0:00 Seventeen point three million dollars.0:02 All in cash.0:03 That’s how much David Ghantt was trying to cram into the back of a Loomis Fargo van on a warm October night.0:09 It’s a different kind of audacity than the teenager we talked about last week, who bluffed his way onto a million miles of free flights.0:18 This wasn't a bluff.0:19 This was two thousand pounds of stolen currency.0:22 And Ghantt was the only person in the vault.0:25 He had methodically loaded stacks of twenties into the van, leaving the one- and five-dollar bills behind.0:32 He was sweating, not from the effort, but from the sheer, unbelievable reality of what he was doing.0:38 He locked the vault door behind him, got in the driver's seat, and simply drove away.0:43 For a moment, it was the perfect crime.0:46 The plan was born out of a workplace crush.0:49 Ghantt was a quiet, unassuming vault supervisor in Charlotte, North Carolina.0:53 An army veteran trusted with the keys to everything.0:57 He was also infatuated with a former coworker, Kelly Campbell.1:01 After she quit, she introduced him to an old friend of hers, Steve Chambers.1:05 Chambers was a small-time crook with big ideas.1:08 The three of them started talking.1:11 And what began as a joke slowly became a blueprint.1:14 Ghantt was the inside man.1:15 He would use his key, his knowledge of the security protocols, and his late-night shift to pull off the impossible.1:23 He would do the hard part, then take fifty thousand dollars and flee to Cozumel, Mexico.1:28 Chambers and his crew would collect the rest of the millions from the van, hide it, and then slowly wire Ghantt his three-million-dollar share.1:37 Ghantt would be a ghost.1:39 They would ALL be ghosts.1:40 That was the plan.1:41 The plan worked.1:42 For about a day.1:44 The problem wasn't the robbery; it was the robbers.1:47 Steve Chambers and his family were supposed to disappear.1:50 Instead, they moved from their mobile home into a mansion in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in town.1:57 They paid for the house with stacks of cash.2:00 His wife, Michelle, walked into a bank and asked a teller how much money she could deposit before it triggered a report to the IRS.2:08 Which, of course, triggered an immediate report.2:11 They bought a BMW Z3.2:12 They bought diamond jewelry.2:14 They even bought a large, velvet painting of Elvis Presley.2:18 Their spending wasn't just conspicuous; it was a BEACON.2:21 The FBI was on to them almost immediately.2:24 Meanwhile, Ghantt was in Mexico, waiting for his money.2:27 But Chambers had decided his old partner was now a loose end.2:31 He took some of the stolen cash, and hired a hitman to find Ghantt and silence him… permanently.2:37 The FBI didn't need a brilliant detective.2:40 They just needed a tape recorder.2:42 They tapped the Chambers' phones and listened as the crew documented their own downfall.2:48 When they overheard Chambers arranging the hit on Ghantt, the investigation went into high gear.2:54 They arrested the would-be hitman.2:56 They located Ghantt in Playa del Carmen.2:58 And in a series of raids, they rounded up Chambers, Campbell, and everyone else involved.3:04 They recovered almost all of the money.3:06 In the end, the crew who stole seventeen point three million dollars were brought down by a velvet Elvis, a new sports car, and the simple, fatal inability to just lie LOW.3:17 They traded a lifetime of freedom for a few weeks of playing rich.3:21 And all that’s left of their spectacular crime is the faint, lingering smell of brand-new money in an empty van.
