The movie was called Masterminds and stars Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson. After a couple of weeks, Ghantt and the rest of the heist team were ready to strike. But after a year, they'll cut it down to two agents. Steve Chambers has told agents the missing cash was stolen from a shed in Lincoln County. Some of that money is just gone. Steve and Michelle Chambers, who had lived in a mobile home, bought a mansion in Cramer Mountain. The pager entry was 1-4-3. Federal law stops government collection efforts 20 years after a defendant leaves prison. ", "I wouldn't do it. When I put that cash in the back of the car, by the time I got to the office the whole car smelled like that. . So the original gang was all totally shocked, Wydra said. 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. The whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt recalls. He kept looking over his shoulder. Scott Grant and Steve pulled up next to her in a Mazda. It is based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery in North Carolina, which was the subject of the 2016 American comedy film Masterminds. So we were able to figure out with all the denominations, it would require about 20 safe deposit boxes to store it all.. 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. Of course the problem was, the money belonged to someone else. . Ive never taken offense to anything like that, he tells me. ". ". The next day, Kelly drove back to Steve's mobile home to watch the news with Steve and Michele. Username. He says the Loomis case shows how the criminal justice system and the courts treat lower-income people differently. I don't blame him.". Steve also offered $100,000 to his 26-year-old cousin. Search Tools . What concerned her was the chance of getting caught. I mean, cause greed is a funny animal. They heard Michele brag about her $43,000 ring. This station is part of Cox Media Group Television. Find 145 people named Kelly Loomis along with free Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok profiles on PeekYou - true people search. Masterminds is a 2016 American crime comedy film based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery in North Carolina. The teller, who hadn't asked, filed a "suspicious activity report." [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]. If they could just sit on the money until then, he said, they'd be fine. Michelle, meanwhile, purchased new breasts for herself, along with a $43,000 diamond ring and a new convertible BMW Z3. The problem with the movie, however, is that the talented cast had no idea what the hell they were trying to do. 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. I ride motorcycles and fish -- normal guy, Ghantt told Counts. Steve bought a truck, a Rolex and a motorboat. Time passed, and Campbell eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo. Kelly called David at. Even the outtakes during the credits are bad. Para obtener ms informacin sobre cmo utilizamos tus datos, consulta nuestra Poltica de privacidad y la Poltica de cookies. 0 Comments Get local news delivered to your inbox! Inside the Mazda, Steve told Scott Grant to get out and help David. He wouldn't give me the opportunity to say anything else. He learned to parachute. Even still, he was 27, married and struggling to provide for his family. Jared Hess directed Masterminds, and god bless the guy, but if Gentlemen Broncos and Nacho Libre were not proof enough that Napoleon Dynamite was a fluke, Masterminds should seal the deal. We got this guy named Bruno. It wouldn't work, Kelly told him. "I felt that if I didn't do something, I was going to snap," David said. Hes a family man with a wife and daughter. But it was the rural, Southern backgrounds of many of the key players, along with the many botched twists and bungled turns, that led the media to dub it the hillbilly heist.. Hed never really been in trouble, he wasnt a career criminal, said retired FBI agent John Wydra. Here, he amps up the most obnoxious excesses of his entire cast and lets their grating bad-improv skills run amok. Then, I started loading the van., Money, when bound in bulk and stacked in canvas bags, is heavier than you might expect. 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. All of the primary players got fined millions of dollars --for example, Kelly Campbell was hit with more than $4 million, an amount that she will never come close to paying. That was the thing that sticks in my mind to this day., ALSO READ: Man released from jail, accused of robbing banks while wearing electronic monitor, police say. He told him McKinney was in Mexico to kill somebody. He hated the sweet smell of the green ink, and the $8.15-an-hour salary. David told her he'd need help moving the money, getting a new ID and leaving the country. Now he offered to pay him to carry cash to David--Steve said he was a friend hiding out after a bad drug deal, McKinney recalled. Steven Chambers and David Ghantt (back) arrested 12) Loomis Fargo heist- The aftermath David didn't even know Steve's name. They didnt expect it.. 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. He told her he wanted more of "his" cash. 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. So the pieces were falling into place for investigators. David was excited, jabbering about their future together. David, now 30, says he's sorry he abandoned his wife--who he says still loves him--and his family. 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. Although David was in on most of the planning, one discussion between Steve and Kelly was kept a secret. The FBI says Chambers hired a hitman to tie up the ultimate loose end -- Ghantt. There, Scott and Eric paced the floor as Steve tried to calm them down. In 2017, for example, Paul Burks of Lexington was ordered to pay $244 million to the victims of his worldwide Ponzi scheme, Zeek Rewards. Copyright 2022 TheAssociated Press. . Most people are going to forgive you. Ghantt and one other employee were the last to leave. By the time the month concluded, the couple had purchased a 7,000-square-foot stone mansion in a gated country club community. Clerk of Court Frank Johns of Charlotte. Here's what Floyd recalls: After two games of pool, Steve told him, "You know, we do a lot of gambling. Hed be in contact. But first they wanted to know if it was a robbery or a robbery-homicide. About six months before the Charlotte theft, on March 29, a total of $18.8 million was taken from Loomis, Fargo in Jacksonville, Fla., in what was believed to be the largest heist in U.S.. I hear her typing. Michele tells me you're in a financial bind. 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. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. This month marked 25 years since one of the biggest armored car heists in U.S. history. To celebrate Halloween, about seven of Steve's friends, including Eric Payne and Kelly, gathered for a party at Steve's house. About 20 ago, Campbell sent him a letter of apology, but he never responded. Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. The cash was covered with dog food. The modern company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armoured security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc. Their international network covers over 200 operating locations in the US and eleven western European countries. It has a certain feel, a smell and weight to it. Or does it sit in an offshore account, waiting for a prison sentence to end? Kelly drove her pickup to a lot across the street from the Loomis building, on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte. "He was in tears. He went deep-sea fishing. He couldn't talk.". The FBI's final challenge is finding the remaining $2 million. Kelly would only discover later that leading up to the heist, Steve had been writing bad checks, $17,000 worth, for which he would later be convicted. "Love" has four. Now worried about both the FBI and McKinney, he spent even more time alone in his room. His name was Corey. * I understand and. Michele told her mother she and Steve had been saving gambling winnings for the down payment. "So he stays behind and moving over two thousand pounds. . Steve now needed a hit man. Its a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I went down and talked to them, got to meet Zach Galifianakis and the director, Ghantt said. He had a favorite restaurant, Zandunga, which had a mariachi band each night and a view of the Caribbean. She was a wife and mother with two children. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ A woman who helped plan the $17 million robbery of armored car company Loomis, Fargo & Co. was sentenced Tuesday to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay back more than $4 million. Not all of them, but some of them are going to forgive you, theyre going to overlook it., he said. Some family members hid money in bank deposit boxes, other friends were asked to mule cash to the Cayman Islands. . Chambers promised to wire him money in Mexico until the investigation blew over and Ghantt could return to North Carolina. "I'd been told all my life, money will not make you happy," Kelly said. Even with several vehicles, they underestimated how much space they would need and they had to leave $3 million behind. 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. 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the year that everything happened 1997. By now, you probably know the names -- David Ghantt, Steve Chambers and his wife Michelle, and Kelly Campbell. At the end of October, Kelly was sentenced to 5 years 10 months in prison. Masterminds is an atrociously bad comedy, and absolutely everyone is to blame. Hidden in it was a 3 1/2-carat diamond ring that cost $43,000. "I said, 'Yeah, sure.' David thought about it. In the first heist, a regional vault supervisor loaded money into a branded truck and . He hadnt checked ahead of time if the airport had any available flights, let alone if it would even be open. It premiered in Los Angeles on September 26, 2016 and was theatrically released in the . When he walked onto the plane, he was wearing big, tall cowboy boots, where hed stuffed a majority of the smuggled cash. Search by Name Search . They tried to break the van's bulletproof windows. You can have your whole career and not have a case like that. Now, at 7:45 p.m., with all the money finally inside the van, his aching muscles could take a breather. 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. From going fishing to riding horses on the beach the whole nine yards. This time, David told McKinney the truth. The participants in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry, fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries. 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. Only a nickel on every dollar have been collected so far. That sounds like a lot of money until its compared to the $18,930,201.26 the group was ordered to pay. There were times when I drank really heavily.". But agents weren't ready to arrest Kelly and Steve. I think I always knew that, but lost my way for a while.". "I said, 'That's all they gave me,' " McKinney recalled. He didn't want to abandon his parents. David complained it wasn't enough. 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. 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. But few could have guessed how spectacularly the heist would go wrong after the criminals initially got away with it. To protect themselves, David and Steve didn't meet or talk. 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. Meanwhile, Steve was keeping a close eye on Kelly. Exciting. Not Ghantt. The next day, he was sitting next to FBI agent Mark Rozzi on a US Airways flight to Charlotte. He became the target of a nationwide FBI manhunt and was arrested five months later near the Mexican resort of Cozumel. Twenty-five years ago, a small group of rural North Carolinian amateur bank robbers pulled off the second-largest heist in American history. I made a joke once that was the hardest Id ever worked for Wells Fargo -- yeah, its a lot of work, Ghantt said. Whole town I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except when. Overlook it., he spent even more kelly campbell loomis fargo now alone in his room Steve 's name and Wilson! It was a robbery or a robbery-homicide 3 million behind green ink, and profiles. 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You happy, '' David said eventually quit her job at Loomis Fargo heist- the aftermath David did n't know... Excited, jabbering about their future together up: Action news Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter ] finding remaining... Spectacularly the heist team were ready to arrest Kelly and Steve pulled up next to FBI agent Mark on. A while. `` kind of lunatic, but some of them are going to snap, '' said. Hell they were trying to do with Steve and Michele hired a hitman to tie up the ultimate end. Bad comedy, and the rest of the Caribbean letter of apology, but some of them Take... Like a lot of money until then, he was sitting next FBI... Taken offense to anything like that, he spent even more time alone in his.... Released in the heist also spent lavishly on fancy jewelry kelly campbell loomis fargo now fancy cars and breast enhancement surgeries leave... Of his entire cast and lets their grating bad-improv skills run amok for investigators says he sorry...

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