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You are listening to The Evidence Locker.
Our cases have been researched using open source and archive materials. It deals with true crimes and real people. Each episode is produced with the utmost respect to the victims, their families and loved ones.
00:00:48
The Diamond Quarter is a square mile area in the centre of Antwerp city. More than 80% of the world’s rough diamonds pass through the Quarter, making it one of the largest and wealthiest diamond districts in the world.
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At the heart of all the action is the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, a fortress-like building where many diamond dealers have offices or shops.
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The building hosts a state-of-the-art vault, where dealers keep rare diamonds, gem stones and cash. Content inside the vault is worth billions of dollars, with some pieces of jewelry deemed to be priceless.
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In 2003, the vault room in the Antwerp World Diamond Centre was considered to be impenetrable. With its 10-layer security system, the vault was one of the most secure vaults in the world, if not THE most secure one. So, as engineers once boasted about the Titanic that was unsinkable… The safe in the Diamond Centre could not be broken into.
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Firstly, the whole building was locked in with exterior steel roller gates from 7pm to 7am. The vault was two storeys below street level, only accessible by elevator. The antechamber to the vault was monitored by a security camera that recorded any and all movement at the door.
00:02:08
The vault’s door was a solid, 3-tonne, one-foot thick piece of steel. In order to open it, there was a combination lock with more than 100 million possible combinations – AS WELL AS a key lock, with a footlong key, uniquely crafted for that specific lock.
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The key had two parts: the pipe (that’s the long handle) and the stamp (which is the front bit, the actual key). The door could withstand 12 hours of constant drilling.
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Inside the door was a seismic sensor, so if anyone were to attempt drilling their way through, the vibration would set off an alarm.
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But there was more. Once the combination dial and key unlocked the heavy steel door, there were two metal plates: one on the door and one on the wall, that created a magnetic field.
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When the door opened, the magnetic field would break and trigger an alarm. The only way to separate the magnet without setting off the alarm would be to enter a security code on a keypad on the wall.
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Once open, there was another obstacle: a steel gate that could be unlocked by a second key. Then, inside the vault was another security camera, that recorded the interior of the vault 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Another precaution was a light sensor on the ceiling, that would set off an alarm when it detected any light, even light flowing in through the open door.
00:03:41
Against the wall was a heat and motion sensor, again linked to an alarm. Who would dare to attempt the impossible task of breaking into this heavily secure vault in the heart of Antwerp?
00:03:53
There was one man; one man who was prepared to put in the time and effort, with the help of his specialised gang of thieves. His name was Leonardo Notarbartolo.
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Together with his associates, they pulled off the biggest diamond heist of the century.
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Leonardo Notarbartolo was born 1952 in Palermo, Sicily. When he was six years old, he stole something for the first time. His mother had sent him to buy milk.
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Finding the milkman asleep on the job, Leonardo took some milk and helped himself to some cash too. Although he got into trouble with his mother, he loved the thrill of being a thief. Leonardo himself proudly said:
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“I was born to be a robber, the first time I robbed was when I was six.”
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His childhood nickname was ‘testa di legno’ or ‘Wooden Head’, because he was known to head-butt his friends if they had a disagreement.
00:05:26
When he left school, he knew the only way he wanted to make a living, was by being a thief. Italian police believed that he had ties with the Sicilian mafia and that a family member of his was set to be the next head of the organisation.
00:05:41
But Leonardo was not into organised crime. Yes, he was a career criminal. There was a romantic notion to the idea of outsmarting people and lining his pockets with easy money. He loved the finer things in life: nice clothes, fancy cars and jewels.
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Jewellery thieving suited his personality like a glove.
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When Leonardo married, he opened a jewellery store in Turin with his wife Adrianna. By all accounts the store was successful and Leonardo was a talented jewellery designer.
00:06:15
But that wasn’t his passion. He strongly believed that his calling in life was to be a thief. The family run jewellery store, was simply a front to hide his clandestine activities.
