2003
The Antwerp Diamond Heist
$100 million · Leonardo Notarbartolo and the "School of Turin"
$100 million in diamonds, gold, silver, and other valuables.
The Setup
Leonardo Notarbartolo rented an office in the Antwerp Diamond Centre in 1999. For four years, he posed as a diamond merchant. He learned the building. Studied the security. Made friends with the guards.
The vault had ten layers of security. A lock with 100 million possible combinations. Infrared heat detectors. A seismic sensor. Magnetic sensors on the doors. Security cameras everywhere.
The Job
On the weekend of February 15-16, 2003, the crew made their move.
They disabled the sensors with hairspray and tape. They picked the lock. They cracked 109 of the 160 safe deposit boxes in the vault.
They got away clean.
Then they got caught.
The Mistake
On Monday morning, a local farmer found a bag of rubbish dumped near the E19 motorway. Inside: envelopes from the diamond centre, receipts, and a half-eaten salami sandwich.
The sandwich had DNA. The DNA matched Notarbartolo.
The Aftermath
Notarbartolo got 10 years. Most of the crew was never identified. Most of the diamonds were never recovered.
To this day, Notarbartolo claims the heist was an inside job - that the diamond merchants themselves orchestrated the theft for the insurance money, and his crew were just the scapegoats.
The diamond dealers were the real villains, he says. Make of that what you will.
The numbers
4
Years planning
100 million
Lock combinations
109
Vaults cracked
$100 million
Total take
1 sandwich
Undoing