I was just going to get the money into the van. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. Why fans love it. There were times when I drank really heavily.". 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. When Chambers and the two Erics were done loading the stolen millions into barrels, they abandoned the van in the woods. Question: How much of 'Masterminds' is true? In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. 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. . They obviously werent trying to get it right they were putting together what they believe is a better story, said Diamant. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. She could spend time with her children and parents. He didnt even really question me. Dependent care account. More agents waited outside to arrest them. As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. Chambers never held Campbell hostage by locking her in a shed on his property. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. ", "I wouldn't do it. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. "I thought he was goofing around.". Agents found out where Ghantt was living because Chambers had put out a hit on him, foolishly believing Ghantt was the only person the FBI had fingered for the crime. His new life in Mexico had begun. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. . From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." 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. and "I'm rich!". A couple weeks pass, and I call again, Hey, Id like to get some more money. ". 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. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. Now, I kind of know something is fishy., Alone in Mexico with limited cash, Ghantt thought about turning himself in. Ghantt spent a solid hour moving what ended up being 2,700 pounds of cash more than an actual ton into an unmarked company van. About 5:45 a.m., he got into his pickup and began the 45-minute drive to work in Charlotte. 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. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. . "I" has one letter. I loved it. Steve told me to tell [David] whatever was necessary to keep him happy.". Our Benefits. Her husband gave her a brown teddy bear. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. I missed my wife. But he tried to keep his face averted, so David wouldn't be able to ID him. There had been no signs. shes now Miss USA. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. The phone rang: Kelly had a problem. 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. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. She could walk under the trees, with the chickens and goats and dogs that live around her mobile home. She'd heard his stories of other successful schemes, like getting refunds on phony tax returns, or operating a loan shark business. Ghantt:I've burned that bridge years ago. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. 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. Ghantt went on to explain that he rarely even looks at his debt statement to the government, but believes the IRS says he still owes them $3.8 million. [Kelly] told me, 'Just think about it.' "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. They found Ghantts truck, and in it were his keys, some personal items and his wedding ring. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. Based on a true story, the premise itself is fascinating, which makes Masterminds all the more a waste. Heres what happened on Sunday nights episode. She also must . She could visit friends. Basic and voluntary life insurance plan. She was devastated, Diamant said. It changes you. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. 27 febrero, 2023 . So the last third of the movie is almost entirely fiction. Ghantt:I don't think he ever really meant to harm me. Ghantt ended up doing more than five years in prison, Chambers did more than 11 years. Speaking of his co-defendants, Ghantt says hes not currently in contact with any of them. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. In the wee hours of the morning, Chambers and the Erics drove back to the town of Vale, North Carolina, and holed up in a double-wide trailer while counting their cash. "But I had to know.". Dental plans . 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 . "I wanted to be more like my mom and dad were.". Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? 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. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. The number of people involved had ballooned after Steve started asking friends and family to help him launder the stolen cash. Called Masterminds, the 2016 film stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. . Then he was driving in the darkness with a van full of cash. He recalled that another agent, Phil King, said, "Hey, there was an article in the [Charlotte] Observer about beeper codes. In one case, the restitution for a Loomis defendant may be a moving target. Three weeks later, the couple purchased, in cash, a $635,000 stone mansion. . . Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Kelly told the FBI she had done drugs with David but denied knowing about the theft. And robbing a truck was dangerous. 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. Campbell, a mother of two, was in the process of divorcing her. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. "A lot of people out there had it worse than me, but . Thatd be the time to do it, Ghantt recalls. He frequently entertained there, buying steaks for his guests. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. In real life: False. There was, however, one problem with his plan. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. Nah, it was always about the money, he told the agents. . Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. David thought about it. Instead of lobster, the man who stole $17 million survived on home-cooked pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches. It was late in 1996. David kissed his sleeping wife on the cheek on the morning of Oct. 4. When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. I mean, it was dark, Ghantt explains. The Evergreen State takes the top spot again in the U.S. News Best States ranking on the strength of its tech sector and other industries. Then FBI agent Wydra watched Steve's wife, Michele, deposit about $8,000 at a Gaston County, N.C., bank. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. Chambers, who still lives in Gaston County and operates a gym, declined to comment. how to match 8 hypercubes in bejeweled. See all of the stories here. His collection case closes in two years. It wasn't known whether anyone would receive it. 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. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. 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. They bought a BMW roadster. But McKinney never stopped trying to kill Ghantt although, initally, McKinney thought Chambers had paid for the hit over a drug deal gone bad, Diamant said. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. . In the dark, Scott inserted one key into the back door slot. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. 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. He placed stacks of currency on a cart and wheeled it to the van about 15 feet away, inside the building. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. He then began loading $17 million in unmarked bills inside a company van before driving away. You see, there's a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. He approached a longtime friend, Eric Payne, who lived in a mobile home south of Belmont, N.C. Steve offered him $100,000 to help. 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 Unexpectedly Sweet Story Behind Those Viral Semi-Truck Pregnancy Photos. Though David had no criminal experience, he felt he could offer expert advice: He'd just finished reading a book on the FBI. The government does not run debtors prisons, says U.S. Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, who had been friends on and off since growing up together in the mid-1980s, were at a cookout, playing cards and drinking Budweiser at Steve's Lincoln County, N.C., mobile home, Kelly recalled. She will never get beyond the debt. