Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. 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. She could visit friends. Thomas Grant, who served three years in prison for bank larceny, paid off restitution of $70,000; brother Eric Grant paid all of his $26,000; as did David Craig, $40,000; and Dennis and Sandra Floyd; $27,000. We got this guy named Bruno. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Its hilarious. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. . You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP), Police: Officer Who Shot Black Man Retired 'In Bad Standing', 3 Kansas City Officers Who Were Shot Released From Hospital, 1 Killed When Business Jet Encounters Severe Turbulence. At the time of the real robbery, Chambers was facing criminal charges hed written 30K worth of bad checks and was facing jail time for it. It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. 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. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. "Every time my conscience would start bothering me," Kelly recalled, "I'd smoke another joint and forget about it.". 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. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. In real life: True. 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 . He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Steve tried keys on a side door. Then, on a mid-September day, as he reviewed a credit card bill, David did some math. . 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. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. 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. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. They paid for all of it in cash. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. He para-sailed, power-skied and scuba-dived. 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. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. 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.. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. There were times when I drank really heavily.". Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. They put up mauve wallpaper. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. You're an idiot.'". David Ghantt, who pulled off the Loomis, Fargo & Co. vault robbery in 1997 and was sentenced to seven years in prison for the crime, served as a consultant for the film (in theaters Friday). 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. 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. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. ", "Even then . Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. . 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. That was great. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. 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. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. The money was heavy. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. All were convicted. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. 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. The Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. Its kind of like that. Kelly drove David to the airport. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. You can seize property. and "I'm rich!". Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. Were others involved? When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. 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. 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 was trying to figure out a way to [leave my husband] and take care of my kids without having to depend on him or any other man," Kelly said. (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). Ghantt:I've always known that story had potential to be a comedy or a drama. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. . I wanted to get as far away as I could. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. The name she gave the pup is apropos. Then another. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. Question: You were a consultant? On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. Tickle Me Kaczynski: How the Inventor of the Ultimate Elmo Toy Became a Unabomber Suspect, A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Geres Ass Gerbil. Sweat soaked David's uniform. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. David trusted her. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. He kept looking over his shoulder. Did you get paid? "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. . Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. Dependent care account. Was that really what it was about? And then I could hear her laughing. 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. 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. . "For the first year, they're all over you. He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. 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. I hear her typing. Kelly was lying. She could walk under the trees, with the chickens and goats and dogs that live around her mobile home. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. Kelly was no criminal. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. 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. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. 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. 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. Eric watched. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. 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. Military + Veterans. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. As with many recent historic events, this one had been caught on videotape, a fact that a few dozen Charlotte FBI agents would learn in a hastily organized Sunday morning meeting. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. This is the person I counted as my friend. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. More than half of the amount came from the seizure of a luxury home purchased by husband-and-wife defendants during their post-heist spending spree. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." "I said, 'I don't want him killed.' He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. The Chambers, however, didnt fit in with the other members of the gated community. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. and "I love money!" From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. ", "I wouldn't do it. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. . When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. In real life: False. Loomis Armored Shreveport, LA, 1124 Forum Dr, Shreveport, LA, USA Shreveport, LA, USA Req #1990. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. "He said, 'Yeah, right,' and turned his head. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. 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. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. Was Queen Charlotte Black? The platform is designed to engage citizens and government leaders in a discussion about what needs improvement across the country. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. Im a very deliberate person. But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. At 7:45, David had finished loading. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? Not a documentary. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. So yeah, Im kind of proud of 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. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. How Bridgerton restarted buzz about her ancestry. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Industry leading Training and Development. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. They cursed. And youre like, Come on parachute. Michele received the best gift of the night. Kelly called David at. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. ". The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. Ghantt:It's kid-friendly, it's family-friendly (the movie is rated PG-13). 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. . At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. 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. She laughed for like 45 minutes. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? 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.. The cash was covered with dog food. That time in prison was actually good for me. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 millionliterally more than one ton of cash. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. Her husband gave her a brown teddy bear. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. ". In real life: True. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. He flew in an ultra-light plane. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? 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. . Still, she wasn't happy. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. 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. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. She was devastated, Diamant said. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. shaka wear graphic tees is candy digital publicly traded ellen lawson wife of ted lawson real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist 25 Feb/23 (No Ratings Yet) . Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. 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. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. 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. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. Posted on . Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. 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.. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. In real life: False. 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. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said 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. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. "I've moved on with my life," he said Tuesday. 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. Then another. Or that it was an inheritance. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. ". 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. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. 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. I studied up on the FBI. No hard feelings. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. 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. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. It was his goodbye. Now two NC men face prison. The mystery 1-4-3 caller had been Kelly, though agents didn't know it yet. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. Cool, I say. 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. Before David left for the airport, he had handed Scott an eight-inch key ring. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. 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 will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. Mexican police, Interpol officers and an FBI agent were watching him. Steve now needed a hit man. 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. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. 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. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. . "I was thinking, 'They aren't paying me enough,' " McKinney recalled. David complained it wasn't enough. But it wasnt. Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? Health savings account and flexible spending account. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. 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. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home. Ghantt:It's a comedy. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. In real life: False. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. I can take it.". All I needed was a change of pace.". 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. 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. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? 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. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. 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.