Unfortunately, he failed to disable the third camera. The Latest Innovations That Are Driving The Vehicle Industry Forward, More than $100 million of property stolen, Diamonds, gold, silver and other type of jewelry. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. So I was glad it was over. Finally, in March 1998, the FBI traced a call from Ghantts phone and he was arrested in Mexico. The FBI quickly connected Ghantt to Campbell, who was a former Loomis Fargo employee. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. Get an all-access pass to never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ A woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored car company Loomis, Fargo & Co. She laughed for like 45 minutes. But thanks in part to the film, the outlandish story of David Ghannt and the Loomis Fargo heist will surely live on for years to come. 8 Who are the actors in the movie Masterminds? So with the assistance of a co-worker and possible love interest as well as a small-time criminal, David Ghantt pulled off the then-second-largest cash heist in U.S. history. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. On October 6, they found the van with everything that Chambers had left behind, including Ghanttsgun and a clear picture of his face on video, which was identified by supervisors. WebCampbell 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 He was the only employee unaccounted for the next morning, and videotapes recovered at the Loomis Fargo Charlotte office showed Ghantt removing "cubes of cash" and loading it into a Loomis Fargo armored van for over an hour. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. There was one problem: he forgot to remove the tape from the third security camera. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it, Ghantt remembered later to the Gaston Gazette. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. 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.. Ghantts accomplices soon showed up but now they had another problem. Soon everyone would know about the arrests in the $17 million Loomis Fargo heist. Within two days, the investigators found the van with $3 million in cash and the security camera tapes inside. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. WebGhantt was joking in the breakroom with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell. It affects everybody different. Who pulled off the biggest heist in history? He left his wedding ring behind and spent his days spending money on luxury hotels and scuba diving. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. They would then load as much cash as they could carry into a van. hbspt.cta.load(360031, '4efd5fbd-40d7-4b12-8674-6c4f312edd05', {}); Have any questions about this article or other topics? I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. Ron DeSantis has awarded $100 million for beach erosion projects and other restoration efforts in 16 coastal counties damaged by Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole, A Tennessee judge has ruled that video detailing the treatment of a death row inmate who cut off his penis while on suicide watch must be made public, An Indiana man faces felony charges after his diaper-clad 4-year-old son was seen pointing a loaded handgun at people outside their apartment. It was an open-and-shut case and all authorities had to do now was to find the culprit and identify Ghantts accomplices. I mentioned it to Kelly. [citation needed], The defendants were the targets of many barbed jokes in Charlotte and across the country, in part because of their extravagant spending. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. On Oct. 4, Ghantt sent home the employee he was training and disabled two security cameras near the vault in preparation for the heist. Campbell made her way back to Charlotte (Ghantt was told by Chambers to head to Atlanta and catch a flight from there), where the money had since been moved into barrels and into another van. [7][8], Rocket Science, a 1998 double-disc album by Charlotte-based radio personalities John Boy & Billy, includes a track ("Marvin: The Loomis Caper") mocking the defendants. The next day, the Chambers, Campbell, and some other notable parties were arrested in Charlotte. The Dunbar Armored robbery is the largest cash robbery to have occurred in the United States. Ten days later, the group was indicted for bank larceny and money laundering. WebTwo days after the heist, the FBI found the missing van with $3.3 million of cash left in it. Cool, I say. Authorities began to hone in on the group and put a wire tap on Campbell's phones. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] The thieves had simply abandoned whatever they couldnt carry away. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. To make a successful getaway, Ghantt had to lift nearly 2,800 pounds of currency. Naturally, Ghantt started to run out of cash and turned to Chambers, who was annoyed by his requests for more money. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. WebHolding her hands behind her back, Michele Chambers was sentenced Tuesday to seven years and eight months in prison for her role in the $17 million heist from Loomis, Fargo 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. He completed his prison sentence in November 2006. All of the cash from the Loomis Fargo heist was recovered or accounted for, except for $2 million. WebCampbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantts feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. 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. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. He goes, My name is Bruno. This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Phillip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery. followed by "Don't worry, it is not drug money," the bank filled out a suspicious activity report, which ultimately reached the FBI. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Just days after agreeing to the plan, the group set a day to carry out the robbery. 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. When asked what the dumbest thing was that Ghantt spent money on, he admitted: The 4 pairs of boots I bought in one day [shrug] what can I say they were nice and I was impulse shopping.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LCR9zyGkbo. Although the FBI investigation was able to quickly connect Ghantt to Campbell, connecting Ghantt to Chambers was a more difficult task. 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. Chambers wife, Michelle, bought a minivan in cash and began taking frequent trips to the bank to make deposits. Get to me. Its that kind of excitement.. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. WebNo products in the cart. Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here: PrepScholar 2013-2018. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. According to an Observer article, signs point to Campbells involvement stemming from the desire to experience what it was like to be rich. On September 12, 1997, six men robbed the Dunbar Armored facility on Mateo St. in Downtown Los Angeles, California of US$18.9 million (equivalent to $30.5 million in 2020). The police then called the FBI because most of the money handled at the facility belonged to banks, which technically made it a bank robbery a federal offense.[5]. That suspicion was immediately confirmed by a quick glance at the security camera footage that showed Ghantt doing a little dance after loading all the cash into the van. All but one of the defendants pleaded guilty. David Ghantt struck up a relationship with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell, and they continued to maintain contact even after Campbell left the company. 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. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. No dry runs, no rehearsals. Loomis has received $978,983.79, according to Sally Butcher, an assistant clerk in the federal courts of the Western District of North Carolina who specializes in criminal debt. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off the s Dozens of FBI agents everywhere. Ghantt sent home a new employee and quickly loaded the money into the back of a bank van. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. Campbell helped plot the robbery of Loomis Charlotte vault on Oct. 4, 1997, with David Ghantt, a Loomis supervisor who stole the money, and Steve Chambers, a longtime Campbell friend. 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. When Ghantt called Chambers to have the latter wire him more money, Chambers sent just a few thousand dollars. Having only brought $50,000 in cash, however, Ghantt soon found himself short on funds. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Ghantt, in order to conserve this money, curtailed his spending. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. For a time, it was nicknamed "the hillbilly heist" because nearly all of the major players in the case came from small towns around Charlotte. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. But after one visit, she asked a teller "How much can I deposit before you have to report it to the feds?" Where did the masterminds live after the heist? While Ghantt waited for the heat from the robbery to die down, Chambers would send Ghantt small amounts of money. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. On March 1, 1988, Mexican police arrested Ghantt at Playa del Carmen. Learning about US history? Chambers and his wife also made some cash payments on a few cars. I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. It changes you. I was working all the time and unhappy I felt cornered and one day the joking in the break room about robbing the place suddenly didnt seem so far-fetched.. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. Anonymous tips had the FBI monitoring Chambers calls. 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. But even though he worked for a company that regularly moved millions of dollars, David Ghantt himself was underpaid. 4 What is the largest armored car robbery? Before he decided to steal $17 million from the bank, Ghantt had worked for years as a relatively taciturn and compliant employee. David Ghantt was a technical consultant for the film, but due to outstanding court-ordered restitution for his part in the heist he was not paid. 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. The U.S. Other noteworthy purchases included a diamond ring and Rolex for themselves, tanning beds and big-screen TVs for their home and breast implants for Chambers wife. 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 plan to rob Loomis Fargo was spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at Chambers home. Ridicule of those involved in what remains one of the largest cash thefts in U.S. history would soon begin. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. At 6:40 p.m., he headed to his car along with three other employees before returning to the depository, where hed propped open the door. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. 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