The trainee didn't know to check to make sure it was closed. A third surveillance tape was carelessly left behind, and the company was able to identify the man who robbed the vault as David Ghantt. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. 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.. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. The Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later 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. He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. He was a hard worker, smart enough, and had graduated from high school.
They Had 17 Million Dollars and No Sense at All - AMW Magazine These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. 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 you can still have a cigarette.". There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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. The Chambers home is now gated, which means Channel 9 crews cant drive up to it like we used to. He decided at that moment that if Kelly called again, he would go for it. Ghantt was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. Its said the current owner now has it in storage in Phoenix, Arizona. Except for the kiss in the pickup truck a few weeks before the heist, Kelly had kept things platonic. So that was kind of like this once-in-a-lifetime thing, Wydra said. Even with several vehicles, they underestimated how much space they would need and they had to leave $3 million behind. And then I realized that a lot of people knew who I was and they had followed the case.. of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, or 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.. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. He has been a staff writer for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey since 2000. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: But where will they park? A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. He put on his best pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and his nicest cowboy boots. The supervisor liked him and gave him the job.
The gang made numerous mistakes. The plan to. So they went to Mexico and arrested Ghantt in order to protect 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. 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Besides her prison sentence, Campbell must undergo mental health and drug treatment and spend two years in a supervised release program. Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. Once they were in custody, the overwhelming task of clearing out possessions possibly purchased with the stolen money began. After hanging up on her, David returned to work. Michelle Chambers received a few more months than Ghantt, because she had violated several bond conditions. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. Its attracted workers like Ghantt. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. Library Journal "highly entertaining." I was relieved emotionally because I knew there was a good chance my luck might run out, Ghantt said. Its in the ether. If it didn't work out, he could return to the United States later with a new identity. She had previously been making frequent small deposits to avert suspicion. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. He allegedly hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. "I've got a friend," she said, "who can hook you up with a new ID.". I gotta go.". A few of the Loomis restitution cases have already been closed either because the amount was paid in full or because the 20-year clock wound down. Their only intimate physical contact had been kissing on a mid-September night when they had driven her pickup truck to a field behind a shooting range in Gaston County to discuss their plans and the theft's chance of success. You can seize property. remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats About the worst he had done as a teenager was stealing a construction company's Porta-Jon with a friend, tying it to the back of a pickup truck, and driving around for about fifteen minutes. The plan was still on, but David remained steamed. And once he started, he didn't stop with one cartful. Hes a family man with a wife and daughter. And they hit the jackpot -- FBI video shows agents recovering most of the stolen cash. Getting that off his chest calmed him some, and the conversation returned to the plan. Now one of the most wanted men in America with the FBI hot on his heels, Ghantt must figure out how to get his money, get away from a hit man, and get even. It all seemed unfair. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft . Of course, this would all be a radical departure for him, and thoughts of his wife and parents did give him pause. You can garnish wages. In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt about an old high school friend of hers named Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt to execute a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. If the American Dream involved being better off as adults than your parents were, David was experiencing a version of the American Nightmare. Aprs de nombreux seconds rles comiques au cinma, elle parvient percer en co-crivant et tenant le rle principal de la They had met in December 1995 on one of her first days at Loomis. Inside the truck, they found Ghantts ring and surmised this as a sign of Ghantts intention to end his relationship with his wife. The old man me would never survive that, Id have a heart attack.. A customs inspector, asking routine questions of bus passengers, focused her attention on him when his answers reminded her of Tommy Flanagan, the pathological-liar character played by Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. 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. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. It, too, has changed hands several times. We dont have the manpower to track all that (restitution) money down I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. He shut the empty vault and set its timer so the vault could not be opened for two or three days. These cookies do not store any personal information. Ghantt studied how to rob his employer and advised the others not to spend the money lavishly. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. He knew his mother would be traumatized, shocked, and appalled. Its in the ether. They had to be extremely careful not to tip off the group, as they could lose potential conspirators or more information important to a conviction. Over the next two weeks, David thought about it. Driving away, he said he felt a mix of fear, confidence and excitement that he outsmarted the FBI. Oh were not going to talk to anybody, theyre not going to be able to convict us, that bravado happens in the beginning and then it often gets worn down by the reality, Gronquist said. Then they returned it. Asked the purpose of his visit, Johnson had replied, "To visit friends. Copyright The Nashua Telegraph | https://www.nashuatelegraph.com | 110 Main St, Ste 1, Nashua, NH 03060 | 603-882-2741, Loomis Fargo defendants owe as much as they stole in 1997, Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. David and the trainee left the warehouse. In Gastonia, David would run into high-school classmates who had never struck him as especially smart. When Ghantt called Campbell asking for more money, a plan was set in motion to take him out. Four-wheeling. A connection between each suspect began to emerge slowly, and as the intensity of spending grew, suspicion did as well. He would then have the bulk of his share sent south of the border. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The participants in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry, fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. For the defendants in the Loomis Fargo heist, its allure was irresistible. personal/abusive/condescending attacks on other users or goading After discussing his job, his marriage, and his everyday struggles, they joked about Loomis and about how easy it would be to steal from the place. So the pieces were falling into place for investigators. Before the robber left Loomis Fargo, he made a trip to the managers office to remove two surveillance tapes in order to conceal his identity. 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. The $17 million Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, North Carolina, was the second largest armored car robbery in U.S. history. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. Agents raided safe deposit boxes, where they recovered more than $11 million. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says.
How Did David Ghantt, Kelly Campbell, Steve Chambers Steal More Than Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. Outside of the building, Ghantt met up with Campbell, Chambers, and others who were involved in the plot, and drove off to a printing business called Reynolds & Reynolds in northwest Charlotte. He angrily hung up the phone at Loomis, Fargo & Co., his soon-to-be former employer in Charlotte, North Carolina. When you have money, you just have different problems: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. And they could barely afford the minimum payments, given the power bills, phone bills, car insurance bills, and home payments they had to meet. Heist! 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. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. 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 . 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.. NASCAR. FBI video shows agents searching the Cramer Mountain home and finding stacks of cash. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2002. 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.
David Ghantt And The Ridiculous Loomis Fargo Heist contact us to submit an unexplained mystery article, or to join the team on the email address below. Conversations about stealing from the company weren't rare for Loomis employees. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers, carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. 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,. She will never get beyond the debt.
SEVEN NABBED IN CHARLOTTE HEIST\ - Greensboro News and Record Sun, sand and beaches are all part of why Jacksonville is a popular destination. "Don't back out on us. 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.
Loomis Fargo Heist of 1997 - History and Other Things I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. 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. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP).
The real story behind the second largest bank heist in history, which