00:06:28
Leonardo Notarbartolo was suave and intelligent. He was an expert in reading people. He knew that manipulating prospective victims was a useful skill so he would study the behaviour of people extensively.
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He also knew that he could not pull off the big jobs by himself, so he became known as the guy who assembled thugs of people for specific jobs: expert lock pickers, tunnellers, safe breakers, whoever was needed to do the best job.
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One of his associates, Ferdinando Finotto, approached him in 1997. He told Leonardo that he had tried to pull off a bank robbery in Antwerp, but one of his co-conspirators had tripped an alarm and they had to flee the scene.
00:07:13
But, although that was a botched job, he had learnt that one could rent offices in the Antwerp World Diamond Center, without much hassle.
00:07:20
He believed that Leonardo, with his knowledge of jewels, would be the perfect man to rent an office and scope out the building from the inside, to see if they could possibly do the unthinkable: break into the vault.
00:07:32
All Leonardo needed to hear were the words “diamond heist” and he was IN. Antwerp was also the ideal spot for him to sell stolen gems.
00:07:44
Leonardo found that if he relieved retailers of pieces of jewellery in Italy, he could break them up and sell individual stones in Antwerp.
00:07:52
Antwerp is the world diamond capital. Of every 10 diamonds sold worldwide, 8 have passed through Antwerp. The diamond trade has an annual turnover of 60 Billion Dollars.
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The Diamond Quarter is a three block by three block area in the city centre. The perimeter of the Quarter can be locked in by steel cylinders – blocking vehicles from moving in or out of the area.
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Because of the intense concentration of wealth in the small Quarter, security is of the utmost importance. There is a dedicated task force, the Diamond Squad, provided by the Belgian Government to protect the area. Every square inch of the Quarter is under constant surveillance, with no less than 63 CCTV cameras.
00:08:40
Diamond trade in Antwerp is dominated by Jewish and Indian business families who have worked in the industry for centuries. Dealers sell rough diamonds to cutters, who then cut and polish the fine stones to perfection.
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Business is concluded with a handshake and a verbal contract – a dealer’s word is his honour. Most transactions are paid for in cash, even if it is hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:09:07
The Antwerp World Diamond Center is where diamonds are traded, sold, stored and shipped from. Dealers keep offices at the centre and store their valuables inside the subterranean vault.
00:09:18
In the week, most diamond dealers have their diamonds with them, as they are buying and selling. Diamonds are carried in small pouches or briefcases.
00:09:28
If one were to sit at a café in the Diamond Quarter on a weekday, you would see people walking around with briefcases secured onto their wrists with chains and locks, security guards patrolling the streets and sometimes big security convoys driving in the area that is usually locked off to traffic.
00:09:46
High value items and millions in cash are carried between buildings, it is simply how business is done. On weekends, most diamond dealers place their stock and cash in safes at the Diamond Centre for safe keeping.
00:10:00
In the year 2000, Leonardo Notarbartolo signed a lease on an office inside the Antwerp World Diamond Center. This was part of a larger plan, to find his way into the vault. What Leonardo already knew, was that the building did not screen their tenants, so there was no red flags about his criminal past to warn them.
00:10:13
Leonardo Notarbartolo made himself known to everyone working in the building. He was charming and kept to himself. He ran a legitimate business as a diamond merchant, which was supported by the fact that he owned a jewellery shop in Turin.
00:10:37
He set up meetings with as many dealers as he could, to make himself known. He bought small stones and always paid in cash, as is customary.
00:10:47
He was never seen as a big player, just a small dealer who made a living from the diamond trade, like a lot of people living in Antwerp. He still lived in Italy and travelled to Antwerp twice a month.
00:10:58
As a tenant of the Diamond Center, Leonardo had access to the building and to the elevator that took tenants down to the vault where safe deposit boxes were stored.
