Loomis Fargo: The $17.3 Million Heist, Arrests, and Aftermath

The Loomis Fargo heist was a $17.3 million cash theft carried out on October 4, 1997, by David Ghantt, a vault supervisor at the company’s regional facility on Suttle Avenue in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ghantt loaded more than 2,700 pounds of cash into a company van and drove away, but he and his co-conspirators spent the money so conspicuously that the FBI arrested more than 20 people within five months and recovered roughly 90% of the cash. The case became known as the “Hillbilly Heist,” and the FBI called it “half-baked, half-brilliant.”¹

How the Theft Happened

Ghantt was 28, an armored-car driver and vault supervisor. The plan wasn’t his. It was hatched at a bonfire by Kelly Campbell, a former Loomis Fargo employee, and Steve Chambers, a small-time criminal and Campbell’s high school friend. Campbell used a romantic infatuation Ghantt had developed for her to talk him into pulling the job. Chambers told Ghantt he’d meet him in Mexico afterward. He never intended to.²

Around 6:40 p.m. on a Saturday, with the warehouse nearly empty, Ghantt hauled bags of cash from the vault onto a cart and loaded them into a company van. He set the vault’s time lock to slow the discovery, grabbed the security VCR tapes and a gun, and drove to a nearby parking lot where the money was transferred. There was more than he could move. Over $3 million was left behind in the van. He also missed a third security camera in the vault. That tape recorded the whole theft and would put his face in front of FBI agents the next day.³

With about $50,000 for himself, Ghantt drove to the Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina, took a bus to Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, and made his way to Cancún, then Playa del Carmen. He spent his days scuba diving, jet skiing, and eating at high-end restaurants, waiting for his share of the money to arrive.³

How the Co-Conspirators Gave Themselves Away

Back in North Carolina, Steve and Michele Chambers acted almost immediately like people with $17 million in stolen cash. Three weeks after the robbery, they moved out of their mobile home and bought a $635,000 mansion in the Cramer Mountain community of Gaston County, paying $400,000 of it in cash.⁴ They bought luxury cars, furniture, jewelry, a $10,000 pool table, and a $10,000 fence, often paying in $20 bills.⁵ Chambers bought a discount furniture outlet and tried to convert it into a high-end store as a laundering front.

Kelly Campbell paid $30,000 in cash for a Toyota minivan and bought jewelry. Eric Payne, a late recruit paid $100,000 for his help, went with the Chambers to New York on a shopping trip in late October.³ Chambers paid friends and relatives to scatter cash for him, and some of them helped themselves. One couple took $1.3 million from a storage locker and moved to Colorado.⁵

How the FBI Caught Them

Loomis employees found the theft the morning of October 5, 1997. That same day, FBI agents Dick Womble, Mark Rozzi, and Rick Schwein reviewed the overlooked vault footage at a NationsBank location and identified Ghantt. Loomis offered a $500,000 reward, which brought in a flood of tips.⁴

Financial red flags built up fast. On October 6, Michele Chambers deposited $9,500 at a NationsBank branch in Mount Holly, just under the $10,000 federal reporting threshold. The teller filed a suspicious activity report, though the FBI didn’t review it for three months. Between October 6 and late February, the Chambers made 47 deposits totaling $271,500.³ The break that mattered came from Cramerton Police Chief David Young, who noticed the Chambers’ new lifestyle and called the FBI.² Wiretaps on Campbell and the Chambers did the rest.

The Murder-for-Hire Plot

Those wiretaps also picked up something worse. Steve Chambers, worried Ghantt would flip, decided to have him killed rather than share the money. He recruited Mike McKinney, a former Marine, and offered him $250,000 to kill Ghantt in Mexico.⁵ The FBI captured the conversations between Chambers and McKinney.⁴ The killing never happened. Agents moved on Ghantt in Mexico partly to protect his life. McKinney later pleaded guilty to money laundering and use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.⁶

Arrests, Charges, and Sentences

On March 2, 1998, the FBI executed a coordinated sweep. Ghantt was arrested in Playa del Carmen. Steve and Michele Chambers, Kelly Campbell, Mike McKinney, Thomas Grant, and Eric Payne were taken in North Carolina.⁴ Over the following days, arrests climbed to more than 20 people. Charges ranged from bank larceny and money laundering to aiding and abetting and being an accessory after the fact.³

