loomis fargo heist kelly campbell

They could talk about anything, even topics he couldn't discuss with his wife. Jim Gronquist was Campbells defense attorney. 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. The robbery was committed by David Scott Ghantt who was the vault supervisor and accomplices Kelly Campbell, Steve Chambers, Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobies, and other four members. Working by himself, Ghantt would commit the robbery and then flee for Mexico, leaving the bulk of the cash with Chambers. It all went down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the man at the center of that heist, David Scott Ghantt, now lives in Jacksonville. 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. There was a book published in 2002 as well, by author Jeff Diamant called,Heist! Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. In March 1997, after Loomis Fargo & Company has been robbed of $18.8 million in Jacksonville by company security guard Philip Noel Johnson, Steve Eugene Chambers and Kelly Campbell, a former employee of Loomis, decides to rob the company. Sure to be in demand as the book has been made into a movie, Masterminds, to be released in August.Michael Sawyer, Pine Bluff, AR. In Reservoir Dogs, released just five years earlier, the pawns in a robbery knew each other only by assigned colors: Mr. Commentary: Denial of racism is coping mechanism, Carteret Community College honors top students during 26th annual Black History Celebration, Peletier board delays action on fine for alleged practice time violation at racetrack, Commentary: State schools are funding corporation tax cuts, EDITORIAL: A paralyzed congress dances on debt limit, Sponsors sought for summer feeding program, LETTER TO THE EDITOR: More of the Truist story, Post-pandemic report shows significant increase in dropouts, crime, suspensions in county schools, Affordable housing construction begins in Beaufort, LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Existing school calendar law deserves our support, Carteret Community College to hold national anthem auditions, Topsail Island panel to lobby for terminal groin funding, LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Water contamination in Atlantic, EDITORIAL: School board resolution ignores tourism impact, Peletier will try to sell steel purchased in 2018 for never-constructed community building, Peletier board tables vegetative waste site ordinance on advice of town attorney, N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission advocates for water quality, North Carolina the only state allowing unnecessary killing of sea turtles, 'Pagan' bike gang leader in N. Carolina sentenced to prison, Deputy cleared in shooting death of Gloucester woman, Beaufort amends charter to allow four-year mayoral term. The plan to. Figure in Loomis Heist Gets Prison | AP News Friends of Campbell had also begun spending large amounts of cash. 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. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. I think if you remember some of her early photographic opportunities, shall we put it that way, she was sort of laughing, not seeming to take it seriously.. None of the suspects had been in any serious trouble before this. By now, you probably know the names -- David Ghantt, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle, and Kelly Campbell. The unsolved mystery of the Van Meter Visitor a winged creature! And after two years, the case is just a file. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later David Scott Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. 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. shaka wear graphic tees is candy digital publicly traded ellen lawson wife of ted lawson real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist 25 Feb/23 (No Ratings Yet) The figures can be astounding. 'Masterminds' Review: Loomis Fargo Robbery Where Are They Now? - Pajiba Turns out, most of the thieves and their accomplices have been about as effective coming up with their court-ordered restitution as they were hiding their original crimes. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft . In David's eyes, Johnson's big mistake was that he did it alone. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. That was taking the long view. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. 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. 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. And then I realized that a lot of people knew who I was and they had followed the case.. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. Sun, sand and beaches are all part of why Jacksonville is a popular destination. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]. Some of that money is just gone. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. In all, they recovered $6.6 million. It just happened to fall on my desk.. kelly campbell masterminds - clydeautorepairs.co.uk He has a regular life now, but 25 years ago, Ghantt was the mastermind behind the third-largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Steve decided to send his cousin, Nathan with money down to Mexico as a ruse, while Mike the bodyguard would follow behind to take care of Ghantt. They succeeded in removing $17 million from the safe. Since then, there have been numerous articles, books, documentaries and even a movie about this gang -- the gang that couldnt shoot straight. "I don't have time to mess with you. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. Thank you! The FBI heard about the plot and agents knew they could no longer wait. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. OWLS director fired in wake of new board taking over, New rules will require flood history disclosure in real estate, North Carolina recreational spring flounder season canceled for 2023, Supreme Court seems ready to sink student loan forgiveness, Beach commission gets update on search for new sources of sand for beach nourishment. All of the defendants are out of prison -- the longest sentence was 11 years. A more immediate need was securing help to move the stolen money to safety the night of the crime. All but one of the 24 defendants pleaded guilty, and the one who didnt take the deal was convicted. In order to receive more evidence, the FBI decided to listen. By then, the FBI had become greatly concerned for Ghantts personal safety; they had learned of Chambersmurder for hirescheme. 