I've got a good woman.". "For the first year, they're all over you. ". But it wasnt. Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. Scott, 26, had a larceny conviction as a teenager, but he'd since cleaned up his act and now had a steady job, a daughter and a girlfriend. Campbell used to work for Loomis and continued the friendship with Ghantt,. All of the defendants are out of prison -- the longest sentence was 11 years. The use of this site is restricted to authorized personnel only. Steve solicited two others to help move cash during the theft. The picture, which is directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, and Emily Spivey, stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Jason Sudeikis . Im a very deliberate person. The problem with the movie, however, is that the talented cast had no idea what the hell they were trying to do. Kelly drove David to the airport. They also purchased tanning beds, a pool table, a Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle and all kinds of expensive furniture. They cursed. Working together, they got the gate open, then drove in a caravan to the Reynolds & Reynolds parking lot. 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. He would pay McKinney $250,000, half upfront. Chambers and Campbell were waiting for him in the Loomis Fargo parking lot, both in separate vehicles. Federal prosecutors would ultimately charge 21 defendants in the case, including the Floyds, who were charged with (and pleaded guilty to) money laundering. 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. They planned to kill a man named David Ghantt, the guy who had made their extravagant new lifestyle a reality. So much so that one suspicious neighbor called the FBI. . For example, Steve Chambers and his wife were living in a trailer and upgraded to what would today be a multi-million-dollar mansion at Cramer Mountain. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. And I think that makes it all the more funny, because it really offends my co-defendants. . Records show the government has garnished his Social Security checks. . Chambers, now 32, didn't grant an interview for this article, but last year, in response to written questions, he said the biggest lesson he learned was: "Family is more important and valuable than money. . It, too, has changed hands several times. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. www.loomis.com. Its really just a matter of timing, more than anything. And she says, How much do you think wed get out of there? I said, Ten to 15 million. But I didnt really know.. Will Vin Sant Leave You Jacked or Scammed. I studied up on the FBI. . If you want to go ahead and go, I got it. Galifianakis seems to be playing a character out of Dumb and Dumber 3: The Dumbening; Kristen Wiig plays what could only be described as her worst SNL character; Owen Wilson plays an Owen Wilson character; and Sudeikis plays a bumbling hitman who cant pull the trigger after he finds out his target shares the same name and birthdate, which is the dumbest twist since the Martha revelation in Batman vs. Superman. . At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. The agents tapped the phone, and it didnt take long to locate Ghantt after that. Kelly had resisted this suggestion before the heist: She and David were friends. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. His wife, Tammy, was as shocked as Loomis officials. Sun, sand and beaches are all part of why Jacksonville is a popular destination. Then 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, Wydra said. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. Part 2: Channel 9 speaks with the man at the center of Loomis Fargo heist 25 years ago. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. Just under $14 million sat in an outbuilding behind his home, inside blue steel barrels. An officer rang the doorbell. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. 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. I ride motorcycles and fish -- normal guy, Ghantt told Counts. For her part, Kelly Campbell spent six years in federal prison. "As soon as you start, you realize there's no going back," David recalled. I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. and "I love money!" Theyre meant to be trailer-park trash, but they come off as character experiments on a bad night at the Groundlings. David thought about it. That week, the FBI designated the theft its 142nd "major case," putting it on a list--begun in the 1970s--that includes such other infamous crimes as the World Trade Center bombing. October was "a blast," he said. This was in the 1990s the Columbia Airport back then was closed at around 9:30, 10 oclock. From Mexico, David usually spoke with Kelly on the phone once a week, paying with calling cards. The Election, U.S. Foreign Policy, And Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Lecture, Nate Parker on Rape Allegations: 'I Don't Feel Guilty'. Where was Ghantt? I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. Kelly Campbell arrested 11) Finally, the FBI successfully tracked down Ghantt and arrested him at Playa del Carmen. Tuesday marked 25 years since a group of buddies pulled off the third-largest money grab in U.S. history -- the Loomis Fargo heist. 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. When did you conclude Yeah, Im actually going to do this? Counts asked. Until, that is, he decided to hell with it he was going to pull-off the second largest heist in U.S. history. 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), Florida Senator proposes bill to cancel Democratic Party in state, Georgia star Jalen Carter charged with racing in fatal wreck, FHP: Man dies after FDOT Road Ranger rear-ends truck, pushes him over edge of Buckman Bridge, Bartram Trail High School girls lacrosse player denied NIL opportunity, Contest: Win tickets to the AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville. The robbery of some $17 million quickly became one of the wildest bank heists of the last quarter century. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. Im married, I got one girl, shes 15 going on 30. Not every agent has a case like that, he said. 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. This is the person I counted as my friend. So the original gang was all totally shocked, Wydra said. The cart held about $2 million, and the thief made multiple trips. . He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. You might as well take it all, Ghantt tells me. Going south, nobody really looks at what youre shipping. But what did that mean? You might as well go all the way now.". He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. The case resurfaced in the federal courts on Thursday, Sept. 1, when the U.S. Attorneys Office in Charlotte posted a public reminder in the case file of Loomis defendant Kelly Campbell that she had fallen behind in her restitution. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. Theres barely a laugh in the entire film, which looks like it was shot entirely in one take while the actors were still working out their characters. I had to go in there and tell her the whole story, and she was real cool about it. I hear her typing. ". "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. Truth be told, Ghantt had something of a crush on Campbell, and so, he told her exactly how hed pull off such a heist. Steve Chambers and his wife (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) were a little more difficult to connect to the heist. He para-sailed, power-skied and scuba-dived. In early December, Steve and Michele invited relatives to their daughter's sixth birthday party. Its hilarious. However, the fact that a man who formerly lived in a mobile home was lavishly spending money on a luxury home ($635,000 in cash), expensive cars, and a ring ($42,000 in cash) eventually made it easy to connect the dots. As he and Kelly met in a field behind a shooting range to refine the plan, she allowed him to believe she was falling for him. I learned something that was valuable at the time: Most criminals never leave a 250, maybe 300-mile circle from their home base. But what the bank didnt tell Michelle, and Michelle didnt know, was that one of those forms get filled out if you ask about it, or if its close to $10,000 or if they suspect that any part of that transaction is suspicious, Wydra said. When she realized Ghantt never came home from work the night before, she contacted the police and filed a missing persons report. Well she was a pretty happy-go-lucky person, he said. Search Tools . Michele received the best gift of the night. But because David's relationship with his Loomis bosses had been rocky, he says, he doesn't feel sorry about what he did to the company. 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. Then, on a mid-September day, as he reviewed a credit card bill, David did some math. All rights reserved. The last time he called me, he said, Hey Ghantt, I just saw a big Loomis Fargo truck. Hed never really been in trouble, he wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent John Wydra. I couldn't understand why I hadn't been more successful," David said. With a cast like this, and Emily Spivey (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Up All Night) as part of the writing team, Masterminds shouldnt be nearly as obnoxious and dull as it is, but nothing ever clicks. 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