Michelle Chambers paid off only $27,000. First, they tapped the Chambers phone, and began listening in on February 11th, 1998. Well they were in some sense celebrities, Gronquist said. He was a hard worker, smart enough, and had graduated from high school. He loves his motorcycle and enjoys going fishing and, while hes sorry for the past, hes not ashamed to talk about it. If it didn't work out, he could return to the United States later with a new identity. He would then have the bulk of his share sent south of the border. Learning from this error, David planned to leave the stolen money behind with his coconspirators while he fled to Mexico. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. David and Steve had never met, but Steve had already secured somebody else's birth certificate and social security card for him and given it to Kelly to pass along. Many of the lesser players in the conspiracy have been the most effective in paying their debts. 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. But you cant get blood from a stone,, Criminals dont usually get high-paying jobs after leaving prison. 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. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth.. The FBI was inadvertently aided by the gang members extravagant spending. Over 88% of the money has been recovered since the heist. Ghantt had fled to Mexico with $50,000 in cash, leaving the rest of the money with Steve Chambers. There was no reason to leave anything, he felt. A third surveillance tape was carelessly left behind, and the company was able to identify the man who robbed the vault as David Ghantt. At that point, Kelly and David had known each other for two years. You can garnish wages. 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. Getting restitution, its like pulling teeth., White-collar criminals are pretty good at hiding their money,, Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with., She will never get beyond the debt. He added that he would be able to send the trainee home at about 6:00 p.m. and would then need about an hour to load the money from carts, shelves, and the floor into a Loomis company van. This was several years before the advent of smartphones and the post-9/11 increase in federal surveillance of electronic communications, and public knowledge about this tracking was less widespread. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. He put on his best pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, and his nicest cowboy boots. Thank you! 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. Pink, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blonde. I actually loved reading through this post. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. Anybody who gets caught up in the system is getting chewed up by it, the now-retired Gronquist told the Observer. But after a year, they cut it down to two agents. How many people have walked the red carpet at a movie premiere in a case that was yours?. She had attitude. A woman by the name of Kelly Campbell had worked there in 1996, and she and Ghantt had become friends in that time. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. She sounded incredulous. In the grand scheme of things, the prison sentence for stealing $20 million wouldn't be much worse than for stealing just $500,000 maybe a few extra years behind bars. He tried again to make the back gate rise, to no avail. "Don't double-cross us," the woman on the phone told David Ghantt. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. If the American Dream involved being better off as adults than your parents were, David was experiencing a version of the American Nightmare. 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. Getting that off his chest calmed him some, and the conversation returned to the plan. Human nature is a flexible part of life, Gronquist said. She will never get beyond the debt. Another name the FBI had become very interested in is Eric Payne. "I'm busy," he said. He had since served time in prison for the crime and told our sister station WSOC-TV Channel 9s Glenn Counts he learned a valuable lesson while behind bars. Ms. Campbell worked at Loomis for 11 months, leaving in November 1996, according to court papers. "But you can still have a cigarette.". The FBI began to question past and current employees of Loomis Fargo. Temptation to do something that you think you normally wouldnt do can change a lot of minds when its that kind of cash, and thats what it was., (WATCH BELOW: VIDEO: The Loomis Fargo heist: 25 years later). Yet their lives seemed far easier and better than his. His collection case, which closes in November 2026, got credit for the couples $540,000 house on Cramer Mountain in Gaston County, Butcher says. The bigger the amount, however, the bigger the damages to victims that likely will never be repaid: Amy Paynes collection account was closed in 2020 with her having paid $53,000 of the $274,000 she owed. They didnt expect it.. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Remember why you were elected! 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. NASCAR. 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. 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. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. "I've got a friend," she said, "who can hook you up with a new ID.". Inside $3.3 million was located along with the two stolen surveillance tapes, apparently left due to the robber and his accomplices being sloppy, or in a hurry. Despite being caught on camera wheeling the money from the vault to the getaway van, David Ghantt makes off to Mexico before the FBI can blink. Sunny. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done. He is a graduate of Yale and has worked for the Connecticut Post, the Associated Press, and the Palm Beach Post. Restitution is a familiar part of sentencing in federal court. FBI video shows agents searching the Cramer Mountain home and finding stacks of cash. According to Butcher, Campbells last official payment came in June 2021 when the government appears to have seized a tax refund of $81.24. Some of the biggest numbers remaining on the Loomis collection board, as is the case with Campbell, belong to those who played the biggest role in the crime: - David Ghantt, the Loomis employee who loaded all that money 2,800 pounds in all into the back of a company van before escaping to Mexico, has paid just under $50,000 of the $3.81 million he was assessed. How did they get away with stealing more than $17 million? Ghantt, who by then was long out of prison, served as a consultant. 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 plan was to exit through the building's electronic back gate, which consisted of horizontal metal plates that opened at the touch of a button. Steve's a serious guy.". At about 6:40 p.m., he went back inside. A parrot tattoo on her right ankle. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. The figures can be astounding. He waffled on the heist idea three or four times from late August to mid-September. The gang made numerous mistakes. Burks was also ordered to serve 15 years in prison, limiting his ability to balance his books. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. You Save 23%. The inspiration behind the major motion picture Masterminds starring Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis! As beads of sweat formed under his red hair, he loaded up another cart and repeated the process. of violence, racism, anti-Semitism, or Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. Since then, there have been numerous articles, books, documentaries and even a movie about this gang -- the gang that couldnt shoot straight. 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. The money weighed as much as a compact car and he did it all by himself. Although the FBI investigation was able to quickly connect Ghantt to Campbell, connecting Ghantt to Chambers was a more difficult task. Unexplained Mysteries - owned by Aliens since 2011. He ejected the two VCR tapes that he knew had recorded him stealing the money, took them, and prepared to leave. Steve and Michelle Chambers, who had lived in a mobile home, bought a mansion in Cramer Mountain. He worked close-by to where the van and over $3 million dollars had been ditched, and was friends with Steve Chambers. I appreciate your kind words! Chambers had told Campbell to do whatever she needed to do to get Ghantt to commit the robbery. (LogOut/ However, Chambers had no intention of following those rules, believing the FBI would never connect him to Ghantt. Change). "About fourteen or fifteen million dollars," he said. The Charlotte area's economy was booming all around him, and he felt passed over. He and Tammy could have one or two meals each week that he really liked, but the rest were hot dogs or Hamburger Helper. Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. She'd left Loomis in November 1996 to take a job elsewhere as a security guard. We are happy to work with other website publishers. Ghantts spending in Mexico was extravagant at first. 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.. All of the co-defendants were arrested the next day, about six months after the heist. 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. When did you conclude Yeah, Im actually going to do this? Counts asked. They knew Steve Chambers had worked as an informant in the past, and were nervous he would smell out an undercover. He hired a hitman to take Ghantt out, tying up the ultimate loose end. Ghantt met up with the other members of the plot and offloaded the cash. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is this really about the needs of the poor? None of the suspects had been in any serious trouble before this. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. "Everything's gonna be all right," she told him. >> PHOTOS: The Loomis Fargo heist, 25 years later. Booklist "Librariesshould consider purchasing this entertaining and lightly edited version, which reads like a fast-paced novel." Loomis Fargo, the nation's largest privately held armored- car company, used vans to transport hundreds of millions of dollars a day belonging to banks and other businesses, stocking automated teller machines and storing money in the Loomis vault between deliveries. When some friends stole a stop sign from a busy intersection, David made them put it back. Low 46F. Most people are going to forgive you. Worlds Biggest Heists London Hatton Garden 200m Diamond Robbery, Easter 2015. Ghantt went to Mexico leaving the money with his cohorts, thinking that he could get his share back when he needed it. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. She was five-foot-seven, had dirty-blond hair, and had worked with him for about a year at Loomis Fargo, until she left for another job in 1996. On the evening ofOctober 4, 1997, the Loomis Fargo & Co branch in Charlotte, North Carolina was in the process of being plundered. remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats Steve decided to send his cousin, Nathan with money down to Mexico as a ruse, while Mike the bodyguard would follow behind to take care of Ghantt. But that only tells part of the story. Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Driving away, he said he felt a mix of fear, confidence and excitement that he outsmarted the FBI. 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. He wanted to leave his wife for her, and Kelly, who also was married, let him think she wanted the same. A couple by the names of Steve and Shelley Chambers also became people of interest in the investigation due to their extreme sudden increase in spending. There are multiples of thousands of these things coming every year. The bag held his mobile phone and handgun. Punishment needs to be fair and realistic. By then, the FBI had become greatly concerned for Ghantts personal safety; they had learned of Chambersmurder for hirescheme. Though Wydra is retired, 25 years ago, he was an agent with the FBI. 2023 Cox Media Group. 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.