She laughed for like 45 minutes. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. . When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. 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. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. Not a documentary. Its kind of like that. 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. Or that it was an inheritance. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. In real life: True. There was, however, one problem with his plan. 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. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. Why fans love it. The next week, they heard Steve plan to send Mike McKinney to Mexico to kill David Ghantt. 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. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. I didnt pick the heist team. I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. Scott Grant said he hesitated, but agreed if no guns would be involved. You can seize property. All were convicted. There was a little voice in my head that said, 'Don't do it. There had been no signs. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. 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. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. No dry runs, no rehearsals. At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. That time in prison was actually good for me. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. My love for my family is by far the most important thing in my life. Ghantt:I've always known that story had potential to be a comedy or a drama. He partied, met women, drank, skied and hung out at the beach. 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. "Think of how many women would have stood by. 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. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 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. The money was heavy. Our success depends on our team members, and that's why it's important for us to offer an employee benefits program that is not only extremely comprehensive but also one of the best in the industry. ", "Even then . If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. This is the person I counted as my friend. Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. As soon as you put that first bag of stolen money in that van, theres no going back. Hes very articulate. She was devastated, Diamant said. Some of that money is just gone. Kelly says she underestimated the value of her life before the heist. Heres your money. Then he turns around and leaves., The problem was, it was nowhere near the amount Ghantt had expected: Im looking at it, and theres maybe $8,000. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? And youre like, Come on parachute. Based on a true story, the premise itself is fascinating, which makes Masterminds all the more a waste. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. . Few who were living in the area at the time can forget the "Velvet Elvis" painting Chambers had hanging in his mansion or the tales of cosmetic surgery, BMW convertibles and other signs of excess. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. 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. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? There were times when I drank really heavily.". Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. 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. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. Truth was, David wanted more than help leaving, he wanted company. ". She could spend time with her children and parents. Husband and wife Steven and Michelle Chambers, whose conspicuous consumption of a luxury home, a BMW convertible, breast implants and a $600 wooden Indian, among other purchases, helped the FBI solve the crime, were assessed $3.81 million and $4.8 million, respectively. He para-sailed, power-skied and scuba-dived. Things started to go south the night of the robbery. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. In Florida, a Loomis Fargo employee had pulled a gun on his coworkers and gotten away with $18 million, a move that FBI agents theorize Ghantt, Campbell and other employees all sat around talking about - and what they would do with that amount of money - for a while. 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. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after you. This meant a bump in pay, up to $8.15 an hour. Thats one of my personality flaws. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. In real life: False. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. Question: Are you happy that Wilkesboro-nativeZach Galifianakis plays you in the movie? It was his goodbye. . She declined to take a lie-detector test. They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. "But I had to know.". Question: You went to Mexico. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 27 febrero, 2023 . I flew from Atlanta to New Orleans. Posted on . I hear her typing. 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. First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. . After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" 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) I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. In real life: True. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. When we worked together [for Loomis], we'd joke about it. He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. She will never get beyond the debt. When McKinney realized Ghantt was wanted for the Loomis Fargo robbery, he backed off personally because he didnt want to be anywhere near a federal investigation. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. In real life: False. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? 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. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. Its everything thats coming north.. She never really worried about the moral end of it--she was focused only on getting what she wanted out of life, what so many others seemed to have in this booming part of the South. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. At first, David Ghantt said, "I didn't take her seriously. When he said, 'I'll give you $20,000 to hold a million,' I said, 'Sure.' 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. They sweated, though the night was cool. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. "I was unhappy with my life. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. Ghantt was apprehended in Mexico and returned to the United States in custody. 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. Chambers never held Campbell hostage by locking her in a shed on his property. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. He went deep-sea fishing. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. Explain? White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. First, they loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels into a rental van. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. Kelly was no criminal. And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. Ghantt:I hate to say it, but I had six years of sitting in a box to think about my life. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. 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. She could visit friends. 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. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' She also must . ", "I wouldn't do it. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. Was that really what it was about? Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. Cool, I say. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. About 200 keys dangled from it. and "I love money!" 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. 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. "I've learned that I'm a fortunate man," he said. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. . In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. Inside the Mazda, Steve told Scott Grant to get out and help David. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward after the theft. 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. 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 movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. "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. Steven Chambers [Misc. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. kellis@gastongazette.com 0:04 0:57 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. 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). Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. . Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. Eric watched. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. It was the first Saturday in October. Filming in the Asheville area starting in early July, and is. So he convinced a local hoodlum in Mexico to try to kill Ghantt. The only person not to plead guilty in the case, former Gastonia attorney Jeff Guller, ended up doing eight years for money laundering. But he tried to keep his face averted, so David wouldn't be able to ID him. Question: Should people go see this movie? They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. That October, the Chamberses' bank accounts ballooned. 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. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. 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. Scott didn't want to, but then he remembered the hundred-grand payday. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. His mobile home was nicely furnished, on eight acres with a stream in the back. Though David had said earlier he thought there was $15 million in the vault, the sight of that much cash held them spellbound. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. The pager entry was 1-4-3. Military + Veterans. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. In real life: False. ". On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. By . The figures can be astounding. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. Meanwhile, outside Reynolds & Reynolds, Steve, Scott and Eric needed to move 2,748 pounds of cash, quickly, from the Loomis van into the Budget van. But after a year, they'll cut it down to two agents. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. 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. The theft at the time the second-largest cash robbery in U.S. history has been the brunt of mocking movies and books, mostly on how the thieves, who had little money to begin with, could not control their spending habits once they did. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. He's a very likable person. 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. Will Vin Sant Leave You Jacked or Scammed? Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. 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. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Hes well thought-out. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. 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. I studied up on the FBI. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. Careers. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. 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. Reach our Customer Contact Center by calling 877.877.0560 from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM CT every day or by completing the provided form. 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. I'd probably change jobs. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. Then FBI agent Wydra watched Steve's wife, Michele, deposit about $8,000 at a Gaston County, N.C., bank. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. The Columbia airport had no available flights. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. 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. Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. We got this guy named Bruno. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. 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.. More agents waited outside to arrest them. I was burned out and just didn't know it. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. 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. She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. He had even scheduled a follow-up appointment at the dentist. "Love" has four. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. Her case closes in 2025. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. At the party, Steve invited Michele's stepfather, truck driver Dennis Floyd, to the basement to play pool. For his part, Ghantt was now officially on his way to Mexico, his future stretched out before him. They cursed. There it was, "The Heist." Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. 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 . Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Then another. Everybody seemed stunned. Updated: 11:31 AM EDT October 4, 2022 CHARLOTTE, N.C. Tuesday is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, where a bank worker, with the help of two accomplices,. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. 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. In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. They paid for all of it in cash. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. . Kelly was lying. I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. 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. . Campbell left her job in the summer of 1997, but she would later use Ghantt's feelings for her to her own advantage to get him to agree to carry out the multi-million-dollar heist. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. >> 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,. Campbell, 29, had pleaded guilty to charges of bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. 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. The Chambers, however, didnt fit in with the other members of the gated community. I really enjoyed the little scuba diving trip. Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. 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. Its in the ether. Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Instead of lobster, the man who stole $17 million survived on home-cooked pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches.