The Largest Heist in US History - The Philip Johnson story

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Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast 5 min 1 speaker 1 chapter transcribed

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Narrator 0:00

So this guy, his name's Phil and Phil hates his job. He hates how he's treated. He hates how little they pay him. He hates the way his bosses talk to him. So one day he's like, screw this. I'm going to rob this place. Now the place Phil works at, it isn't going to be easy to rob because old Phil, he doesn't like work at Chipotle. He works at Loomis Fargo, the company that drives the armored trucks to go pick up money from banks and other businesses. So Phil's been working at Loomis for over 10 years. And for five of those years, he's been planning this big heist where he's gonna teach his bosses a lesson by stealing millions of dollars from their vault. And so the day comes and the timing is perfect.

Narrator 0:43

And Phil is ready to execute his plan. So there he is on his shift, driving the armored truck around, picking up deliveries. And when he's done, he drives back to the company warehouse. And by this point in the day, Phil has collected millions of dollars in money drops. Not to mention there's even more money in the vault. So Phil starts unloading all of this collected money into the vault with two of his coworkers, this guy, Dan, and this other guy, James Brown. So they're all there unloading this money. And when his coworkers backs are turned, boom, Phil pulls out his pew pew and he points it at them and he forces them on the ground. And they're all like, man, what the f***, Phil? But whatever, Phil handcuffs them and puts shackles on them. And then he starts to take the cash out of the vault and he loads it into an unmarked company van. Two hours later, he's loaded all the money he can, about a half ton worth of cash. And once the van is full of money, Phil forces Dan and James Brown into the back.

Narrator 1:38

Then he goes to the surveillance room and he finds all the security footage from that day. Footage of him committing this crime and he steals all the tapes so there's no evidence of him doing it. Then he hops into the van with Dan and James Brown still handcuffed in the back and he speeds away. Now in this moment, Phil has made off with just around $19 million in cash, which at the time of this happening is the largest heist in US history. Now, with all of the places Phil could go with this money, he first decides to drive home to his house. And there he forces James Brown out of the van and into the house. And then he shoves him into a closet and he handcuffs him to a pipe and he just leaves him there. Then he drives away. Poor Dan, he's still handcuffed in the back. But Phil drives as far away as he can, all through the night, about 450 miles away.

Narrator 2:30

The next morning, he pulls up to a wooded area in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and he forces Dan to get out of the van, and he marches him down the side of a hill. And there, he just handcuffs him to a tree. And then he drives away, and he heads to a storage facility about an hour away. And there, he had rented a storage unit using a fake ID about four years ago. I told you he had been planning to do this for a long time. But once he's at the storage unit, he starts unloading all the money he stole into it. The next morning, Phil is long gone. And he's taken a little bit of that money with him. And he's on a bus headed to Mexico where he plans to start his new life. While poor Dan is stuck out in the woods, handcuffed to a tree.

Narrator 3:10

But after some maneuvering with a Swiss army knife, he's able to escape and he finds a park ranger. And then they call police who are able to rescue James Brown, who is still handcuffed in the closet in Phil's house. Now, almost $19 million, that's a lot of money. In fact, it's so much money, that means the FBI has to come and take over the case. And so they put out information to law enforcement all over the country that they're looking for this guy, Phil. Meanwhile, Phil, he's just chilling in a suburb of Mexico City, trying to lay low. And there, he opens several bank accounts under fake names, and then he's able to make a bunch of trips back and forth from Mexico City to North Carolina to retrieve his stolen money from his storage unit little by little. And it sounds crazy, but it seems like Phil's plan is actually working. Until five months go by. And Phil, he's at the US-Mexico border.