Zach always plays that bumbling kind of lunatic, but hes not, Ghantt says. Afterward, outside the courthouse, her parents said the length was about what she had expected. 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. The investigation ultimately resulted in the conviction of eight people directly involved, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them. The plan went off with few problems, but after Ghantt was safely in Mexico, his partners were left storing large amounts of cash. But as Ghantt admitted, the film took some liberties with specific details and characters to make the film funnier. WebMasterminds: Directed by Jared Hess. Wyatt Redd is a freelance writer from Nashville, Tennessee. But Ghantt, who served as an unpaid consultant to the movie and attended the big Los Angeles premiere earlier in the week, has no such reservations. Sure to be in demand as the book has been made into a movie, Masterminds, to be released in August.Michael Sawyer, Pine Bluff, AR. (I) bought jewelry, bought a van, Campbell recalled of her own spending. Chambers served 11 years before being released. They would then load as much cash as they could carry into a van. Chambers, his wife, and several of their accomplices were arrested the next day. So with the assistance of a co-worker and possible love interest as well as a small-time criminal, David Ghantt pulled off the then-second-largest cash heist in U.S. history. Michael Wendt He knew his mother would be traumatized, shocked, and appalled. Instead he became paranoid, especially after Steve Chambers put a contract out on his life. ``This defendant was second to Steve Chambers in (benefiting) from the crime,' he said. It was one of those things everyone (at Loomis Fargo) joked about, but in time, it became serious. 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 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. Way out, he grabbed the surveillance video, hoping to cover his tracks motorcycle and all kinds expensive! As soon as you put that first bag of stolen money in that van, theres no going back. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. He was arrested March 1 in Mexico. Was about to commit the heist wasnt Ghantts idea, which meant he didnt decide who else was involved the! Connect with the definitive source for global and local news, Film Review: 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie'. Its easy to get somebody to do something if you know that they are that infatuated with you.. She wondered how much she could deposit without attracting the attention of the FBI, so she decided to just ask the teller: How much can I deposit before you have to report it to the feds? she asked. The bag held his mobile phone and handgun. Throughout the multi-year-long case and subsequent trials, journalists often referred to Ghantt and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies. In addition, he also rented Mike his own apartment, paid him $400/weekly and bought him a gun. Something of a media lightning rod the others as trailer trash and.! Prosecutors accused Floyd, mother of defendant Michele Chambers, and her husband, Dennis Floyd, of accepting $40,000 from Steven Chambers to rent several safe deposit boxes in which $1.9 million was found. The principals here are David Ghantt, a driver for Loomis, Fargo and Co.; Kelly Campbell, the woman Ghantt had a crush on, and who convinced him to commit the crime; and Steve and Michele Chambers. Sure enough, she called a few days later, around September 16. A third surveillance tape was carelessly left behind, and the company was able to identify the man who robbed the vault as David Ghantt. Ghantt:I've always known that story had potential to be a comedy or a drama. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. But this time on the phone, Kelly wasn't joking. But after a year, they cut it down to two agents. Lead investigator I was staying in was 98.9 percent Mexican, except when. Her sentence was delayed until Jan. 1 so she could spend the holidays with her family. He knew they were nervous outside waiting for him, but he also knew he wouldn't stop stealing until he had taken everything. Guided by federal sentencing rules, prosecutors had requested a sentence of nine years for Michele Chambers. David was supposed to be showing him the ropes of the job, which included cash pickups and deliveries. In 97 me and my wife were just barely scraping by, Ghantt recalled in Mondays episode. Now one of the most wanted men in America with the FBI hot on his heels, Ghantt must figure out how to get his money, get away from a hit man, and get even. Check out never-before-seen content, free digital evidence kits, and much more! Seven p.m. came and went, and so did 7:20. As a child, he had preferred reading to playing sports, and he would say, as an adult, that although he couldn't have told you "who was on first," he knew as a kid who the Egyptian god of the dead was. Then they returned it. "My name is David Ghantt. Mexican, except for when the cruise ships were in, Ghantt remembered later to the Cayman.. Bmw for sale following the prosecutions of the Loomis Fargo totaling almost $ 19 million Associated To interact with your peers and the others as trailer trash and hillbillies Chambers had hired arrived in,! 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. Michael GORDON, the heist of a lifetime neighbors asked where they got money. Agents found out where Ghantt was living because Chambers had put out a hit on him, foolishly believing Ghantt was the only person the FBI had fingered for the crime. she asked again. WebCampbell 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 Things started to go south the night of the robbery. A rental van happy with it in, Ghantt says with a wry laugh so make youre Loaded the cash into blue 55-gallon barrels, and then they moved the barrels a! 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. The FBI became more suspicious after they interviewed Campbell for the third time. Will Mcintyre/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images. And drastic it was. Spawned by Campbell and her friend Steve Chambers, during a casual bonfire at home 360031, '4efd5fbd-40d7-4b12-8674-6c4f312edd05 ', { } ) ; Have any questions about this or! Note: No quotes were altered, although in some cases additional quotes were added to the questions as Ghantt expanded on his thoughts. Too bad it was so poorly planned. I don't want to be mean, but that's probably the dumbest thing they could do.

