2023 Cox Media Group. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. Its in the ether. The plan was for Ghantt to commit the actual robbery and then quickly leave the country forMexico but to leave the bulk of the cash with Chambers. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later While David Ghantt trusted Steve Chambers enough to leave his cut behind, Chambers had other plans. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. And they could barely afford the minimum payments, given the power bills, phone bills, car insurance bills, and home payments they had to meet. However, Chambers had no intention of following those rules, believing the FBI would never connect him to Ghantt. They could talk about anything, even topics he couldn't discuss with his wife. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats Twenty years ago this Wednesday, a small group of people stole $17 million in cash from the main vault of a Loomis Fargo & Co. armored-car warehouse in west Charlotte. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. The world is full of unexplained events, strange mysteries, and mysterious legends. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. She had attitude. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. All but one of the 24 defendants pleaded guilty, and the one who didnt take the deal was convicted. "Are you serious?" Libraries without that edition should consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel. Loomis Fargo, the nation's largest privately held armored- car company, used vans to transport hundreds of millions of dollars a day belonging to banks and other businesses, stocking automated teller machines and storing money in the Loomis vault between deliveries. My knee-jerk reaction was to be angry, and then the sarcastic ass side of me started laughing about it, Ghantt said. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. It all went down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the man at the center of that heist, David Scott Ghantt, now lives in Jacksonville. David and the trainee left the warehouse. He knew it would mean leaving Tammy. "For the first year after a crime," he told her, "they're all over you, with six to ten agents. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. 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. All but one took plea deals, including Ghantt, who was sentenced to seven years in prison. David was supposed to be showing him the ropes of the job, which included cash pickups and deliveries. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. Still facing possible unknowns of other people involved, the FBI needed to gather more information without the suspects getting suspicious of them. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Worlds Biggest Heists London Hatton Garden 200m Diamond Robbery, Easter 2015. He loves his motorcycle and enjoys going fishing and, while hes sorry for the past, hes not ashamed to talk about it. They kept several furnishings from the previous owners, including avelvet Elvis. It should have been easy, but for some reason the gate didn't open for him. David and Steve had never met, but Steve had already secured somebody else's birth certificate and social security card for him and given it to Kelly to pass along. He added that he would be able to send the trainee home at about 6:00 p.m. and would then need about an hour to load the money from carts, shelves, and the floor into a Loomis company van. 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. There are many robberies registered in the history of America, but the Loomis Fargo Robbery is known to be the second largest robbery in the United States. This technically made it abank robbery afederal offense. She was five-foot-seven, had dirty-blond hair, and had worked with him for about a year at Loomis Fargo, until she left for another job in 1996. The Loomis Fargo Heist Over the next months, Ghantt, Campbell, and Chambers developed a plan. 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. Then we went on a mission to calculate exactly how much size-wise the money was, $11.3 million in $20 bills, and it weighed over 2,000 pounds, Wydra said. She'd left Loomis in November 1996 to take a job elsewhere as a security guard. 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. The actual crime itself required none of Hollywood's imagination. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. Afterward, she and David would talk just occasionally on the phone. uncanny, eerie, unnatural, preternatural, supernatural, unearthly, other-worldly, unreal, ghostly, mysterious, mystifying, strange, abnormal, unusual. He added that money can be a motivator for anyone. Agents raided safe deposit boxes, where they recovered more than $11 million. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Then they returned it. - 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. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. Heist! According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. At 2:20 p.m., the phone rang; it was Kelly again. "So he stays behind and moving over two thousand pounds of . Not all of them, but some of them are going to forgive you, theyre going to overlook it., he said. Steve had hired a bodyguard named Mike McKinney. Investigators also found Ghantts pickup truck, abandoned at the warehouse. Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty-dollar bills. There was a book published in 2002 as well, by author Jeff Diamant called,Heist! On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. Booklist "Librariesshould consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel." "I'm busy," he said. RELATED: When you have money, you just have different problems: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later, How I held it together is beyond me, Ghantt said. The plan was to exit through the building's electronic back gate, which consisted of horizontal metal plates that opened at the touch of a button. 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. They also purchased expensive cars, jewelry and a breast enhancement or two. Tuesday marked 25 years since a group of buddies pulled off the third-largest money grab in U.S. history -- the Loomis Fargo heist. 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. Thank you so much. Sure enough, she called a few days later, around September 16. Former FBI agent John Wydra, who helped crack the case, sat down with Channel 9 Reporter Glenn Counts to talk about the clues that led to solving the crime, and how the group got caught. Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. So they went to Mexico and arrested Ghantt in order to protect him. Human nature is a flexible part of life, Gronquist said. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. 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. These cookies do not store any personal information. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. These weren't the hardest of criminals, and though there was logic to not knowing each other's names, they had derived some of their methods from Hollywood depictions of crime. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.'. Enforcement of this policy is at the >> 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.. The next day, before Mike was able to leave the country, the FBI arrested him in his hotel room. As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to edit or Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. Cool interesting stuff features everything odd, weird, bizzare, strange or unusual. In addition to their extravagant spending, Michelle Chambers made the mistake of loudly asking a bank teller how much cash she could deposit in her account without it being reported to the feds, and then said, its not drug money.. She sounded incredulous. But this time on the phone, Kelly wasn't joking. He wanted to leave his wife for her, and Kelly, who also was married, let him think she wanted the same. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. And once he started, he didn't stop with one cartful. Paying the money back has taken a lot longer, and time is running out for the U.S. government to collect. We went on a mission to calculate exactly how much size-wise the money was, $11.3 million in $20 bills, and it weighed over 2,000 pounds, former FBI agent John Wydra said. Have a youtube channel or website similar? That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. Chambers had no intention of wiring any money to Ghantt and intended to have him killed to keep him from implicating the others. 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. Library Journal "highly entertaining." It wasn't how much you stole that mattered most; it was that you had stolen in the first place. "But you can still have a cigarette.". Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. Winds light and variable. The principals here are David Ghantt, a driver for Loomis, Fargo and Co.; Kelly Campbell, the woman Ghantt had a crush on, and who convinced him to commit the crime; and Steve and Michele Chambers. The trainee didn't know to check to make sure it was closed. Its a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I went down and talked to them, got to meet Zach Galifianakis and the director, Ghantt said.
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