David Scott Ghantt was the vault supervisor at the regional branch of Loomis, Fargo & Co. in Charlotte, North Carolina. The FBI (Leslie Jones, Jon Daly) made easy work of the case, however, and everyone involved was eventually arrested and imprisoned. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Si vous souhaitez personnaliser vos choix, cliquez sur Grer les paramtres de confidentialit. He was the only employee unaccounted for the next morning, and videotapes recovered at the Loomis Fargo Charlotte office showed Ghantt removing "cubes of cash" and loading it into a Loomis Fargo armored van for over an hour. But last Oct. 4, when he still hadn't gotten home by 2:30 a.m., she called his parents in. They asked me how I felt about it and I said, Its my story, but its your movie so have at me. No rift here! Though she agreed to cooperate with the government when she pleaded guilty to bank larceny and money laundering in August 1998, Michele Chambers didn't tell the FBI she still had the ring until December, when she turned it in. A lot of people ask me, Oh, do you have any regrets? No, not really. The additions come as KFC recently removed some menu items, including wings, popcorn chicken and cookies, to make room for new additions. While making only eight dollars an hour in his role as supervisor, Ghantt decided it was time to do something: I was unhappy with my life. FBI security footage of David Ghantt in the midst of the Loomis Fargo heist. There is nothing of value in this movie. David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis), an employee of Loomis Fargo, robbed his own vault, left the $17.3 million in cash with his co-conspirators, Kelly Campbell (Kristen Wiig) and Steve Chambers (Owen Wilson) and fled the country to Mexico. To find out more about how the thieves got caught and how long they landed behind bars, tune in the Super Heists on CNBC on Monday at 10 p.m. ET/PT. You see, theres a reason Loomis Fargo used armored cars to move large amounts of cash. Federal Judge Graham Mullen sentenced her to between those lengths. And Ghantt hadnt really thought about the physical challenge of moving such a large sum of money. That usually takes the shine right off of it, when you start explaining that. He continued, Youd be wearing a lot of khaki brown and eating crappy food., Since the films release and its recent Netflix debut, Scott Ghent cited that the most common question he receives is about the missing $2 million never recovered by the FBI; Ive had people actually ask me that question. Together with his wife, Chambers bought a new luxury home (upgrading from his mobile home), a BMW Z3, and some extravagant furnishings. All but one of the defendants pleaded guilty. Do you still have contact with him? The pair began to daydream about whether they could really pull off the heist. Degrowth or Debunk: Do Degrowth proponents have a strategy? You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba. David Ghantt had been a model employee for an armored car company before pulling off the second biggest cash heist in U.S. history, fleeing with more than . Nous, Yahoo, faisons partie de la famille de marques Yahoo. They took a lot of liberty with the story here and there. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. You have permission to edit this article. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. David Scott Ghantt: Vault Supervisor David Scott Ghantt was the vault supervisor at the regional branch of Loomis, Fargo & Co. in Charlotte, North Carolina. The couple was married for 22 years before her untimely death in 2012. When the cheerleading coach broke the news to Katrina Kohel that she was the only one left on the cheer squad, Kohel was determined to compete anyway. They got to work planning the straightforward heist that would rely on Ghantts existing access to the vault, fewer staff at the warehouse on the weekends, and the ability to use one of the companys armored trucks to make the successful getaway. David Ghantt on stealing 17 million dollars from Loomis Fargo (Crime & Entertainment Full Interview) Crime & Entertainment 3.77K subscribers Subscribe 4.8K views 1 year ago David Ghantt. By comparison, Ghantt served seven years in prison and was fined $26,000. Ghantt was joking in the breakroom with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell. mesurer votre utilisation de nos sites et applications. During the next few months they bought a BMW-Z3 roadster and tens of thousands of dollars in antiques, furniture and decorations. Q: Do you appreciate your normal life now more than you would if you hadn't spent years in prison? On Oct. 5, 1997, Ghantt carried out the heist during his regular shift after sending another employee home, stealing more than $17 million from the bank vault. Here, he amps up the most obnoxious excesses of his entire cast and lets their grating bad-improv skills run amok. I really don't miss that guy. Officers responded just after 5 a.m. Wednesday to an area near the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Carolyn Coleman Way and found , "The Wall Street Journal just so happened to have a supportive op-ed ready to publish within hours of the meeting. ``This defendant was second to Steve Chambers in (benefiting) from the crime,' he said. David Ghantt was a nuisance to Steve Chambers and Kelly Campbell, John Wydra, a retired FBI agent who handled the case, told Super Heists.. Q: Your troubles were self-inflicted, but you seem happy. You'd be amazed at how much stress you can relieve yourself from in your life by just taking 20 or so minutes a day for yourself and just letting the world go. In the meantime, however, Chambers not only refused to wire money to Ghantt in Mexico, but ultimately hired a hitman (Jason Sudeikis) to take him out. Her sentence would've been ``substantially' less if she hadn't