real life kelly campbell loomis fargo
And after two years, you're just a file." He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. . Ghantt was working a late shift, and just after 6:30 p.m., his coworkers were packing up and heading for home. My love for my family is by far the most important thing in my life. TWO TO ENTER GUILTY PLEAS IN ARMORED-CAR ROBBERY - Greensboro News and Question: Are you happy that Wilkesboro-nativeZach Galifianakis plays you in the movie? Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. I wish them all a happy life and that's about it. That time in prison was actually good for me. His mobile home was nicely furnished, on eight acres with a stream in the back. . ". He pocketed the money and told Chambers and Campbell to send him his cut in Mexico. "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. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. The money was heavy. Then FBI agent Wydra watched Steve's wife, Michele, deposit about $8,000 at a Gaston County, N.C., bank. Contact Us | Loomis US Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. An Ohio police officer who shot and killed a Black man as he lay in bed in his home last summer is no longer on the force, Three Kansas City police officers who were shot while serving a search warrant have been released from the hospital, Officials say one passenger died when a business jet experienced severe turbulence, forcing a landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. And that's OK with Ghantt, who's just a few weeks shy of his 47th birthday, out of federal prison for more than a decade, married with a 9-year-old daughter and happy. A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. Ghantt:It's a comedy. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. But he tried to keep his face averted, so David wouldn't be able to ID him. I didn't think I had the guts. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. About 5:30 the next morning, McKinney knocked on David's door and dropped $8,500 on the bed. With the help of Aldo, a Mexican waiter he had befriended, David found a beach apartment in Cancun. Our Benefits. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. 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. Too stupid to be true? Five 'Masterminds' missteps that actually happened Dental plans . Kelly, she says now, was thinking about how happy she would be to send this man far away from her. Kelly was no criminal. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. Going south, nobody really looks at what youre shipping. All I needed was a change of pace.". 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. She could walk under the trees, with the chickens and goats and dogs that live around her mobile home. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. She asked about the limit for a cash deposit before "paperwork" was required. There it was, "The Heist." real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - phnxathletica.com Careers | Loomis US Where I was going was right there near the Cayman Islands. and "I love money!" Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? He figured Tammy wouldn't go for it, and though his marriage had been troubled, he wasn't certain he wanted to leave her. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. The pager entry was 1-4-3. Looking back at the Loomis heist - Gaston Gazette In real life: False. Dependent care account. Exhibit A was that Steve had no steady job but plenty of cash. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. Or that hed gotten lucky gambling. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. Kelly says she underestimated the value of her life before the heist. I hear her typing. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. Its a yes: Clover teen shakes off nerves to earn American Idol golden ticket, Mail carrier cant believe his eyes after seeing NC lottery win. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. She was the group's only contact with David, and she was smoking marijuana "like other people smoke cigarettes," she said. 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,. Three weeks after the theft, Steve and Michele moved from their Lincoln County mobile home to a $635,000 house in a gated Cramerton, N.C., neighborhood. There was, however, one problem with his plan. One of them tapped him on the back. There were times when I drank really heavily.". By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. "I was unhappy with my life. Kelly, using David's cell phone, kept beeping him. In the two days after the robbery, agents interviewed more than 100 people, most connected with David. I mentioned it to Kelly. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. Or that it was an inheritance. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. 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. Mine did. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. He and his wife, Tammy, lived in a mobile home in Kings Mountain, N.C. Money was always tight. Were others involved? "She said, 'What would it take to convince you to do it?' Its kind of like that. 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. When he finished, the van was filled with $17 million. Military + Veterans. The plan was to split the money three ways: Chambers, Campbell and Ghantt would each walk away with what Ghantt estimated to be $5 million a piece the kind of money that changes lives forever. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. 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. 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. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. Ghantt was never in Chamberss presence until he actually handed off the money to him. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. I didnt pick the heist team. 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. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Alert: Obviously, spoilers abound. Theres less security. David said he realized then, for the first time, he might not see the millions he thought he had coming to him. The real story behind the second largest bank heist in history, which Gaston County residents remember how that worked out. At the time, it was the largest cash heist in history. What made her do it? Looking for Kelly Loomis? Steve now needed a hit man. Charlotte hotel chef who serves with a smile recognized as outstanding ambassador, Eritrean, Ethiopian restaurant owner was a big brother and father to many in Charlotte, Home tours: This wired-up Weddington smart home has a pool big enough for the neighborhood. 