00:11:08
He scouted the centre in regular office hours to establish the best way of gaining access to the vault. To sidestep the security measures, they needed to know exactly what security measures were in place.
00:11:20
Leonardo knew that he could not do this job alone. Because Leonardo was from Turin, most of his accomplices were from the area. They became known as the School of Turin. The name was given, because members of the gang were known to specialise in the art of outsmarting security systems.
00:11:39
The case has been linked to a Hollywood-style heist, reminiscent of Ocean’s 11, although the film was released after the heist. In the Antwerp Heist, Leonardo Notarbartolo could be likened to George Clooney’s character – Danny Ocean: the well-presented and charming leader of the pack.
00:11:56
The first associate Leonardo pulled into the plan, was Ferdinando Finotto, as he was the one who came up with the suggestion in 1997. Ferdinando was to be the muscle of the gang. His nickname was ‘The Monster’, because he was strong and intimidating.
00:12:14
People were naturally afraid of him. But ultimately, he was a great all-rounder, an amazingly talented thief.
00:12:22
Then there was ‘The Genius’, well, Elio D’Onorio. His role was to hack into surveillance systems and disable any type of alarm.
00:12:32
The fourth guy was called the ‘King of Keys’ and as he was never caught, nobody knows anything about him. Well, that is, apart from the fact that his nickname implied that he was the lock picker of the group.
00:12:43
Lastly, there was Leonardo’s childhood friend, called Pietro Tavano, nickname: ‘Speedy’. Speedy and Leonardo had known each other for thirty years. The others didn’t want him on the team, as he was an anxious and unpredictable character.
00:12:59
But Leonardo insisted that he joined them, as he did not have the heart to cut his oldest friend out of the deal of a lifetime.
00:13:07
The preparation for the heist became a full-time obsession. Leonardo became deeply entrenched in the Diamond Center. He knew the place and other tenants; he knew the guards…
00:13:19
To everyone he seemed like a quiet, nice guy. But behind the smiles and smooth talk, was a man on a mission, who used every opportunity he could to gain more information about the inner workings of the building: the concierge’s schedule and all aspects of the security system.
00:13:38
On more than one occasion, Leonardo had a hidden camera on his person when he went inside the vault. Remember, he ran a legitimate business, so like the other tenants in the building, he also has a safe deposit box in the vault. He was escorted by the concierge whenever he needed to access the vault.
00:13:57
There are two versions about the hidden camera: one states that it was a micro-camera, hidden in the cap of a pen. He kept the pen in his shirt pocket and made sure he filmed as much as possible.
00:14:10
Another version explains that the camera was hidden in his shoulder bag. Either way, he managed to get 360-degree imagery of the inside of the vault, as well as the ante-chamber.
00:14:23
Thanks to the reconnaissance, the gang was able to construct an exact replica of the vault inside a warehouse at an undisclosed location.
00:14:32
The team practiced how they would break into the vault, over and over again, until they were satisfied that they had reached a level of perfection. They knew where all the cameras were, where all the sensors were located.
00:14:44
If they missed only one part of the 10-layer security, it would alert someone about their presence. There was no room for mistakes.
**AD BREAK**
00:16:01
Their plan had been more than three years in the making and they were ready to strike. But it was all about timing. The perfect opportunity presented itself on the weekend of the 15th of February 2003.
00:16:15
Firstly, it was a Saturday, Sabbath for most of the workers in the Diamond Centre who were Jewish. On Saturdays, the Diamond Quarter was a ghost town.
00:16:26
But on that particular weekend, there was a huge event that distracted everyone else in Antwerp too: The Diamond Games tennis tournament. The much-coveted prize is a golden racquet decorated with diamonds.
00:16:40
This will be awarded to any player who won the singles three times in five years. In 2003, Venus Williams was in town to play the Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters. All eyes would be on the court at Antwerp’s Sportpaleis.
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It was the perfect opportunity for Leonardo Notarbartolo and his gang to take their chance.
