But former Kings Mountain resident David Scott Ghantt can. When McKinney arrived in North Carolina, the plan had changed. The pager entry was 1-4-3. In real life: Mostly true. We spoke to the FBI agents who investigated the case who say the real-life. Kelly told the FBI she had done drugs with David but denied knowing about the theft. His collection case closes in two years. Im a very deliberate person. I said, Probably, the best time would be on the weekend; theres fewer people there. . There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. Steve had already paid McKinney $50,000 for the use of his ID. I missed my wife. I threw you out, and then threw the parachute after 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. He took bus tours of Mayan ruins. He drove to the edge of the Loomis compound, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence. Ghantt says he operates a bulldozer for a small company. The top-ranked pie in North Carolina doesnt look like pie at all. Jeffrey Guller, who at 81 is by far the oldest of the Loomis defendants, still owes almost $1.1 million on his original court debt of $1.14 million and will remain on the governments books for another four years. (John D. Simmons/The Charlotte Observer via AP) The Associated Press, BY MICHAEL GORDON, The Charlotte Observer. ", "I said, 'If you drive a truck, you're always in a financial bind. The initials on the money wrapper belonged to a Loomis employee who hadn't worked there since before the heist. They placed a bust of Caesar in the dining room. So he and some friends decided at the end of his Oct. 4 shift he would load a company van with more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drive away. "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. In real life: False. 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. As you probably know, it's loosely based on the Loomis Fargo heist in Charlotte back in the late nineties. By . He'd stay up all night, boosted by coffee, waiting for the sunrise over the ocean. . Except the person he offered $150,000 to mule $2.5 million down to Ghantt in Mexico turned him down and instead went to the FBI. His assignment was to deliver the cash to David and keep him happy until they could find a way to kill him, McKinney said. 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." When he landed in Cancun, his first stop was Walmart. You've violated that trust. And then I could hear her laughing. All the while, Ghantt prepared himself for the task at hand. Ghantt pulled out $50,000 from the back of the unmarked Loomis Fargo van. 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. But what did that mean? As with many recent historic events, this one had been caught on videotape, a fact that a few dozen Charlotte FBI agents would learn in a hastily organized Sunday morning meeting. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. 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. "We had David Ghantt and Kelly Campbell tied together, and we had Steven Chambers and Eric Payne with unexplained wealth, but we didn't have a tie between them," Agent John Wydra said. 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. In real life: False. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) During one overnight shift, a bumbling conspiracy of thieves just west of Charlotte stole more than $17 million from Loomis Fargo. ". Now two NC men face prison. . What purpose does that serve other than to denigrate that person into abject poverty?. Butcher says the federal courts in the Western District of North Carolina have never handled a case quite like Loomis. Why did this Charlotte engineer leave her job? Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. All rights reserved. So he got in a cab and went to a mall. He comes to my door, and hes got a brown paper bag in his hand. That led to better jobs, like the one at Loomis. One number is working in Campbells favor. If you go from a mobile home to a mansion, that's going to attract attention. It was the first Saturday in October. Did you get paid? The best states in the U.S. come from coast to coast. Its everything thats coming north.. These (Loomis) guys, not so much.. David quickly realized he was the intended victim. . ". He'd even bragged that he'd killed people. And youre like, Come on parachute. More than 20 people ended up in the FBI's dragnet. Besides her prison sentence . Some days, the robbery seems like a memory from a different life, a choice made by a different man. . real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist (No Ratings Yet) . In real life: True. Steve now needed a hit man. Next month, Payne will back in the Charlotte federal courthouse, this time to be sentenced from weapons and methamphetamine trafficking charges. Industry leading Training and Development. . 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. 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. We got to the end of the day, and he was acting like he wanted to linger. Soon thereafter, he met Kelly Campbell, a co-worker at Loomis Fargo. Kelly relayed his message to Steve. CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Kelly Campbell, the woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored-car company Loomis, Fargo was sentenced yesterday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. 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. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. 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. Twice a week over the next 12 months, we will take you back to the winter of sheep cloning and the summer of Con Air. When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. On Oct. 5, the Loomis heist celebrates its 25th birthday. Come for the Chumbawamba, and stay for the return of the Mack. Theres some things I want to do., Ghantt planned on traveling from Mexico to the Cayman Islands, bypassing customs along the way. I said, It comes down to picking the right day, and the right time of the month, and all that good stuff. I even told her, It wouldnt be all that difficult. It was unclear whether anyone will get that money, authorities said. Ghantt fled to Mexico. I had a four-hour layover there, and then from New Orleans to Cancun.. Things started to go south the night of the robbery. No hard feelings. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. And though she had been made night shift supervisor at Allied Security, she still felt she would never make the money she needed. At the sight of all that money, Scott and Eric had the same thought: They'd made the worst mistake of their lives. 