So he hatched a plan to rob his employers. Ghantt, meanwhile, had spent most of his money at a resort in Cancun, where he was being told he looked a lot like the guy that stole $20 million from a bank. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. Ghantt has never explained where that money went. WebWord trickled in to the FBI that Ghantt had a romantic interest in a former coworker, Kelly Campbell, who one day visited a Toyota dealership to purchase a minivan with twenty Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Ghantt, in order to conserve this money, curtailed his spending. Create your free profile and get access to exclusive content. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. I did a little research into crime statistics and the local cops. Get the latest articles and test prep tips! Instead, the bandits just started throwing as much money as they could into the van until they couldnt fit anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LCR9zyGkbo. This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Phillip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery. kellis@gastongazette.com View Comments 0:03 1:14 On Oct. 4, 1997, former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt finished his shift as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte. Im a very deliberate person. I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. It was an open-and-shut case and all authorities had to do now was to find the culprit and identify Ghantts accomplices. I loved it. Ghantt's spending in Mexico was extravagant at first. And so, he told her, Google my name. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. Items included a velvet Elvis painting, 1998 BMW, 17-foot motorboat and Harley Davidson. 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. Unfortunately, he failed to disable the third camera. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. What are the principles on which our Constitution is based? Heist: The Oddball Crew behind the $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft Jeff Diamant 12 Audio CD 9 offers from $5.86 About the Author Jeff Diamant covered the heist for the Charlotte Observer. They would then load as much cash as they could carry into a van. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. I started just chucking it as fast as I could, he said, adding the sweat was pouring off of me.. Not only was Ghantt the only unaccounted for employee the morning after the heist, there was also footage of Ghantt moving the cash into the back of the Loomis Fargo van. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. ", After successfully tracing Ghantt's phone call, FBI agents coordinated with Mexican police to arrest Ghantt on March 1, 1998, at Playa del Carmen, a city near Cancun. Robbing the 7-Eleven and getting $40 bucks and a pack of Marlboros was not for me. In addition to her work for PrepScholar, Hayley is the author of Museum Hack's Guide to History's Fiercest Females. In 97 me and my wife were just barely scraping by, Ghantt recalled in Mondays episode. speedway of nations manchester 2021. rossignol skis experience 88 In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. ), and having explosive diarrhea in a public swimming pool (who knew Zach Galifianakis was filled with caramel syrup?). I hear her typing. The leader was Allen Pace, who turned out to be the worst safety inspector the Dunbar Armored trucking company ever employed. If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points, How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer. Webbird adoption adelaide real life kelly campbell loomis fargo. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off Investigators also found Ghantt's pickup truck, abandoned at the warehouse. The morning after the height, employees of Loomis Fargo realized they couldnt open the vault. It didnt take the local police long to put the pieces together. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. But I thought this is me being hard-headed Im going to ride this thing to the ground. And so thats what I did.. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, the film stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis. When the rest of the Loomis Fargo employees showed up the next morning and found that they couldnt open the vault, they called the police. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. 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.. Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt of an old high school friend of hers, Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt in executing a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. Ron DeSantis has awarded $100 million for beach erosion projects and other restoration efforts in 16 coastal counties damaged by Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole, A Tennessee judge has ruled that video detailing the treatment of a death row inmate who cut off his penis while on suicide watch must be made public, An Indiana man faces felony charges after his diaper-clad 4-year-old son was seen pointing a loaded handgun at people outside their apartment. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! Web>> 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 Thats pretty standard in restitution matters. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. According to an Observer article, signs point to Campbells involvement stemming from the desire to experience what it was like to be rich. 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. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. Its kind of like that. His collection case closes in two years. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. The plan was for Ghantt to commit the robbery and then quickly leave the country for Mexico but to leave the bulk of the cash with Chambers. Coverage of the latest true crime stories and famous cases explained, as well as the best TV shows, movies and podcasts in the genre. Loomis Fargo employee David Ghantt and his partners nearly pulled off the perfect crime, but it would be their lavish spending, and an alleged murder plot, that would be their undoing. The next day, Steve and Michelle Chambers, Kelly Campbell, and four others were arrested.[6]. No dry runs, no rehearsals. On similar grounds, four other people were ultimately also charged with money laundering. If so,check out some of these books on our AP History Exam reading list. See all of the stories here. They had initially agreed to control their spending for a year or two, in the belief that the government would vigorously track the spending habits of any and all suspects for at least a year before relenting. I mentioned it to Kelly. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. Galifianakis is game for anything, including eating a dead tarantula (who knew tarantulas were filled with caramel syrup? More than 2 million dollars is still missing to this day. This article will teach you more about the SAT subject testsasync src='https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js' and help you decide whether you should take them. Meanwhile, David Ghantt was relaxing on a beach in Cozumel, Mexico. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. While listening in, they uncovered another more sinister alleged plan to kill Ghantt. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. Best States is an interactive platform developed by U.S. News for ranking the 50 U.S. states, alongside news analysis and daily reporting. 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. The only defendant to not plead guilty, Chambers's attorney Jeff Guller, was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to eight years in prison. But neither of those things would matter after he met Kelly Campbell. The FBI knew they needed to make their move. Some of that money is just gone. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. Either way, intothe picture walks Steve Chambers and a group of friends that would set the plan in motion. While making only eight dollars an hour in his role as supervisor, Ghantt decided it was time to do something: I was unhappy with my life. On the night of October 4, the plan went into action. ];David Scott Ghanntt [Misc.] Of course, I went on a spending spree. But his partners soon began to get greedy and were spending large amountswith Chambers and his wife, Michelle, even buying an exclusive mansion in cash. He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. After meeting up with Chambers, Campbell, and some other co-conspirators, Ghantt hightailed it to Mexico with $50,000 in cash in his car. And then I could hear her laughing. Marshals Service auctioned off the purchased items in Charlotte, most of which came from the Chambers and Cramers. Things were spiraling fast. As he later recalled about his life before the 1997 heist that changed his life forever: Prior to, I would have never even considered it but one day life kinda slapped me in the face. Lindy Hop: The Dance That Defined The Golden Age of Jazz, Inside The Unsolved Disappearance Of Jennifer Kesse, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, David Ghantt attends the 2016 after party for the Hollywood premiere of. And Ghantt hadnt really thought about the physical challenge of moving such a large sum of money. Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. Ghantt, Chambers, and Campbell came up with the following plan: Ghantt would remain in the vault after his shift on the night of the heist, Oct. 4, 1997, and let his co-conspirators into the vault. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off the s On March 1, 1988, Mexican police arrested Ghantt at Playa del Carmen. Those things would matter after he met Kelly Campbell Loomis Fargo to disable the third camera Loomis! Fbi knew they needed to make their move Cozumel, Mexico so he hatched a plan to kill Ghantt put! Small laugh? ) MICHAEL GORDON, the plan in motion, 17-foot motorboat Harley... 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