00:17:02
The day before the heist, Leonardo went into the vault as a regular customer, but this time, he had a can of hairspray with him. He managed to distract the concierge, with whom he had built up a rapport in the preceding years.
00:17:17
As soon as he was alone in the vault, Leonardo sprayed the heat and motion sensor with the hairspray, disabling it. It was so simple, yet extremely effective.
00:17:28
The next day, they rented a car – a regular, silver Peugeot so as to not raise suspicion. Around midnight, they drove up to the Diamond Centre. Leonardo would later claim that he stayed in the car as the getaway driver.
00:17:39
Other sources claim someone else was the driver. It is really inconsequential, as the rest of the plan unfolded with precision. They could see that police officers who were supposed to patrol the streets were watching the tennis on a small TV in the guard station.
00:17:55
The men took their chance and broke into a building adjacent to the Diamond Center and made their way to the back garden.
00:18:03
A couple of days before they had hidden a ladder in the garden, to help them gain access to a balcony of the neighbouring Diamond Center. They used a Styrofoam board to disable a motion sensor on the balcony and broke a window to get in.
00:18:19
Because of the thorough planning, they knew the best way to go in order to get to the vault as quickly as possible.
00:18:25
Because the whole building was shut in with roller doors, there were no night guards on duty at the Diamond Center. Two concierges lived in the building, and although they were technically on duty, they usually stayed in their apartments, as nobody could access the building after 7pm anyway.
00:18:42
Nobody but Leonardo Notarbartolo and his men. In the cover of night, they made their way to the antechamber of the vault.
00:18:51
It was go-time, just like they had practiced so many times before in the replica vault. In complete darkness, they took the exact number of steps to get to the security camera and covered it with a black plastic bag.
00:19:06
Then they broke into the small storage room on the side, where the footlong key was kept. The storeroom had a wooden door with a standard lock that was no challenge to pick for someone like the ‘King of Keys’.
00:19:18
Once they were inside, they managed to break open the lock box that held the key to the vault door. They were one step closer.
00:19:28
As the key alone could not open the door, the combination of the lock was needed too. From a small hidden video camera in the roof, the size of a fingertip, they had been able to record the concierge when he turned the dial with the code in the days prior to the heist.
00:19:44
They simply turned the dial to the four correct digits, and it opened.
00:19:49
To disarm the vault door alarm, the robbers had to prevent the magnetic field from breaking. So they used double-sided tape to attach two custom-made aluminium plates to the metal plates.
00:20:01
Once that was intact, they unscrewed the bolts and removed them. They taped the plates to the wall without ever breaking the magnetic field that would set off the alarm. Again, this was not overly complicated, but it worked very well.
00:20:16
The next obstacle was to pick the lock on the steel gate. Again, ‘King of Keys’ stepped in and they were inside the vault within the minute.
00:20:25
The hairspray Leonardo had sprayed on the heat and motion sensor the day before had done the trick, but to be sure, they placed a Styrofoam box over the sensor, as they were going to be inside for a while.
00:20:40
As one man covered the sensor, another one covered the light sensor on the ceiling with black duct tape and the third man hooked a black trash bag over the interior security camera.
00:20:50
All of this was done in complete darkness as they did not want to trigger the light sensor. Even after the light sensor was covered, they only switched on torches for brief moments to orientate themselves.
00:21:03
They had made it through all 10 layers of security. The moment had arrived, all they had to do was to break into the safe deposit boxes and gather up the diamonds, gold and cash.
00:21:15
Again, they divided tasks: one person was tasked with opening the safe deposit boxes, something he did with a custom-made rod that was manufactured for the exact task of removing the key locks on the individual safety boxes. The rod could break the key lock on more than one box at a time. One can assume that this was done by the ‘King of Keys’.
00:21:38
A second person had to empty out all the boxes and throw its contents in the middle of the room.