kept it, officials said. It was over. For a time, it was nicknamed "the hillbilly heist" because nearly all of the major players in the case came from small towns around Charlotte. Loomis Fargo employees could not open the vault the next morning and called the police. The True Story of David Ghantt and the Loomis Fargo Heist, Get Free Guides to Boost Your SAT/ACT Score, check out some of these books on our AP History Exam reading list. Thats the big thing. The Election, U.S. Foreign Policy, And Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Lecture, Nate Parker on Rape Allegations: 'I Don't Feel Guilty'. A Comprehensive Guide. Did you know that the SAT offers subject exams, too? My Proof: https://twitter.com/DavidGhantt/status/827476087596789760, My AMA time is up now, but thank you all for your participation in the Ask Me Anything session :-), New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, https://twitter.com/DavidGhantt/status/827476087596789760. Its easy to get somebody to do something if you know that they are that infatuated with you.. In 2020, the television show Super Heists portrayed the heist in Episode 3, "Van Full of Dollars". Please subscribe to keep reading. Custom Content. [1], This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Philip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.[2]. I figured it had to be me. As the FBI listened in to Chambers calls, they discovered that he was also planning to have Ghantt assassinated, hoping to keep all the money for himself. David Ghantt, a Gulf War veteran, had never been in trouble with the law. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Michele Chambers' sentence was two months longer than that given to David Scott Ghantt, the Loomis employee who removed the money from the company vault on Oct. 4, 1997. ``None of these defendants , in this court's opinion, are capable of making substantial restitution, no matter what they do, or no matter what they try,' Mullen said. The thieves had simply abandoned whatever they couldnt carry away. Too bad it was so poorly planned. Where ever it was, it is long gone now. Nine other relatives and friends were also charged with money laundering, as they had co-signed for safe deposit boxes used to store some of the money; prosecutors opted to charge them on the grounds that they should have known the money was obtained illegally. But because he still owes millions to the IRS, he couldnt be paid. dvelopper et amliorer nos produits et services. The FBI continues to search for a missing $2 million from the theft. From Oct. 6 through Feb. 20, the couple made 47 deposits totaling $271,500 at a Belmont bank, and at. Her husband, Steve Chambers, whom prosecutors have called the main defendant, began serving an 11-year sentence earlier this year. The Army veteran and Hunter Huss High graduate was captured in Mexico five months later when one of the others involved in the theft, Steve Chambers, decided he needed to tie up loose ends by having Ghantt killed. When asked what the dumbest thing was that Ghantt spent money on, he admitted: The 4 pairs of boots I bought in one day [shrug] what can I say they were nice and I was impulse shopping.. During the hearing, Culler recounted his client's difficult personal life: her parents' divorce when she was 2 or 3 years old; a teenage stay in a Baptist Children's home; a teenage pregnancy; and various medical conditions. The pair were both from the United States but had lived in the Peloponnese region of Greece for the past few years. Meanwhile, Ghantt would take $50,000, as much as could legally be carried across the border without questions, and flee to Mexico. I was working sometimes 75-80 hrs a week for $8.15 an hour, I didnt even have a real home life because I was never there I was working all the time and unhappy which is understandable considering how old I was at the time. I wasnt attracted to him or anything, but he was a nice guy, Campbell said. I realized a lot of things that were wrong with me as a person. Si vous ne souhaitez pas que nos partenaires et nousmmes utilisions des cookies et vos donnes personnelles pour ces motifs supplmentaires, cliquez sur Refuser tout. Naturally, Ghantt started to run out of cash and turned to Chambers, who was annoyed by his requests for more money. Both were involved in the second-largest cash heist in U.S. history, in which a group of people stole $17 million from the. However, the FBI knew immediately who robbed the vault (Ghant was seen on video camera), and it didnt take long for the FBI to loop in Kelly Campbell. Back then all I really wanted to do was just, I wanted to change my life. The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points, How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer, Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests. 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. Michele Chambers declined to make a statement at the hearing. Ghantt, who had been with the bank since 1994, was promoted from driver to vault supervisor in 1997, where he earned $360 a week and befriended Kelly Campbell (Wiig), who got Ghantt mixed up in the plans for the heist after she left Loomis. An FBI criminal investigation ultimately resulted in the arrest and conviction of eight people directly involved in the heist, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them, and the recovery of approximately 88% of the stolen money. David Ghantt struck up a relationship with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell, and they continued to maintain contact even after Campbell left the company. Chambers, his wife, and several of their accomplices were arrested the next day. (His wife tells him to change that word to "selfish."). Ghantt, Chambers, and Campbell came up with the following plan: Ghantt would remain in the vault after his shift