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. She also assured the teller her cash wasn't drug money. So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. 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) One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. The barrels were Steves idea, Ghantt says. She will never get beyond the debt. 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. I knew I was going to be the prime suspect. Kelly found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. In real life: True. I was expecting her to kick me out of the house., Years later, after they married and had a child together, they watched a movie based on the whole ordeal. Dental plans . Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. Ghantt was in fact hiding out in Mexico using McKinneys I.D., which had been sold to Chambers months earlier. Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. Its hilarious. From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. All I needed was a change of pace.". . So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. Its in the ether. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. As it turned out, Ghantt was zipping up his scuba suit in Mexico. "For the first year, they're all over you. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. "Think of how many women would have stood by. But the idea of all that money pulled at her. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. But it wasnt. They cursed. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. Hes very articulate. Ghantt worked at Loomis Fargos regional office vault in Charlotte. It will be some time before she can commune with domestic animals again. Dependent care account. In real life: False. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. In real life: False. No dry runs, no rehearsals. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. 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. She didn't plan to move to Mexico. 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. Looking for Kelly Loomis? Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. 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. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. Kelly had recently left a job driving an armored-car for Loomis, Fargo & Co. "He's the one who brought it up first," said Kelly, a year after her arrest. Where was Ghantt? Kelly drove David to the airport. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' Question: What made you, Chambers and the others think you could get away with this? Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. The FBI was also surveilling Kelly Campbell and followed her to a pay phone that she used to place calls to Mexico. They bought a BMW roadster. Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. So I guess I have no regrets. Question: Any contact with Steve Chambers or any of the others involved with the heist? David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist (No Ratings Yet) . . 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. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? "Things I always wanted to do, but never had the time or the money," he said. Sweat soaked David's uniform. How Bridgerton restarted buzz about her ancestry. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. 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. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. The others sat in their cars across the street and watched him struggle to open the heavy gate. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. You can garnish wages. By March, Steve Chambers decided he needed to do something more drastic about Ghantt, making plans to send a hitman to Mexico to silence him for good. He told Steve he hadn't been able to find David. If you were one of the much-smaller-than-expected group of people who caught Masterminds at the theater this weekend, and are looking for a fact-check of the events depicted on screen, here are some of the highlights of our chat with Diamant. 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. 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 told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Kelly Jane Campbell, a former Loomis employee; Michael L. McKinney . "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. When neighbors asked where they got their money, Steve said hed played in the NFL. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 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. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. As soon as Corey left, I pretended like I was leaving. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. 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. He gave the rest to Kelly. 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. 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. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' I hear her typing. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. He kept looking over his shoulder. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. About the same time, Kelly and McKinney received phone calls from agents who told them to open their doors. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. 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. Kelly's company. But he tried to keep his face averted, so David wouldn't be able to ID him. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. In real life: Mostly true. There was, however, one problem with his plan. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. Depression had led to smoking a lot of marijuana and taking Prozac, a combination she figures affected her judgment. I would call us friends. 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. Money'll turn your head, I don't care who you are. 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. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. In real life: False. Her only brush with the law had been a DUI arrest. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. In real life: True. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Scott was so nervous, he said, that he couldn't help. In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. Ghantt:It's a comedy. I missed my wife. "It probably should bother me," he said. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. When I call Ghantt to discuss his involvement in the Loomis Fargo heist, he confesses that hes feeling a bit tired from a day of honest labor. There were times when I drank really heavily.". She was like, Well, at least you had guts, he says. . 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. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. "He was in tears. Its everything thats coming north.. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. I wanted to get as far away as I could. On Monday, October 6th, the FBI agents who were investigating the robbery located the Loomis Fargo van abandoned in the woods. He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. 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. It was the first Saturday in October. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. His name was Corey. 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,. Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. This time, David told McKinney the truth. Steven Chambers [Misc. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. He has no contact with any of those convicted with him in the crime, including his former wife, and doesn't plan to see the movie, he said. 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. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. They heard Michele brag about her $43,000 ring. That's the kind of movie they wanted to make. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. "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. My love for my family is by far the most important thing in my life. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. Charlotte Magazine even ran a feature story about the Loomis Fargo heist with the title, White Trash Crime. The headlines, however, never bothered Ghantt. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. From Mexico, David usually spoke with Kelly on the phone once a week, paying with calling cards. Him and I still talk every now and then. He grabbed the tapes from two VCRs that connected to 16 security cameras. They also left behind a life-changing fortune in small bills $3.3 million in fives and ones that they overlooked and the two videotapes that Ghantt had pulled from the security cameras at the bank. She could visit friends. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. (The conversation was depicted as 100 percent private on screen). First, in January, he tried to get someone to take some millions down to Mexico. Then he and Campbell drove 90 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where Ghantt planned to purchase a ticket to Mexico so he could be out of the country before news of the robbery broke the next morning. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". 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. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. I said, It comes down to picking the right day, and the right time of the month, and all that good stuff. I even told her, It wouldnt be all that difficult. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. 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. You can seize property. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. 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. Everything came crashing down on an early March morning in 1998. What made her abandon an ordinary existence to commit this spectacular, doomed crime? 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. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. 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. The others, though, went no farther than Cramer Mountain. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. More agents waited outside to arrest them. "I was thinking, 'They aren't paying me enough,' " McKinney recalled. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. 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. It had been drilled into my head that if you give me a team of five good people, I can go anywhere, do anything," David explained. He said every year he files his taxes and the IRS takes all of his tax return. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. 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. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. 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. The figures can be astounding. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Everybody seemed stunned. I wish them all a happy life and that's about it. Was Queen Charlotte Black? He rewarded Robert with $3,000 and vowed never to meet McKinney alone. Eventually, Steve made Kelly believe they could steal from Loomis and get away with it, she said. They loaded the wine cellar with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Steve hung a velvet portrait of Elvis Presley in the basement. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. LeVaughn Kelly Campbell (born July 23, 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia) is a former football wide receiver. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. 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.. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. With the help of Aldo, a Mexican waiter he had befriended, David found a beach apartment in Cancun. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. 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 knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. Her husband gave her a brown teddy bear. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. . I was just going to get the money into the van. I said, Listen, You all need to get your shit together, or Im just going to walk over here to the government building and tell them who the fuck I am. That lit a little fire under her ass, for a bit.. 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. 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. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. "Love" has four. He didn't want to abandon his parents. In real life: Yes and no. Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior.