March 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery

March 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery
Date March 29, 1997 (1997-03-29)
Location Jacksonville, Florida
Type Bank robbery
Motive Theft of $18.8 million
Target Loomis Fargo & Company
Convicted Philip Noel Johnson
Sentence 25 years imprisonment

Philip Noel Johnson (born April 26, 1955)[1] was an armored car driver employed by Loomis Fargo & Company in Jacksonville, Florida. He is notable for a theft of 18.8 million dollars, at the time the largest heist ever pulled off.

Biography

On March 29, 1997, Johnson pulled off what was then the largest cash heist in U.S. history, taking $18.8 million ($29.2 million today) from the armored vehicle he was driving.

Johnson overpowered two of his co-workers and left them handcuffed in different locations. He stashed most of the $18.8 million in a storage shed in Mountain Home, North Carolina, and moved to Mexico City.

On August 30, 1997, a U.S. Customs Agent at a border crossing from Mexico pulled a passenger from a bus bound for Houston, Texas, suspicious of his responses to her questions. Upon further investigation the agent found the identification offered by the passenger to be a known alias for Johnson, and he was arrested when multiple passports were found in his possession.

Independent of Johnson's apprehension, investigators were already following a trail of clues that led to the North Carolina storage shed on September 18, 1997. Approximately $18 million was recovered from the shed.

Johnson was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

See also

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Public Records Index Vol 2 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.
  • CNN.com - ,
  • NYTimes - ,
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