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. Because lets be brutally honest: Theyre not wrong, okay? . Ghantt knew Chambers as Steve, but didnt find out that his last name was Chambers until the arrests were made. She just called me up on the phone and said, Hey, lets meet one day after work. And then, we were talking and she says, How do you feel about robbing Loomis Fargo? Ghantt tells me. In mid-November, McKinney carried $10,000 to Cancun but wound up spending most of it on himself. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. Ghantt:It's a comedy. In February 1998, the FBI tapped their phones and listened to Steve discuss depositing $2.5 million in the Cayman Islands. More agents waited outside to arrest them. I just had to call you., Today, Ghantt cant look back on the whole ordeal without some degree of pride. I mentioned it to Kelly. Some received probation for money laundering, many others did hard time. His name was Corey. In hindsight, it doesnt surprise me a bit, Ghantt says, a bitter laugh catching in his throat. Its hilarious. Field Operations; Corporate; Why Loomis. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. Soon, the couple would be paying for something else, too: a hitman. David thought about it. Loomis, Fargo offered a $500,000 reward after the theft. A third tape he didn't know about kept recording. Zaron Burnett is an investigative journalist and longform features writer based in Los Angeles. 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. I didnt pick the heist team. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Agents noticed it two months later when it flowed to them through official channels, along with hundreds of similar reports involving other people. Ghantt was already married when he took part in the heist, to a woman named Tammy who author Diamant described as very nice. It is true, however, that she had no idea about the plot and that he fled to Mexico without telling her. And after two years, you're just a file." And when everybody else voted to kill me, she voted with them, he explains. On Nov. 12, a confidential informant told the FBI about Steve Chambers's move from mobile home to mansion. A week later, another informant told the FBI that Eric Payne had quit his job at a printing company soon after the heist and was spending money he probably hadn't earned legally. Once I start something, Im going to the end., As for how he felt in the moment, he says, Imagine me and you went on an airplane. When October 1997 began, Steve and Michelle Chambers lived in a double-wide trailer. Question: Are you happy that Wilkesboro-nativeZach Galifianakis plays you in the movie? Careers. With the help of Aldo, a Mexican waiter he had befriended, David found a beach apartment in Cancun. She declined to take a lie-detector test. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. She tried to apologize for the murder plot. They discussed it further, and Campbell asked him when they should do it. 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. 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. A version of this story originally appeared on CharlotteObserver.com. real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist. He couldn't talk.". Tags: Associated Press, courts, crime, North Carolina. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. ', "He asked me if I'd mind holding some money for him. They set the date, Oct. 4, a Saturday when David knew he could be alone in the building after his shift. Kelly said she had reason to believe Steve might be able to pull off a heist. We spoke with the inside man, David Ghantt, to get the real story. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. "That would be living on the run, and I didn't want my kids to live that way. In the meantime, the FBI was closing in looking to bust a total of 21 suspected accomplices. 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. Key benefit components include: Health insurance plans. He realized that if they met the minimum monthly payments, the bill would take 30 years to pay. The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. He and his wife, Tammy, lived in a mobile home in Kings Mountain, N.C. Money was always tight. 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. I hit the local library the thing that we used to do before Google, Ghantt says with a small laugh. 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. He covers culture, politics, race, and other perplexing mysteries for MEL. "For the first year, they're all over you. 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. 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. On Feb. 27, agents listened in on a call from David to Kelly and learned David's location in Mexico. 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. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it," Ghantt said. And with Loomis, were looking at only one case. "We kept going, '1-4-3, 1-4-3,' " recalled Vic O'Korn, assistant special agent in charge of Charlotte's FBI office. Twenty people were convicted of roles big and small in the massive 1997 armored-car warehouse heist in west Charlotte. 1997 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle for sale at auction of items bought after Loomis, Fargo armored car facility heist by Steven Chambers, wife Michele, Kelly Jane Campbell & David Scott Ghanntt (Photo by Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images) Youre supposed to get less time for cooperating, a lesser penalty, and instead, you see what she got hit with. Gronquist said. One of them tapped him on the back. 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. Down in Jacksonville, a Loomis Fargo employee took $18 million from an armored van he was driving. 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 and happy. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Not a documentary. Exciting. 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. 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. Then he and Campbell drove 90 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where Ghantt planned to purchase a ticket to Mexico so he could be out of the country before news of the robbery broke the next morning. Question: Should people go see this movie? The plan called for David to leave the vault door ajar, then maneuver a few minutes alone at the end of his shift, long enough to loot the cash, then pass it to Kelly and Steve. Question: You went to Mexico. In real life: False. In that time, I realized most of my problems were because of me. Ghantt:It baffles me to this day. 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. They agreed that after the heist, David would immediately move to Mexico, alone, but Kelly would soon join him there, with her two children. Things were spiraling fast. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. It wasnt a big hit, but Ghantt, who was played by Galifianakis, gives it a rave review. While the agents initiated their investigation, the Chambers spent money as quickly as they could.