Theres less security. Did you get paid? 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. Steve, who had sworn Kelly, Eric and Scott to secrecy the night of the theft, named them all to the FBI. 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. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. 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. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. He worked fueling airplanes, driving a forklift, and in 1994 he got a job as a vault superintendent at Loomis. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. 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. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. Dependent care account. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. So yeah, Im kind of proud of it.. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Hed be in contact. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. . "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. 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. . He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. Ghantt was the vault manager and was surrounded. Given the presence of the surveillance tapes and a gun belonging to Ghantt, they started with Ghantts phone and pager records and discovered a pattern they attributed to an accomplice. Almost 19 years after Ghantt and a group of friends from Gaston County pulled off one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history, the movie "Masterminds" will play up the caper for laughs. To say nothing of their art purchases like the aforementioned velvet Elvis portrait and a painting of a bulldog dressed as General George S. Patton. 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. No hard feelings. 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. In real life: True. Explain? Then another. The Loomis case is another example where the amount of restitution ordered vs. what is actually paid are two dramatically different numbers. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. 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. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. 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. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. He told Steve he hadn't been able to find David. "For the first year, they're all over you. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . Dental plans . So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. If you want me to leave, Ill leave. Then, Ghantt went into another room. That was great. But after she left, she reached back out to Ghantt and brought up what theyd talked about that day in the break room. 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. Kelly called David at. ", "Even then . They soon realized David had stolen more money than would fit in their 55-gallon barrels. By late November, McKinney made a third trip to Mexico, saying he'd help David move to Mexico City. 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. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. In real life: False. But what did that mean? 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. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Ghantt:It's a comedy. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. 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. But it wasnt. Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. It's about the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery also known as the "hillbillly heist" the second largest cash robbery in the history of the United States. His new life in Mexico had begun. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. About 10 frantic minutes later, Scott found the right key. Ghantt was scheduled to work a shift at the armored car company Oct. 4. 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. David had grabbed $50,000 cash, but could figure out only how to carry $25,000 with him on the plane. . Is he telling the truth? I knew it was just a matter of time. This is the person I counted as my friend. 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. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. . 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,. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. Scary. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. 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. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. Not many people can say they stole $17 million from their employer and had Zach Galifianakis play them in a movie. All rights reserved. Loomis employees drive the very core of our business. His name was Corey. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. It will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. 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. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. 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. 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.. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. Some of that money is just gone. . Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. 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. I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Yes, happy. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. 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.. I missed my wife. Looking for Kelly Loomis? Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? Everybody seemed stunned. . And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. 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. Steve told Scott to ignore the remaining stacks, which were mostly ones and fives. And to me, if it pisses them off, Im all for it.. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? . They entered their dogs in fights and watched them die. Its in the ether. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. You have to remember that it's Hollywood and they'll take what was a minor event and they'll blow it up and make it as funny as they can.". real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Exciting. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. 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. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. It was his goodbye. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. 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. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. "He was speechless," said Sandra Floyd. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. Instead of lobster, the man who stole $17 million survived on home-cooked pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches. He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. There it was, "The Heist." So I was glad it was over. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. It was the first Saturday in October. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. On the radio, the "John Boy and Billy" show played the song "Take the Money and Run. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. Chambers did hire McKinney to kill Ghantt, but initially McKinney was making personal cash deliveries to Ghantt in Mexico on behalf of Chambers. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. 27 febrero, 2023 . David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. Where was Ghantt? After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. 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. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. 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. 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. The cash was covered with dog food. The name she gave the pup is apropos. Ghantt:I've always known that story had potential to be a comedy or a drama. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." In real life: True. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. 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. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly 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. 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 to pay back more than $4 million. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. He goes, My name is Bruno. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' . Our Benefits. This time, David told McKinney the truth. "Think of how many women would have stood by. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. The FBI now knew Chambers had Loomis cash. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. Sweat soaked David's uniform. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me.