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. Two days after theyd robbed the Loomis Fargo truck the very same day the police found the abandoned van in the woods Steve and Michelle Chambers walked into a bank and deposited their cut of the stolen money into their account. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. "I" has one letter. The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. Heist: The Oddball Crew Behind the $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft by It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. One day, the two employees were in the break room and got to talking about the news of the day a massive bank heist that just occurred in Florida by someone at their company. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. He didnt even really question me. 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. Ghantt:I've always known that story had potential to be a comedy or a drama. 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. 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. DUMB & - The Washington Post Was Queen Charlotte Black? Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery - Strange Unexplained Mysteries On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. 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. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. The movie was overly silly and, based on a post-screening conversation with former Observer reporter Jeff Diamant who wrote a detailed 279-page book about the occasionally funny but mostly just-plain fascinating crime, titled Heist much of what wound up in the film is fiction. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. Kelly Loomis Facebook, Instagram & Twitter on PeekYou He was also a former FBI informant who had tipped the bureau off to a planned robbery of a Loomis Fargo armored truck that never came to fruition. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. The true crime behind Asheville-based Galifianakis film Ghantt fled to Mexico. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. This time, David told McKinney the truth. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. I can take it.". An officer rang the doorbell. . Question: You went to Mexico. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. . Steve told me to tell [David] whatever was necessary to keep him happy.". 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) Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Theres no way to get it back, Butcher told The Charlotte Observer. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. Scott was so nervous, he said, that he couldn't help. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. Not until David was gone did Scott realize he didn't know which key to use. The biggest restitution numbers for victims of financial crimes generally involve Ponzi schemes or sweepstakes fraud, not cash thefts. He said every year he files his taxes and the IRS takes all of his tax return. . She was devastated, Diamant said. They put up mauve wallpaper. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward after the theft. He had stolen $17 million from Loomis Fargo. 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. . You can garnish wages. Steven Chambers [Misc. Back in North Carolina, Ghantts former accomplices were living high on the hog. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. Together, they drove in a convoy to an industrial warehouse eight miles away, where Eric Payne, a fourth accomplice was. At 7:45, David had finished loading. She could spend time with her children and parents. She will never get beyond the debt. Industry leading Training and Development. 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. 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. "I'm glad I've grown out of that.". So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. In the following months, Steve persisted, even floating the notion of placing phony hand grenades on a Loomis truck to scare away the drivers, Kelly said. He was doing what the rest of us were doing making bad decisions. Question: You were a consultant? Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. 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.". And then I could hear her laughing. Cool, I say. The cart held about $2 million, and the thief made multiple trips. If I hadn't done what I did the, the life I have now with my wife and child, I wouldn't have. Then another. Few who were living in the area at the time can forget the "Velvet Elvis" painting Chambers had hanging in his mansion or the tales of cosmetic surgery, BMW convertibles and other signs of excess. In real life: False. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. 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. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. . "I was trying to figure out a way to [leave my husband] and take care of my kids without having to depend on him or any other man," Kelly said. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. Im on the phone with Kelly [Campbell], and Im like, Hey, I really was expecting a package to arrive. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. 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) 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. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist - molecularrecipes.com Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. 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. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. They sweated, though the night was cool. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." Without really intending to, Kelly recalls, she turned the conversation to the possibility of a heist. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. At 6 that morning, FBI supervisor Rick Shaffer led 12 agents and several Gaston County police officers up a winding road on Cramer Mountain to Steve's home.