The cases were handled in the federal courthouse in Charlotte, in the Western District of North Carolina. Most defendants pleaded guilty. The exception was Jeffrey Guller, a Gaston County attorney who had represented Steve Chambers and used his position to launder more than $1 million. Guller facilitated the mansion purchase and received money orders from Michele Chambers in amounts between $50,000 and $80,000, depositing them into his own account.⁷ He went to trial, was convicted on six counts of money laundering, and was disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar.⁸

The principal sentences, handed down starting April 29, 1999:

Steve Chambers: 11 years and 3 months. He had already been in the process of pleading guilty to 42 counts of obtaining property by false pretenses on unrelated matters when the heist occurred.
Mike McKinney: 11 years and 3 months.
Jeffrey Guller: 8 years.
Michele Chambers: 7 years and 8 months.
David Ghantt: 7 years and 6 months.
Kelly Campbell: 5 years and 10 months.⁵

Sentences for lesser participants ranged from probation to several years. Thomas Grant served three years for bank larceny.⁹ All the principal defendants have served their time and been released.

How Much Money Was Actually Recovered

Roughly 90% of the cash came back fast. Over $3 million was still in the abandoned company van. Large sums were seized from the Chambers residence, from Guller’s office, and from the homes, cars, and luxury goods the group had bought.⁵

The rest is a different story. Fourteen defendants were ordered to pay a combined $18.9 million in restitution. As of a 2022 review of federal court records, Loomis had collected only $978,983.79 — about five cents on the dollar. More than half came from the seizure and sale of the Cramer Mountain mansion. The rest trickled in through garnished Social Security checks, seized tax refunds (one of Kelly Campbell’s payments was an $81.24 tax refund), and small periodic payments. Federal law ends the government’s collection efforts 20 years after a defendant is released from prison, so most of these debts have already aged out or soon will. Kelly Campbell’s $4.7 million restitution expired in December 2024; Steve Chambers’ $3.8 million obligation closes in November 2026. Sally Butcher, an assistant clerk in the Western District of North Carolina, put it plainly: “Some of that money is just gone. It’s in the ether. There’s no way to get it back.”⁹

Where the Main Figures Ended Up

Steve Chambers was released to a halfway house in November 2006. He called himself “a retired criminal” and said he had taken a “normal job,” though he wouldn’t say where. “I’m ready to get life ahead of me and put everything else behind me,” he told reporters.¹⁰

David Ghantt settled in Jacksonville, Florida, where he works in construction, is married, and has a daughter. In a 2022 interview marking the 25th anniversary, he said: “It took me going to prison to realize I was a bag of worms, and it took me years of work to be somebody worthy to come back into our society.”¹¹ He still owes millions in restitution and IRS debt and has said he will never be able to pay it off.¹²

Eric Payne served prison time until 2006 for his role in the heist and later faced separate federal charges for weapons and methamphetamine trafficking in the Charlotte federal courthouse.⁹

The Masterminds Film

The 2016 crime comedy Masterminds starred Zach Galifianakis as Ghantt, Kristen Wiig as Campbell, and Owen Wilson as Chambers.¹ Ghantt served as a technical adviser but, because of his outstanding debts, could not be paid for the work. He said the film got the broad details right but invented a dramatic showdown between him and Chambers that never happened.¹² Journalist Jeff Diamant’s book Heist! remains a key source on the case.⁵

1
Axios Charlotte. Loomis Fargo Heist: Masterminds Movie
2
Oxygen. How Did David Ghantt, Kelly Campbell, and Steve Chambers Steal More Than $17M
3
Levine Museum of the New South. Loomis Fargo and Company
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CBS News. Seven Charged in $17M Heist
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North Carolina Lawyers Weekly. Hillbilly Heist: Inside the $17M Loomis Fargo Robbery
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Tampa Bay Times. 3 Plead Guilty in $17 Million Heist
7
Justia. Norman v. Loomis Fargo & Co.
8
North Carolina Lawyers Weekly. Gaston Lawyer Involved in Heist Is Disbarred
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Charlotte Observer. Loomis Fargo Defendants Owe as Much as They Stole in 1997
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Star-News Online. Leader of NC Heist Netting Millions Freed, a Retired Criminal
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Action News Jax. Man at Center of Loomis Fargo Heist 25 Years Ago Now Family Man Living in Jacksonville
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All That’s Interesting. David Ghantt