October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery
| Date | October 4, 1997 |
|---|---|
| Location | Maiden, North Carolina |
| Motive | Theft of $17.3 million |
| Target | Loomis, Fargo & Co. |
| Outcome | 88% of the stolen money recovered |
| Convicted | 24 people |
The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was a robbery of $17.3 million in cash from the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis, Fargo & Co. on the evening of October 4, 1997, by vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell (a former Loomis co-worker), Steve Chambers, his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies and four other co-conspirators. 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.
This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 29, 1997, Phillip Noel Johnson had taken $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.
Although the history of the predecessor Wells Fargo & Company dates back to 1852, Loomis Fargo & Company was a recent creation, 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. Its Charlotte office would be the victim of Ghantt and his confederates later that year.
Ghantt had struck up a relationship with fellow Loomis Fargo employee Kelly Campbell; they continued to maintain contact even after Campbell left the company. In August 1997, Campbell informed Ghantt of an old high school friend of hers, Steve Chambers, who could assist Ghantt in executing a massive cash robbery of the Loomis Fargo vault in one night. Chambers had broached the possibility of a robbery to Campbell earlier in the summer.
The plan was for Ghantt to commit the actual robbery and then quickly leave the country for Mexico – but to leave the bulk of the cash with Chambers. Chambers would then occasionally wire Ghantt money and see to his basic financial needs; when "the heat was off," Ghantt was to re-enter the U.S. and the money would be split up among all of the co-conspirators.
With the plan in place, Ghantt sent home early a newly hired employee who had been assigned to train (reportedly, at 6 p.m.), and then proceeded to load a little more than $17.3 million in cash (approximately $11 million of which was in $20 bills) into the back of a company van.
Outside of the building, Ghantt met up with Campbell, Chambers, and others who were involved in the plot, and drove off to a printing business called Reynolds & Reynolds in northwest Charlotte. From there, the money was moved from the armored car to private vehicles. Then, keeping with the plan, Ghantt took $50,000 (the maximum that could by law be taken across the border without further authorization) with him and left for Mexico, winding up at the popular Yucatan Peninsula resort-island of Cozumel.
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