Philip Noel Johnson was an armored car driver employed by Loomis Fargo & Company in Jacksonville, Florida. On March 29, 1997, Johnson pulled off what was then the largest cash heist in U.S. history, taking $18.8 million 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.
As of 2010, the three largest cash robberies ever committed on American soil were all carried out in 1997. In all three robberies, the target was an armored car or the storage facility of an armored car firm.
This March 1997 robbery of $18.8 million (95% recovered) is similar in size to the September 1997 Dunbar Armored robbery ($18.9 million, roughly 47% recovered - currently considered the "largest cash robbery" in U.S. history) and the October 1997 Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery ($17.3 million, 95% recovered).
These three robberies were the first to surpass the previous holder of the title "largest cash robbery" in U.S. history, the $7.1 million of the White Eagle robbery in September 1983.