teller window after she left and grabbed the straps right off the counter. one of the straps bore the initials of a loomis fargo employee who had counted currency prior to the theft of the $17 million. that conclusively tied that deposit and that currency to the loomis fargo theft. we just needed to find a connection between david scott ghantt and steve and michelle chambers. it was obvious from evidence gathered at the scene, david scott ghantt was the person who d removed the money. but we didn t know, truly, if it was by force or of his own free will. and once we took a closer look at kelly campbell, stories weren t matching up. police identified kelly campbell early on as a suspect. she used to work at loomis fargo, and she is a known acquaintance of david ghantt. fbi agents questioned campbell at her home, but she admits nothing. kelly had said that she hadn t stayed in touch with him since she left loomis. kelly had said she wasn t very close to him. and we had conflicting
overtime. he felt unappreciated there, and he started to see himself as somebody who might be able to pull it off. the team assembled might be his undoing. ghantt might be the one committing the actual robbery, but steve chambers is the ringleader behind the operation. there s a lot in this tale that owes to hollywood depiction of crime. steve chambers was a big fan of the movie, reservoir dogs. in reservoir dogs, the thieves do not know each other s names. and the reason for that is when the police come to get them later on, they won t be able to identify each other. it was a saturday, and david worked that day with a trainee, who obviously was very new to the company and did not know the ropes. david was actually relying on this. he figured he would be able to tell the trainee when it was okay to leave. in fact, david actually at the end of the shift, left the door of the vault ajar. normally, it would have been closed. the trainee didn t know to ask about this. the vault i
the vault security timer so that the door cannot be opened for more than two days. he takes the vault keys with him as well. before he leaves, ghantt takes the tapes from the two security cameras. he believes this is the only proof that connects him to the crime. he knew where both machines were. you could see that all, filming inside and outside the building, were being covered by those two machines. what he was unaware of, there was a redundant system that was monitoring a couple of those cameras. ghantt gets into the driver s seat, starts the van and makes his way to the building s electronic back gate. all that stands between him and a clean getaway is the gate s electronic button. but when he presses it, nothing happens. coming up with the back gate locked, david ghantt will have to find another way out of the loomis fargo & company
it s 8:00 p.m., saturday, october 4th, 1997, charlotte, north carolina. loomis fargo vault supervisor david ghantt has just stolen over $17 million. at the time, it s the second largest cash heist in u.s. history. but david ghantt has a big problem. despite having successfully loaded more than a ton of money into an unmarked van, ghantt cannot get the back gates of the loomis fargo facility to open. a flaw in the security system keeps the gates locked. despite his best efforts to force them open, nothing happens. instead, he will have to move the unmarked van to the front gates of the building and will have to move two vehicles blocking that gate in order to get out.
he d be delivering it to banks. there was no aspect of money handling that he was not part of. at the end of the work day, a company trainee leaves, while ghantt stays behind. his wife is expecting him for dinner, but he calls and tells her he will be home late. left alone with millions of dollars in cash, ghantt is trying to work up the nerve to follow through with a plan that will forever change his life. each day, area banks transfer funds to other banks through here. the loomis fargo & company s armored cars act as a conduit for the currency. sometimes millions at a time. you d have vans pulling up all day and dropping money off, taking money back to go to banks. these were typically unmarked vans. you re talking about a place where tens and millions of dollars would move through on a regular basis. to loomis fargo, it s just product, just inventory.