Philip Noel Johnson (born 1964) is a former
armored car driver employed by
Loomis Fargo & Company in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...
. He is notable for the theft of 18.8 million dollars, at the time the largest heist ever pulled off.
Robbery
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
Mountain Home is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Henderson County, North Carolina, Henderson County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,622 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 2,1 ...
, and moved to
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
.
On August 30, 1997, a U.S.
Customs Agent
''Customs Agent'' is a 1950 American thriller film directed by Seymour Friedman and starring William Eythe, Marjorie Reynolds and Griff Barnett.Blottner p.263
Synopsis
In Shanghai an American customs agent tries to track down a drug-smuggling out ...
at a border crossing from Mexico pulled a passenger from a bus bound for
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, 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 subsequently convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Johnson was released from prison October 3, 2019.
The robbery was featured in an episode of ''Daring Capers.''
See also
*
List of large value US robberies
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Philip N.
Robberies in the United States
1990s crimes in Florida
1997 in Florida
1997 crimes in the United States
Loomis Fargo robbery
1990s in Jacksonville, Florida