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. Libraries without that edition should consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel. David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis), an employee of Loomis Fargo, robbed his own vault, left the $17.3 million in cash with his co-conspirators, Kelly Campbell (Kristen Wiig) and Steve Chambers (Owen Wilson) and fled the country to Mexico. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. Except for the kiss in the pickup truck a few weeks before the heist, Kelly had kept things platonic. He quickly found out when you have money, you just have different problems, Wydra said. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. Most people are going to forgive you. Spunk. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. 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. The principals here are David Ghantt, a driver for Loomis, Fargo and Co.; Kelly Campbell, the woman Ghantt had a crush on, and who convinced him to commit the crime; and Steve and Michele Chambers. 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. The True Story of David Ghantt and the Loomis Fargo Heist - PrepScholar America's Dumbest Heist! (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories He waffled on the heist idea three or four times from late August to mid-September. He was the only employee unaccounted for the next morning, and videotapes recovered at the Loomis Fargo Charlotte office showed Ghantt removing cubes of cash and loading it into a Loomis Fargo armored van for over an hour. You can garnish wages. David Ghantt was just an average Joe with an average low-wage job. Then, keeping with the plan, Ghantt took $50,000 (the maximum that could be taken across the border by law without further authorization) with him and left for Mexico, winding up at the popularYucatan Peninsularesort ofCozumel. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. Living with his wife, Tammy, in a mobile home, he had longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood that had come to seem luxurious, a pipe dream for him now. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. This website uses cookies and some data tracking to improve your experience and serve adverts, We assume you're ok with this, you can opt-out if you wish. The FBI began to question past and current employees of Loomis Fargo. 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., Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it,, You can garnish wages. The bizarre true story of the criminals behind the second-largest bank heist in American history. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. 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. Campbell used to work for Loomis and continued the friendship with Ghantt, eventually hooking him up with Chambers. For example, Steve Chambers and his wife were living in a. He put on his best pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and his nicest cowboy boots. Loomis Fargo employees could not open the vault the next morning, and called the police. "About fourteen or fifteen million dollars," he said. How he felt shorted by life. 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. 25th anniversary of the incredible Loomis Fargo bank heist | wcnc.com 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. It all went down in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the man at the center of that heist, David Scott Ghantt, now lives in Jacksonville. David Ghantt And The Loomis Fargo Heist: The Outrageous True Story Library Journal "highly entertaining." These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Also charged with money laundering were innocent relatives and friends who had co-signed safe deposit boxes. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. Spunk. What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. The FBI became more suspicious after they interviewed Campbell for the third time. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. "Do you know how much there's gonna be?" Later that year, he saw a newspaper ad for a job at Loomis Fargo. 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. David said he needed Kelly to drive to Loomis before the theft that night to remove a duffel bag from his parked pickup truck. But you cant get blood from a stone,, Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. 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. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. At 2:20 p.m., the phone rang; it was Kelly again. At that point, Kelly and David had known each other for two years. She will never get beyond the debt. They Had 17 Million Dollars and No Sense at All - AMW Magazine The woman on the phone was Kelly Jane Campbell, and David had a mad crush on her. Afterward, everything became comical. Then one day, while reviewing his and Tammy's credit card bill, he did some quick math and realized that even if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take thirty years to pay. As beads of sweat formed under his red hair, he loaded up another cart and repeated the process. Then, he proceeded to load 2,800 pounds of cash into a van. : The $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft. The stated plan was for her to move to Mexico to be with him after the theft. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. 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. Action News Jax facebook feed(Opens a new window), Action News Jax twitter feed(Opens a new window), Action News Jax youtube feed(Opens a new window), JSO K9 escapes kennel, bites three people in Jacksonville neighborhood, To know Nancy was to love Nancy: St. Johns County woman killed in suspected DUI crash, JSO says missing child alert results in deadly drowning, Senator proposes bill giving state emergency jurisdiction over custody of kids with trans parents, Florida woman accused of killing terminally ill husband released from jail. October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery - Wikipedia He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. It's been 20 years since the Loomis Fargo heist. - Charlotte Observer [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. They could talk about anything, even topics he couldn't discuss with his wife. 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. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. Former Loomis employee David Scott Ghantt is accused of stealing the money. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Fact check: Is there much truth to the new 'Masterminds' movie? LETTER TO THE EDITOR: But where will they park? 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. By using this website, you accept the terms of our Visitor Agreement and Privacy Policy, and understand your options regarding Ad Choices. Who all wanted a Rambo movie which explored his time training as a green beret and his time serving in Vietnam as a prequel to first blood WATCH Antebellum 2020 FULL MOVIE. You can seize property. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). Asked the purpose of his visit, Johnson had replied, "To visit friends. 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. I pay (restitution to) thousands of people, but its in drips and drabs.. 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.