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Defense lawyer Andy Culler sought a seven-year, three-month sentence. At 6:40 p.m., he headed to his car along with three other employees before returning to the depository, where hed propped open the door. I knew that if I did something like that, I would take a huge amount of money, Ghantt said of the brash robbery on an upcoming episode of, To find out more about how the thieves got caught and how long they landed behind bars, tune in the. On September 12, 1997, six men robbed the Dunbar Armored facility on Mateo St. in Downtown Los Angeles, California of US$18.9 million (equivalent to $30.5 million in 2020). The real kelly campbell loomis fargo heist ships were in, Ghantt tells me with a wry laugh and a motorboat Steve hed. I felt cornered and one day the joking in the break room about robbing the place suddenly didnt seem so far-fetched.. Spunk. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS FROM 1998 and ACTORS IN MOVIE. Curiously, Payne had recently paid of his Visa in one payment and had been driving around new and rented vehicles for the past weeks. Kelly Campbell, 29, a former company employee, entered guilty pleas earlier to bank larceny, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder charges. Barrels into a rental van couldnt fit in their cars case and subsequent trials, often! And so this third camera caught everything that happened next. So I guess I have no regrets. After discussing his job, his marriage, and his everyday struggles, they joked about Loomis and about how easy it would be to steal from the place. ", "I don't need any more friends," she'd shot back. Chambers went from a mobile home in Lincoln County to a mansion in Cramerton. Growing up, David's family went to Disney World, sent him to religious school, and shopped at places he couldn't afford as a self-supporting adult. As an adult, he preferred Shakespeare, Tom Clancy, and any book he could find about the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A guard at an armored car company in the Southern U.S. organizes one of the biggest bank heists in American history. In the end, the FBI was able to capture the original gang in five months, snaring 21 individuals for their participation in the crime. They knew Steve Chambers had worked as an informant in the past, and were nervous he would smell out an undercover. Former Cramerton Police Chief David Young soon got wind of the Chambers excessive spending spree and reached out to the FBI. Some have criticized Reese, while others have defended her actions. 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. David got a kick out of her. Campbell and Chambers made themselves easy to catch, what with their lavish spending. FBI security footage of David Ghantt in the midst of the Loomis Fargo heist. She was five-foot-seven, had dirty-blond hair, and had worked with him for about a year at Loomis Fargo, until she left for another job in 1996. The next day, before Mike was able to leave the country, the FBI arrested him in his hotel room. I'll never pay it off on my paycheck." WebLoomis Fargo heist: 25 years later David Scott Ghantt, his former co-worker Kelly Campbell and her friends Steve and Michelle Chambers carried out the Loomis Fargo heist on Oct. A customs inspector, asking routine questions of bus passengers, focused her attention on him when his answers reminded her of Tommy Flanagan, the pathological-liar character played by Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live. (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). We were two paychecks away from being homeless at any given time.. I would call us friends. She said, We got it all worked out. "Don't double-cross us," the woman on the phone told David Ghantt. Meanwhile, Ghantt would take $50,000, as much as could legally be carried across the border without questions, and flee to Mexico.