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. Did you get paid? Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. I did every touristy thing you could possibly do while I was down there. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. ". 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. Hed be in contact. 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. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. Heres your money. Then he turns around and leaves., The problem was, it was nowhere near the amount Ghantt had expected: Im looking at it, and theres maybe $8,000. 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 initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. 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.. They didn't know it, but they were leaving $3.3 million behind. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. 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. Should David be killed after he gave them the money? But Ghantt, who served as an unpaid consultant to the movie and attended the big Los Angeles premiere earlier in the week, has no such reservations. 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 youre like, Come on parachute. 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. "I was dumb," Ghantt said Wednesday, the eve before the movie hits screens nationwide. The audacity of the act was breathtaking. I studied up on the FBI. On his way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks. You might as well go all the way now.". Once in a lifetime, Murdaugh verdict sends a Lowcountry message: No one is above the law | Opinion, Charlotte Waffle House found with live roach, unclean equipment during health inspection. On the evening of October 4, 1997, one man loaded $17.3 million in cash from the vaults of Loomis, Fargo & Co. into the back of a van. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. There was a third person with them, too, a man named Eric Grant. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' . Kelly, using David's cell phone, kept beeping him. 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. Yes, happy. Because surprise! In the first days after the arrests, agents recovered or accounted for all but about $2 million of the stolen money. Back then, it was one of the hotspots for hiding money. Ghantt planned to live off the interest for the rest of his life. Thats where they feel comfortable., This piece of information would become critical to his getaway plan. Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. Not Ghantt. Ghantt: My cut was supposed to be about $5 million, but that's not what I ended up with. . 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. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. The bash had a Cinderella theme, with a three-tiered cake that looked like a castle. She laughed for like 45 minutes. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. 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. And then I could hear her laughing. He's a very likable person. Hes well thought-out. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. That was the most painful truth to come to. She was a wife and mother with two children. He hated his job, with its 12-hour shifts. We need to set up some way for me to get my money. She said, We got it all worked out. David was sentenced to 7 1/2 years. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. "It wasn't me, it was Steve," she says she told him. He went deep-sea fishing. Everybody seemed stunned. Ghantt was missing and no one, not even his wife, knew where he was. Question: Do you ever think you could have been killed? "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. Explain? They decorated their 6,000-square-foot stucco house with antiques, paintings and statues, including a six-foot wooden Indian that Michele had bought for $600. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? I told the lead investigator I was glad to see him.. Before long, the tales of high living by Chambers and his now former wife, Michelle, led the thieves to be labeled either the "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" or "The gang that couldn't steal straight." Not a documentary. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. Each week, Michele deposited thousands of dollars in cash. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. I don't blame him.". Thatd probably been the best thing for me to do, really. "But, I hate to admit it, it doesn't faze me one bit. Despite a mega-watt cast featuring Zach Galifianakis and a handful of some of Saturday Night Lives biggest current and former stars, Masterminds, the comedy about Loomis Fargo robbery completely tanked at the box office in its opening weekend, bowing in sixth place with just $6.6 million. In real life: False. 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. Mine did. Thanksgiving and Christmas were difficult. 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 Mountain. They cursed. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Kelly says she underestimated the value of her life before the heist. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. They ditched the Loomis van, then drove the cash-heavy Budget van to Steve's mobile home in Lincoln County, where his wife, Michele, waited with a calculator and rubber bands. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. They were the butt of a national joke. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. Inside were, along with other personal items, his keys and wedding ring. White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money, she said. And it turned Steve into he thought he was Don Corleone all of a sudden.. I hope everyone has moved on. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. Steve told her to send David to Atlanta on a bus and drive back to the trailer. Why had he ever believed he'd get it? Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. 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. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. Question: Are you surprised that Hollywood took this on as a movie? Yes, Carrie Underwood adopted a dog in Charlotte. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. David trusted her. . The pager entry was 1-4-3. Ghantt went on to explain that he left for his flight to Mexico with about $25,000, and that two or three deliveries of extra money was made to him by the man Chambers would pay to kill him. 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. David didn't even know Steve's name. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. Steven Chambers [Misc. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. But as soon as he drove off, I went right back in and opened the vault. Now two NC men face prison. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. In early November, Steve lured the real Mike McKinney, an ex-Marine, to North Carolina from his Illinois home. Basically, he needed a score to make his problems go away. The Loomis defendants face no additional legal jeopardy for not paying off their debts. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. Kelly was no criminal. 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 next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist seeing a woodpecker after someone dies lectomano que significa. 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 garnish wages. In December, agents got the tie-in they were looking for: Kelly Campbell had bought a $30,000 Toyota minivan with cash and registered it to one of Steve Chambers's aliases. Meanwhile, Michele Chambers was laughing and saying, repeatedly, "Look at all this money!" Some amateur thieves might turn to movies and TV shows for lessons on criminal behavior. He flip-flopped on the heist idea three or four times. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Ghantt, meanwhile, was losing his patience and starting to make threats. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. All rights reserved. To say nothing of their art purchases like the aforementioned velvet Elvis portrait and a painting of a bulldog dressed as General George S. Patton. But you cant get blood from a stone, Johns said. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Kelly had no problem fanning the flames of their old flirtation.
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