October was "a blast," he said. Ghantt:We're both North Carolina boys so we had a lot to talk about from the very beginning. After a Gulf War stint in the Army, David got married in 1992. 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. 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. No regrets. To that end, Campbell brought in her childhood friend Steve Chambers, who was characterized in the local press as a small-time drug dealer and a local fence for stolen goods, to lead the team. "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. One night in a small North Carolina town, a down-on-his-luck guard at Loomis Fargo manages to steal $17 millionliterally more than one ton of cash. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could. And I said, Hey, man, I got this. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. Loomis officials--forced to break into their own vault because David had taken the keys with him--calculated that he had stolen $17,044,000, making the second biggest heist in U.S. history, following the $18.8 million theft of an armored car by another Loomis Fargo employee just six months earlier. One number is working in Campbells favor. 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. There used to be a consulate in Cancun. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. So it was weird when during the middle of the week, there were these very clean-cut, very Midwestern looking, obviously American guys in the town. There had been no signs. Hes very articulate. The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. Or is the loot buried in somebody's yard? . At the Halloween party, though, Kelly gave in to Steve, and agreed it had to be done. By then Id figured out that Bruno was up to no good, and that Id probably never seen any more of my money. "I thought he was goofing around.". Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. That was pretty awesome., It felt like a dream vacation until he started running out of money. Ghantt:It started out as a mental exercise and somewhere between the mental exercise and the actual event, it became serious. He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. Like David, Kelly was frustrated with her marriage. In real life: False. David, the international fugitive, lived it up, too--for a while. I was looking at small sailboats and theyre not cheap, he tells me. 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. On March 1, David Ghantt left his hotel to do some laundry. It changes you. They picked me, he says with a rueful tone. 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. 2500 City West Blvd., Suite 2300 Houston, TX 77042. . One thing about teammates, in David's view: You could always trust them. Thats one of my personality flaws. He and co-worker Kelly Campbell, 27, had developed a close relationship and were spending time together outside of work. Yes, happy. That October, the Chamberses' bank accounts ballooned. On his second trip, Steve gave McKinney David's hotel address. You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin. Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. Kelly was lying. Fourteen defendants were ordered to make restitution payments to Loomis Fargo totaling almost $19 million. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. Actor Owen Wilson plays him in the movie, which includes the real names of all the major players. You cannot fine low-income people millions of dollars. He didnt even really question me. All were convicted. "Steve said, 'I think we ought to do it that night, when he drops off the van,' " Kelly recalled. I told them, Take it, box it up, and youll be able to ship it to me in Mexico. Back in the 1990s, you couldve probably boxed up a hot pink elephant and shipped it to Mexico; no one wouldve ever noticed. It was an ear-biting, Pierce Brosnan-loving, comet-obsessed world, and were here to relive every minute of it. At the end of one session, they wound up kissing outside the pickup. 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. 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. So yeah, Ghantt continues, I took a bus from there to Atlanta, and then I hopped a cab from the bus station to the airport in Atlanta., Back in North Carolina, his accomplices were working as fast as they could to hide the $17 million. This is where it starts to unravel, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh. 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. 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. Chambers, who still lives in Gaston County and operates a gym, declined to comment. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. Starting Pay Rate: $15.50 per hour Shift: Monday - Friday from 1:00pm to 9:00pm Job Description As a Coin Processor, you work with your team to maintain inventory in our cash vaults for our Loomis customers. He figured Tammy wouldn't go for it, and though his marriage had been troubled, he wasn't certain he wanted to leave her. 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.. . He longed for the middle-class lifestyle of his childhood, with its private religious-school education and Disney World vacations. Our Benefits. Campbell was released from federal custody in 2004 after serving five years, meaning her collection case will age out in December 2024. 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. That day, FBI agents also would arrest Scott Grant and Eric Payne, who had spent his share of the money on a motorcycle and breast implants for his wife and two sisters. Or as he tells me, How many people in the United States havent thought about robbing a bank? We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. He has no contact with any of those convicted with him in the crime, including his former wife, and doesn't plan to see the movie, he said. Ghantt:Since I still owe the federal government money I can't get paid. He was an old friend from East Gaston High School, tough and sure of himself. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. They put up mauve wallpaper. The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was the $17.3 million cash robbery of the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis Fargo & Company on the evening of October 4, 1997, by armored car driver and vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt. In real life: False. As for his new wife, when the two just started dating, he was nervous about letting her know about his past, but he wanted to be honest. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. 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. They were the butt of a national joke. David trusted her. They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. Too many questions remained: Where was the cash? Kelly found herself standing beside David while they waited together for a bond hearing. These days, the 52-year-old husband and father lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works at a heavy equipment rental agency. 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. 1-4-3 is 'I love you.' The first weekday after the heist, Michele Chambers, co-conspirator Steve's wife, walked into a NationsBank branch with a briefcase containing $5,000. That's the kind of movie they wanted to make. The van door opened. They stocked a wine cellar. Ghantt was working as a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo in Charlotte in 1997, earning about $8 an hour and tired of his humdrum life. I've got a good woman.". He had just returned to his home in Jacksonville, Fla., when he agreed to talk about the heist, his life now and what went wrong when a group of friends who thought they could get away with stealing $17 million cash. Not a documentary. Steve was sentenced to 11 years 3 months in prison. Did you get paid? Question: Should people go see this movie? She also must . Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Updated: 11:31 AM EDT October 4, 2022 CHARLOTTE, N.C. Tuesday is the 25th anniversary of the infamous Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte, where a bank worker, with the help of two accomplices,. In real life: True. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. Posted on . "He showed me a lot of money," McKinney said. 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. 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. In early September 1997, Kelly found herself chatting on the phone with a friend who still worked at Loomis, a 27-year-old man who, despite being married, had made no secret of the fact that he had a crush on her. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. Guller was the attorney for Steven Chambers, who came up with the original idea for the Loomis theft. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. In early November, Steve lured the real Mike McKinney, an ex-Marine, to North Carolina from his Illinois home. At first, I just blended in with the tourists and picked up a few translation books, Ghantt explains. I knew that the news wouldnt break until later that morning. He went deep-sea fishing. Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, Ghantts wife woke up to find her husband missing. What that says is, We will never forgive you for what youve done.. "But I had to know.". Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. I loved it. 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. Im a very deliberate person.
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