded parking lot where they intended to transfer the cash. This meant a bump in pay, up to $8.15 an hour. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. They put up mauve wallpaper. 1997 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items bought after Loomis, Fargo armored car facility heist by Steven Chambers, wife Michele, Kelly Jane Campbell & David Scott Ghanntt (Photo by Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images) If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. Then another. 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. 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. 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. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. Mine did. Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. . 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. They ditched the Loomis van, then drove the cash-heavy Budget van to Steve's mobile home in Lincoln County, where his wife, Michele, waited with a calculator and rubber bands. But he tried to keep his face averted, so David wouldn't be able to ID him. Her case closes in 2025. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. It was his goodbye. One of them tapped him on the back. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. 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. I knew it was just a matter of time. In early September 1997, Kelly found herself chatting on the phone with a friend who still worked at Loomis, a 27-year-old man who, despite being married, had made no secret of the fact that he had a crush on her. Hes very articulate. I missed my wife. I hear her typing. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. Michele received the best gift of the night. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. 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. "I work construction. In real life: True. I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. 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. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. 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. From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. 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 said, 'I don't want him killed.' There had been no signs. Kelly was lying. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. I would call us friends. Our Benefits. 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. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. I'd probably change jobs. He and his wife, Tammy, lived in a mobile home in Kings Mountain, N.C. Money was always tight. . Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. 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. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. In a word, "Teamwork. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024.