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"I missed my family. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. 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. She will never get beyond the debt. More agents waited outside to arrest them. ". ". He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. . Scott was so nervous, he said, that he couldn't help. 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. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. ". 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. The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. 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 . Why had he ever believed he'd get it? 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. 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 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. 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. 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. David trusted her. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. Steve had another conversation with Kelly about killing David. 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. 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. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. 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. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. But in November, money ran low. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. They soon realized David had stolen more money than would fit in their 55-gallon barrels. . She was a wife and mother with two children. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. "It probably should bother me," he said. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? Cool, I say. 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. 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. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. Then another. But Ghantt, who served as an unpaid consultant to the movie and attended the big Los Angeles premiere earlier in the week, has no such reservations. . Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. They bought a BMW roadster. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. . Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. This story was originally published October 3, 2016, 9:12 PM. Hes very articulate. Its in the ether. 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, 'I don't want him killed.' Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. Him and I still talk every now and then. Not a documentary. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. An officer rang the doorbell. . And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. Was that really what it was about? Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. But it was the rural, Southern backgrounds of many of the key players, along with the many botched twists and bungled turns, that led the media to dub it the hillbilly heist.. "He was in tears. Kelly says she underestimated the value of her life before the heist. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. 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 . In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. Some of the biggest numbers remaining on the Loomis collection board, as is the case with Campbell, belong to those who played the biggest role in the crime: David Ghantt, the Loomis employee who loaded all that money 2,800 pounds in all into the back of a company van before escaping to Mexico, has paid just under $50,000 of the $3.81 million he was assessed. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. . His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. See all of the stories here. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. 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. 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. 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. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. 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. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. 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. The cart held about $2 million, and the thief made multiple trips. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. 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. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. He goes, My name is Bruno. Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. David was living under the name Mike McKinney on a phony ID. . But what did that mean? On the evening of October 4, 1997, one man loaded $17.3 million in cash from the vaults of Loomis, Fargo & Co. into the back of a van. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. You can seize property. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. Hed be in contact. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. 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.. 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. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. She could visit friends. And after two years, you're just a file." Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. 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. Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? He said every year he files his taxes and the IRS takes all of his tax return. I don't blame him.". He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. "I've moved on with my life," he said Tuesday. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. 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. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' They sweated, though the night was cool. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. Chambers did hire McKinney to kill Ghantt, but initially McKinney was making personal cash deliveries to Ghantt in Mexico on behalf of Chambers. and "I love money!" 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. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. 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. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. 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:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. 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. Kelly drove David to the airport. Ghantt fled to Mexico. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. Health savings account and flexible spending account. Mine did. Just head on out. And so, he did. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. This meant a bump in pay, up to $8.15 an hour. About 200 keys dangled from it. You might as well go all the way now.". It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. He couldn't even bear to stick around for the final tally--though when he left he didn't forget to take $6,000, the first cut of his expected $100,000 share. 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 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. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. >> 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,. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. "I thought he was goofing around.". Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. When I call Ghantt to discuss his involvement in the Loomis Fargo heist, he confesses that hes feeling a bit tired from a day of honest labor. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. That time in prison was actually good for me. So yeah, Ghantt continues, I took a bus from there to Atlanta, and then I hopped a cab from the bus station to the airport in Atlanta., Back in North Carolina, his accomplices were working as fast as they could to hide the $17 million. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. Despite a mega-watt cast featuring Zach Galifianakis and a handful of some of Saturday Night Lives biggest current and former stars, Masterminds, the comedy about Loomis Fargo robbery completely tanked at the box office in its opening weekend, bowing in sixth place with just $6.6 million. And I was thinking about just showing up there. 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. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. I just want people to go to the movies and have a good laugh, even if it's at my expense. Loomis Armored Shreveport, LA, 1124 Forum Dr, Shreveport, LA, USA Shreveport, LA, USA Req #1990. That was the most painful truth to come to. Military + Veterans. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. I've got a good woman.". He was also a former FBI informant who had tipped the bureau off to a planned robbery of a Loomis Fargo armored truck that never came to fruition. David thought about it. . The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. Before long, the FBI had wiretaps on the ringleader, Steve Chambers, and then they waited for the right time to make their arrests. Her case closes in 2025. The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? For reasons that remain obscure, Robert spilled the beans to David. After years of reflection and time in prison to work on himself, Ghantt was able to find a way to a better version of himself. A report by the General Accounting Office found that as of budget year 2016, $110 billion in restitution ordered by the federal courts was outstanding and that more than 90% of the amount had been classified as uncollectible.. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said.