on the night of the heist, Oct. 4, 1997, and let his co-conspirators into the vault. They had initially agreed to control their spending for a year or two, in the belief that the government would vigorously track the spending habits of any and all suspects for at least a year before relenting. afficher des publicits et des contenus personnaliss en fonction de vos profils de centres dintrt; mesurer lefficacit des publicits et contenus personnaliss; et. In the end, eight co-conspirators were indicted for the Loomis Fargo heist. Once the hitman Chambers had hired arrived in Mexico, he found that he couldnt bring himself to kill Ghantt. When he was done, the man drove off to a nearby printing press, where the money was distributed into private vehicles amongst a handful of people. Ask below and we'll reply! The plan was for Ghantt to commit the robbery and then quickly leave the country for Mexico but to leave the bulk of the cash with Chambers. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Whisler said he didn't think those factors should result in a reduced sentence. A movie based on the heist starring Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones and directed by Jared Hess (the guy who made Napoleon Dynamite) is out now on Blu-ray and DVD. Masterminds which opens nationwide today (though youd be hard pressed to know that given the decided lack of promotion) is proof again that all the talent in the world cannot salvage a bad script, and not even a good screenwriter can make up for terrible performances. What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For? And so this third camera caught everything that happened next. That suspicion was immediately confirmed by a quick glance at the security camera footage that showed Ghantt doing a little dance after loading all the cash into the van. But as Ghantt admitted, the film took some liberties with specific details and characters to make the film funnier. The odds of you actually getting away with something these days is pretty damn slim. Defense attorney Jim Griffin laid out his team's side of the case to the jury for more than two hours, arguing . For instance, after stealing $17.3 million $11 million of which was in $20 bills the conspirators had to leave behind $3 million in cash because they couldnt fit all of it in their cars. Ghantt plead guilty to his charges andserved six years in prison, along with21 other defendantswho received chargesrangingfrom money laundering to bank larceny. Then Michele made a trip to the bank. Steven Chambers, left, and David Scott Ghantt leave federal court. But it was Ghantt, now 47 and living with his wife and daughter in Jacksonville, Florida, who actually took more than 2,000 pounds of cash and just drove away from his job. Ill never pay it off on my paycheck, Ghantt said. Although the history of the predecessor Wells Fargo & Company dates back to 1852, Loomis Fargo & Company was established in 1997 by the consolidation of Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc.; the resulting corporation employed 8,500 people and provided armored transportation, cash handling services, and automatic teller machine maintenance. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone, Police identify victim who died Wednesday in Greensboro's 11th homicide of 2023, William Sturkey: Chapel Hill trustees 'hellbent' on winning campus culture wars, Rob Schofield: North Carolinas chronic public employee shortage wasnt an accident, KFC is bringing back a fan favorite after a nearly 10-year hiatus, Richard Groves: What the 'He Gets Us' media campaign says about the decline of Christianity, Two Things: Victim's family not surprised by no show; hospital wars in Greensboro and money well spent, Mark Elliott and Jeremy Rinker: Budget reductions at UNCG punish it for serving disadvantaged students, Samet: Guilford County wanted more black-owned businesses added to construction project after the bids were opened, Former Page High School teacher arrested on child sex charges, records show, Proposed rules for Airbnb, other short-term rentals advance in Greensboro, 'A bizarre case': Greensboro TikTok star found not guilty in fatal 2019 crash, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist proposes community hospital in Greensboro, Greensboro police officer involved in confrontation on Golden Gate Drive resigns, Jaydon Young's lessons of sacrifice mix with two-hour transfer, Virginia Tech and 2023 tournament. [1], Steven Chambers finished serving his sentence in November 2006. This article will teach you more about the SAT subject tests. I wanted to make a drastic change and I went for it, Ghantt remembered later to the Gaston Gazette. At the time it was the second largest cash robbery ever to happen on US soil. Robbing the 7-Eleven and getting $40 bucks and a pack of Marlboros was not for me. 29 David Ghantt Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images. He was released in 2006. BBC Motion Gallery. [7][8], Rocket Science, a 1998 double-disc album by Charlotte-based radio personalities John Boy & Billy, includes a track ("Marvin: The Loomis Caper") mocking the defendants. Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. SAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination BoardTM. David Ghantt was the vault supervisor for Loomis, Fargo & Co. armored cars, which managed the transportation of large sums of cash between banks in North Carolina. He had stayed in a luxury hotel and paid for expensive food and activities such as scuba diving and parasailing. In fact, David Ghantt was about to commit the heist of a lifetime. As a vault supervisor for Loomis Fargo, David had access to the vaults and all the cash within. You can cancel at any time. Eventually, Ghantt called in from Mexico, seeking more money, and the FBI officially recognized Chambers as a co-conspirator. Unfortunately, he failed to disable the third camera. Before he decided to steal $17 million from the bank, Ghantt had worked for years as a relatively taciturn and compliant employee. There was also no dramatic showdown between Chambers and Ghantt as the movie suggests. They received sentences and probation ranging from several years to 11 years and three months in federal prison for Steve Chambers, who was also fined more than $3,500,000. The robbery was committed by Loomis vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell (a former Loomis co-worker), Steven Eugene Chambers (a one-time FBI informant), his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies, and four other co-conspirators. Everybody thinks being famous and being an actor is stupendous, and the money is fantastic, but they kind of live in afish bowl. ``I'm glad she didn't get nine years,' said Sandra Floyd, her mother. David Scott Ghantt Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. 4, 1997. Hes way smarter than youd think he would be because he tends to play Bozos. Ghantt, now 29, was a tall, decorated Persian Gulf War veteran whom early newspaper reports likened to Huckleberry Finn. Question: Which do you regret more, stealing the money or getting caught? AI Chatbots are Even Scarier Than You Think, DeSantiss Educational Policies Come Right Out of the Fascist Playbook, Erase the Memory to Erase a People? Sign up forOxygen Insiderfor all the best true crime content. One of the best ways to learn more about U.S. history is to make sure youre taking history classes. An elderly American couple who went missing in Greece in late January this year were discovered dead in Taygetos mountain range. Chambers had known enough to insist that no one blows through a ton of cash immediately after the robbery, but once he actually had his hands on the money, he couldnt follow his own advice. This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 16:45. Its kind of out of sight, out of mind, she said of the reasoning. What happens at the end of mastermind? Once Ghantt loaded the large haul from the vaultwhich could have been close to $20 millioninto a truck, he planned to drive to a second location, then head straight to the airport and fly to Mexico. So Chambers decided to solve the problem by putting a hit on Ghantt. The missing couple were identified as David Harrison Robinson and his wife Lucretia Robinson. Ghantt's spending in Mexico was extravagant at first. David Ghantt discovers the true meaning of adventure far beyond his wildest dreams. The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points, How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer. $17.3 million in cash was robbed from the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis, Fargo & Co. on the evening of October 4, 1997. I think Zachs a hell of an actor. Campbell knew theyd need the help of the warehouses vault supervisor, who just happened to have a crush on her, and she called Ghantt to ask for his help. He made his own self miserable. He was like OK, yeah, we can do that, she recalled. Once the heat was off, Ghantt would return and they would split the haul evenly. Biography Comedy Crime A guard at an armored car company in the Southern U.S. organizes one of the biggest bank heists in American history. A former co-worker told me, "Everybody has screwed up. Michelle Chambers received a harsher sentence than Ghantt seven years and eight months because she had violated several bond conditions. The morning after the height, employees of Loomis Fargo realized they couldnt open the vault. He then proceeded to load about $17.3 million in cash (approximately $11 million of which was in $20 bills) into the back of a company van. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer. [15], "David Ghantt" redirects here. Ghantt and his compatriots, it turns out, had underestimated how bulky money is. If I could get far enough away in a very short amount of time, my odds of getting away with it were pretty high, Ghantt said. David Ghantt normally came home between 6 and 8 p.m., and often he was late, his wife said. Defense lawyer Andy Culler sought a seven-year, three-month sentence. Campbell and Chambers made themselves easy to catch, what with their lavish spending. Loomis Fargo employee David Ghantt and his partners nearly pulled off the perfect crime, but it would be their lavish spending, and an alleged murder plot, that would be their undoing. But even though he worked for a company that regularly moved millions of dollars, David Ghantt himself was underpaid. Ghantt @ChristyGhantt Dec 7, 2022 I just entered the @clxgaming Ra PC Giveaway! The details of the heist itself, coupled with the missteps the crew made after stealing the money, attracted the attention of writers and movie producers. Here's whatGhantt says now about the heist that madethe "Cramer Mountain Hillbillies" famous and changed him forever. At the time it was thesecond largest bank heistin U.S. history. Chambers, who made an ill-fated decision to buy a home in the gated Cramer Mountain community with his newfound wealth, now runsa gym on Lowell-Bethesda Road. Michele Chambers 1998 BMW for sale following the prosecutions of the Loomis Fargo heist conspirators. The judge said he would recommend that Michele Chambers be given mental health treatment in prison. Before he decided to steal $17 million from the bank, Ghantt had worked for years as a relatively taciturn and compliant employee. One day, Campbell was speaking to an old friend named Steve Chambers. Afterward, outside the courthouse, her parents said the length was about what she had expected. Authorities say Steve and Michele Chambers moved from a mobile home into a $635,000 house three weeks after the theft. A: I like the 47-year-old David Ghantt more than I did the 20-something David Ghantt.