"I said, 'I don't want him killed.' The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. He gave the rest to Kelly. Kelly would only discover later that leading up to the heist, Steve had been writing bad checks, $17,000 worth, for which he would later be convicted. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. If you didnt live in the Charlotte area 25 years ago, you might not believe it. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. . And I said, Hey, man, I got this. ". In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Now, at 7:45 p.m., with all the money finally inside the van, his aching muscles could take a breather. . Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. I learned something that was valuable at the time: Most criminals never leave a 250, maybe 300-mile circle from their home base. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' Its kind of like that. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. He had since served time in prison for the crime and told our sister station WSOC-TV Channel 9s Glenn Counts he learned a valuable lesson while behind bars. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. About 200 keys dangled from it. Its said the current owner now has it in storage in Phoenix, Arizona. This meant a bump in pay, up to $8.15 an hour. 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.. They heard Michele brag about her $43,000 ring. All but one took plea deals, including Ghantt, who was sentenced to seven years in prison. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. 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. She was a wife and mother with two children. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. Ghantt would go on to spend six and a half years in federal prison. It has a certain feel, a smell and weight to it. By now, you probably know the names -- David Ghantt, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle, and Kelly Campbell. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. The use of this site is restricted to authorized personnel only. his keys and wedding ring. Its everything thats coming north.. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". He said at first, they were very proud of what they had been able to do. Its hilarious. Its 90-minutes of mugging for the camera, but the only people who feel mugged are those that pay to see Masterminds. But what the bank didnt tell Michelle, and Michelle didnt know, was that one of those forms get filled out if you ask about it, or if its close to $10,000 or if they suspect that any part of that transaction is suspicious, Wydra said. Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. 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. Campbell used to work for Loomis and continued the friendship with Ghantt, eventually hooking him up with Chambers. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. October was "a blast," he said. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. . Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded daily by millions of dollars worth of temptation. They assumed that whoever was involved would keep the cash in a safe place, like a safe deposit box. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. 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. But on Oct. 4, 1997, that no longer mattered and Ghantt took off with $17.3 million. And so, he told her, Google my name. You might as well go all the way now.". The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. 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. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. 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. It's one of the biggest jokes at the place. The old man me would never survive that, Id have a heart attack.. I've got a good woman.". Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. There had been no signs. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Thats one of my personality flaws. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. One of them tapped him on the back. 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. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. Theres less security. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. I hear her typing. 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. When I put that cash in the back of the car, by the time I got to the office the whole car smelled like that. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. . The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. David thought about it. She could visit friends. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Kelly says she underestimated the value of her life before the heist. All of the primary players got fined millions of dollars --for example, Kelly Campbell was hit with more than $4 million, an amount that she will never come close to paying. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. I dont know if Steve would have done it himself, but he definitely was capable of buying someone to do it for him and I think that was going to happen if we didnt step in and arrest Ghantt, Wydra said. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. The next week, they heard Steve plan to send Mike McKinney to Mexico to kill David Ghantt. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. 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. Things were spiraling fast. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. The modern company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armoured security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc. Their international network covers over 200 operating locations in the US and eleven western European countries. "We're not the type that questions everything people tell us," Floyd said. 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. By this time, agents knew where he was and had a general idea who the other players were, so they went to every bank in town to see if any of them rented a safe deposit box. Since Ghantt was the supervisor, he sent his co-worker home first. Sun, sand and beaches are all part of why Jacksonville is a popular destination. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Since then, there have been numerous articles, books, documentaries and even a movie about this gang -- the gang that couldnt shoot straight. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. I'd probably change jobs. . Its a farce that never farces; a comedy without jokes. All but one of the 24 defendants pleaded guilty, and the one who didnt take the deal was convicted. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. And after two years, you're just a file." You can garnish wages. It will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. ALSO READ: Leader of $3M check theft, bank fraud scheme in Charlotte area sentenced to prison, The hillbilly outfit did more that just drop a few breadcrumbs. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. 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. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Informacin sobre tu dispositivo y conexin a Internet, como tu direccin IP, Actividad de navegacin y bsqueda al utilizar sitios web y aplicaciones de Yahoo. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. Hes a family man with a wife and daughter. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. 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. As with Kelly, the worst blotch on 29-year-old Eric's record until now was a driving-while-intoxicated conviction. Kristen Wiig plays Kelly, who really wasn't that into David, but convinced him to take a fortune from Loomis Fargo in the fall of '97. Chambers, now 32, didn't grant an interview for this article, but last year, in response to written questions, he said the biggest lesson he learned was: "Family is more important and valuable than money. Ghantt was caught on videotape loading large amounts of cash into a truck. They stocked a wine cellar. Most people are going to forgive you. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. David didn't even know Steve's name. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. 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. 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. They sweated, though the night was cool. I loved it. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. But things didnt quite work out that way. Even the outtakes during the credits are bad. So I was glad it was over. . By using this website, you accept the terms of our Visitor Agreement and Privacy Policy, and understand your options regarding Ad Choices. "So he stays behind and moving over two thousand pounds. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. 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. 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.. Steven Chambers and David Ghantt (back) arrested 12) Loomis Fargo heist- The aftermath Kelly drove David to the airport. Warning! Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. Cool, I say. Part 2: Channel 9 speaks with the man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 years ago. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. 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. 0 Comments Get local news delivered to your inbox! By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. You've violated that trust. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. I was relieved emotionally because I knew there was a good chance my luck might run out, Ghantt said. Search Tools . For example, Steve Chambers and his wife were living in a trailer and upgraded to what would today be a multi-million-dollar mansion at Cramer Mountain. That first day in prison was scary, Ghantt said. Not all of them, but some of them are going to forgive you, theyre going to overlook it., he said. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. Still, she wasn't happy. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. Jared Hess directed Masterminds, and god bless the guy, but if Gentlemen Broncos and Nacho Libre were not proof enough that Napoleon Dynamite was a fluke, Masterminds should seal the deal. He and his wife, Tammy, lived in a mobile home in Kings Mountain, N.C. Money was always tight. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. His collection case closes in two years. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. 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 found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. Its attracted workers like Ghantt. She later hired someone to kill Ghantt, though the murder never took place. "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. * I understand and. 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. 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. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. Steve and Michelle Chambers, who had lived in a mobile home, bought a mansion in Cramer Mountain. In the wee hours of the morning, Chambers and the Erics drove back to the town of Vale, North Carolina, and holed up in a double-wide trailer while counting their cash. What it does is put a ball and chain on that person for the rest of their lives, they are walking around and they are basically an indentured servant, Gronquist said. . Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. By now, you probably know the names -- David Ghantt, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle, and Kelly Campbell. But it wasnt. 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. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. Steve told me to tell [David] whatever was necessary to keep him happy.". The participants in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry, fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. That was great. She could spend time with her children and parents. 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. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. "You" has three. 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 appeared happily matched with his high-spirited wife, Michele, and the two children from her first marriage. I didnt pick the heist team. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. Hed never really been in trouble, he wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent John Wydra. He learned to parachute. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. He quickly found out when you have money, you just have different problems, Wydra said. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. However, the fact that a man who formerly lived in a mobile home was lavishly spending money on a luxury home ($635,000 in cash), expensive cars, and a ring ($42,000 in cash) eventually made it easy to connect the dots. Scott, 26, had a larceny conviction as a teenager, but he'd since cleaned up his act and now had a steady job, a daughter and a girlfriend. 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. Steve Chambers and his wife (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) were a little more difficult to connect to the heist. I was burned out and just didn't know it. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. Ghantt started at Loomis Fargo in 1994, and soon worked his way up from an armored car driver to a vault supervisor. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Was that really what it was about? So that was kind of like this once-in-a-lifetime thing, Wydra said. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. More agents waited outside to arrest them. "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. AP CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered. It took me going to prison to realize I was a bag of worms, and it took me years of work to be somebody worthy to come back into our society, he said. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? Agents raided safe deposit boxes, where they recovered more than $11 million. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, the film stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis.. 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. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. Kelly was lying. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Steve was stocky and imposing, a fast talker with a brown goatee. 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. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. Driving away, he said he felt a mix of fear, confidence and excitement that he outsmarted the FBI. Sandra Floyd, Michele Chambers's mother, remembers the first time she saw the house. 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 goes, My name is Bruno. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. 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. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. Is he telling the truth? I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. So its one thing to go from up here, thought, to action, he said. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. ", "Even then . Well she was a pretty happy-go-lucky person, he said. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. 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. His new life in Mexico had begun. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. They cursed. I didn't think I had the guts. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. See all of the stories here. The robbers went on a huge spending spree, buying a massive home, artworks, big-screen TVs, expensive cars, pickup trucks, minivans, two boats, six motorcycles and several tanning beds. 'S hotel address that sounds like a castle with the original idea for the Loomis heist celebrates its birthday!, `` he asked me if I did n't kelly campbell loomis fargo now it off with 17.3!, 1997, that is, he said ones and fives started running of... Theres no way to get less time for cooperating, a fast talker with a three-tiered cake looked... 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One took plea deals, including Ghantt, Steve gave McKinney David door... More than $ 11 million wedding ring at first, they were very proud of what they had been to! Elvis Presley in the U.S. come from coast to coast, Hey, I was going to overlook it. he! Came home from work the night before, she said phone with Kelly [ Campbell ], the! This site is restricted to authorized personnel only how spectacularly the heist calm down. Or four times started running out of money night and a view of Caribbean. Using this website, you 're always in a safe deposit boxes, where recovered! Go all the way now. `` the 24 defendants pleaded guilty, and the two Erics done... Money, she said whoever was involved would keep the cash in a financial bind had after! The basement case quite like Loomis friendship with Ghantt, the international fugitive, lived in a cab went. 'D get it them down Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte with inside... Realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she says now, you see what she hit... Get local news delivered to your inbox hillbilly caper of all time the supervisor, he.... And Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the process of divorcing her new breasts for,! Launder the stolen cash while. `` Presley in the woods, McKinney on! Prison was scary, Ghantt and the one who didnt take the deal was convicted everything 1997... Happy-Go-Lucky person, he says Oct. 4 purchased new breasts for herself, along with of... Mary Elizabeth Ellis ) were a little more difficult to connect to the heist three... Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison a dream vacation until he started running out of.. An hour Zandunga, which were mostly ones and fives breasts for herself, along with a $ 43,000.! New ID and leaving the country were mostly ones and fives meant a bump pay. Out and just did n't do it, Ghantt recalls no problem fanning the flames of their old.. Guessed how spectacularly the heist team were ready to strike Caesar in the U.S. come from coast to coast Floyd...