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. In the first couple of weeks, they had heard both Steve and Shelley bragging about their new-found fortune, and spending remarkable amounts of money. Sunny. Authorities were notified of the robbery in the morning, when employees couldnt open the vault. In Campbells case, Gronquist says his client was buried in court-ordered debt despite the fact that she took responsibility for what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors and the FBI. Thirty years! "For the first year after a crime," he told her, "they're all over you, with six to ten agents. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. More calls between the two men, and also between Steve and Kelly Campbell, made it clear that the group was starting to turn on David Ghantt. Well they were in some sense celebrities, Gronquist said. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. "Just remind Steve," he said, "that I might be trouble my own self." The 2016 comedy movie, Masterminds is based on the story of the Loomis Fargo Heist. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. The phone calls began to get more intense when Steve and Eric got suspicious of a man who was running hismouth about them and the vault job over in Charlotte. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all., WSOC TV facebook feed(Opens a new window), Part 2: Channel 9 speaks with the man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 years ago, ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east Charlotte, mom says, ALSO READ: Leader of $3M check theft, bank fraud scheme in Charlotte area sentenced to prison, ALSO READ: Man released from jail, accused of robbing banks while wearing electronic monitor, police say, ALSO READ: Suspect from south Charlotte bank robbery found, CMPD says, NCSHP arrest driver accused of nearly hitting 2 students at bus stop in Statesville, CMS delays opening of new school meant to ease overcrowding, Mooresville orders removal of memorial at park after teens death, Chick-fil-A announces app data breach, tells customers how to protect personal information, Charlotte woman celebrates $1 million scratch-off prize, WSOC - TV Public File Contact / Program Director, WAXN - TV Public File Contact / Program Director. The trainee didn't know to check to make sure it was closed. Ghantt went to Mexico leaving the money with his cohorts, thinking that he could get his share back when he needed it. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. Agents raided safe deposit boxes, where they recovered more than $11 million. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. ", "I don't need any more friends," she'd shot back. 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.. I appreciate your kind words! FBI video shows agents searching the Cramer Mountain home and finding stacks of cash. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. ALSO READ: 14-year-old boy robbed at gunpoint while waiting for bus in east. David knew this was important from having followed the recent news about a Florida man who had brazenly committed the biggest heist from an armored-car company in United States history, a loner named Philip Noel Johnson, who also had worked for Loomis. In the movie: Campbell invites Ghantt to a restaurant under the auspices of a date, but then springs the idea of the heist on him, as Chambers and two associates join the conversation from an . One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 millionliterally more than one ton of cash. You can have your whole career and not have a case like that. Kelly called, using David's own cell phone, to ask where he was already, because she and the others were waiting outside for him. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is this really about the needs of the poor? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). '. His collection case closes in two years. How he felt shorted by life. Asked the purpose of his visit, Johnson had replied, "To visit friends. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. To the community, the Loomis Fargo heist was a big joke -- the largest hillbilly caper of all time. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. 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. The affidavit described Chambers as a former FBI informant who had provided information on another Loomis armored car robbery that never materialized. contact us to submit an unexplained mystery article, or to join the team on the email address below. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Sure enough, she called a few days later, around September 16. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. But things didnt quite work out that way. Hed never really been in trouble, he wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent John Wydra. They involve Loomis armored car driver David Scott Ghantt. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. Probably very egotistical of me, I thought, Yeah, sure, I can beat them, theyre college smart and thats about it, Ghantt said. If we work together, we can all have plenty of pie.. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. It was 2:00 p.m. on October 4, 1997, and tension was building between two planners of what would rank high among the largest heists in United States history. Diamant, a journalist who reported on the case at the time, goes into meticulous detail on how the heist was pulled off and its aftermath. Spunk. The investigation ultimately resulted in the conviction of eight people directly involved, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them. Seven p.m. came and went, and so did 7:20. The friend was Steve Chambers, and Kelly said he knew his way around the world of crime. But after one visit, she asked a teller How much can I deposit before you have to report it to the feds? followed by Dont worry, it is notdrug money, the bank filled out asuspicious activity report, which ultimately reached the FBI. The only other employee with him on this day was a trainee. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. La vie de David Ghantt n'a rien de compliqu. He played high school football at Mays High School in Atlanta, and college football at Georgia Tech . He knew they were nervous outside waiting for him, but he also knew he wouldn't stop stealing until he had taken everything. They swept the surrounding counties, locating Kelly Campbell and Eric Payne in their homes. Over 88% of the money has been recovered since the heist. Now, at 7:45 p.m., with all the money finally inside the van, his aching muscles could take a breather. SEVEN NABBED IN CHARLOTTE HEIST\ - Greensboro News and Record Its said the current owner now has it in storage in Phoenix, Arizona. The supervisor liked him and gave him the job. It was David who was hours away from committing the most daring act of his life, and she was going off about Steve being a serious guy? What kind of surprised me is how much the car smelled like money, like if you ever hold money up to your nose it has a distinct smell, Wydra said. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. Afterward, she and David would talk just occasionally on the phone. 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. He quickly found out when you have money, you just have different problems, Wydra said. You can seize property. 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. David was supposed to be showing him the ropes of the job, which included cash pickups and deliveries. The unsolved crime mystery of Marilyn Sheppard. Later that year, he saw a newspaper ad for a job at Loomis Fargo. (LogOut/ I was relieved emotionally because I knew there was a good chance my luck might run out, Ghantt said. Heist: The Oddball Crew Behind the $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft Campbell used part of her share of the money to buy aToyota Siennaminivanin two cash installments. At about 6:40 p.m., he went back inside. The Charlotte area's economy was booming all around him, and he felt passed over. Holding 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 & Co. She was also. Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later 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. How he and his wife had trouble communicating. Also charged with money laundering were innocent relatives and friends who had co-signed safe deposit boxes. The participants in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry, fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries. : The .17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft [Jeff Diamant] on Amazon.com. He said at first, they were very proud of what they had been able to do. An additional tip reached the FBI when Michelle Chambers made a large deposit at a bank. Ghantt didnt know the full extent of what was happening back home -- how that lay low plan turned into a flurry of extravagant spending. 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, too, has changed hands several times. He would then have the bulk of his share sent south of the border. If we can sit on the money for a year, maybe two, it could work.". Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Discover the truth behind unexplained ancient mysteries, UFO mysteries, secret locations and paranormal events. The FBI was inadvertently aided by the gang members extravagant spending. 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. 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. David placed their odds of success at 85 percent, a confidence inspired by faith not just in his planning but also in his feelings for Kelly. just generally being a jerk. Michelle Chambers received a few more months than Ghantt, because she had violated several bond conditions. 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. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. Some of that money is just gone. Chambers had told Campbell to do whatever she needed to do to get Ghantt to commit the robbery. Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. 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. CHARLOTTE (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. So they went to Mexico and arrested Ghantt in order to protect him. You can garnish wages. He worked close-by to where the van and over $3 million dollars had been ditched, and was friends with Steve Chambers. - 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. In 1994, they moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, where they had grown up, and David took a job driving a forklift. Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. Masterminds (2016 film) - Wikipedia Campbell used to work for Loomis and continued the friendship with Ghantt, eventually hooking him up with Chambers. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. Each cart, holding about $2 million, was taking David seven or eight minutes to stack, push, and empty into the van, and there were about eight cartloads' worth in the vault. It wasn't how much you stole that mattered most; it was that you had stolen in the first place. Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. The gang made numerous mistakes. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. 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. For the defendants in the Loomis Fargo heist, its allure was irresistible. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. She sounded incredulous. them. David didn't appreciate her tone. But he wasn't finished. Tuesday marked 25 years since a group of buddies pulled off the third-largest money grab in U.S. history -- the Loomis Fargo heist. She will never get beyond the debt. Moving the money into the van quickly proved an onerous task. He was on a budget for clothes, even for work boots; he had recently needed to check seven stores before finding a pair in his price range. Yet their lives seemed far easier and better than his. 'When you have money, you just have different problems': The Loomis

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