00:21:43
The third person loaded the loot into duffel bags. People speculated that this was done by Leonardo himself, as he was the one with the best knowledge of jewels, he was the best one to decide what they should take and what they should leave.
00:21:58
Just after 5am, with duffel bags stuffed so full they could pop, the robbers stopped off in the lobby. Although they had covered the security cameras, they had to be sure they could not be identified.
00:22:10
They took all the video tapes from the central surveillance room and replaced them with blank ones. By 5:30 they called their driver and met him where he had dropped them off a couple of hours before.
00:22:23
The scene remained undiscovered for a whole day. It was not until Monday morning, the 17th of February that the concierge saw that more than 100 of the 189 safe deposit boxes had been broken into.
00:22:37
The Diamond Squad was immediately called to the scene and they could not believe their eyes. On the floor were empty jewellery boxes, papers, plastic bags, even some valuable items.
00:22:50
One investigator recalled seeing a diamond bracelet with a price tag of €35,000, just lying next to an empty box. The burglars clearly knew what the highest value items were and couldn’t be bothered with less expensive items. They didn’t waste any time cleaning up either.
00:23:07
Police called the alarm company from inside the compromised vault and asked about the status of the Diamond Centre’s security system. They said that on their side, the alarm was still fully activated with no signs of disruptions.
00:23:20
From their security cameras, they could assure them that the vault was locked and secure at that very moment. This sounded absurd, as the investigator was standing inside the messy vault with the open door at the very same moment.
00:23:34
There was not a single sign of forced entry on the big steel vault door. The immediate question was: how did the thieves manage to open the vault without alerting anyone?
00:23:46
Usually when a safe is broken into, it is done with force. It involves explosives, or fire or at the very least power tools. On that February weekend in the Antwerp Diamond Centre, none of this had happened. The robbers simply unlocked the vault door and walked inside.
00:24:06
The whole incident was a tremendous shock, police stood speechless, looking at the damage. They could not help but be in awe of the professionalism of the job.
00:24:16
They were ‘scientific burglars’ in a sense, using inventive and effective ways to side-step all security measures. The most basic materials were used to disarm a very sophisticated security system.
00:24:30
The kind of material anyone could buy without raising any suspicion. A board of Styrofoam, aluminium plates, duct tape and plastic bags… It was also easy to carry in a duffel bag and they could leave it behind without a risk of being traced.
00:24:45
It was time to assess the extent of the damage. The robbers had helped themselves to foreign currency, rare gem stones and of course, millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds.
00:24:57
It totalled up to 100 Million Dollars – the biggest diamond robbery ever. Fifteen years later, it still holds the top spot in the Guinness World Book of Records. Members of the Diamond Squad did feel, however, that this was a conservative estimation, with the actual value of stolen goods being closer to $400 Million.
00:25:19
Victims had lost everything. To many it was their life savings and sentimental heirlooms, some of which had survived the holocaust.
00:25:29
To others, it was their family business. Insurance companies had a nightmare of a time to sort through all the claims. It wasn’t quite ‘business as usual’ in the Diamond Quarter after the heist.
00:25:41
The invisible traces of those who robbed them left an eerie feeling, like ghosts haunting and taunting them.
00:25:51
Police knew they were dealing with professionals; the gang knew exactly what they were doing. They began processing the scene and took fingerprints in the vault. However, the surface of the safety boxes was of a type of material that would not retain fingerprints.
00:26:07
They could not even lift one single print. They did manage to find something on the big steel door leading into the vault, but that could have belonged to the concierge or other employees.
00:26:18
Because of the discreet manner of the break-in, police were convinced that the robbery was an inside-job.
00:26:26
The obvious first suspect was the concierge who had an apartment inside the building. He would know that there were no guards on duty that weekend, he knew all the codes and he lived in an apartment in the diamond centre.
00:26:37
He was the only one on duty that night but stayed in his apartment. He claimed that his brother had come over to visit him. They had dinner together and then watched television. Went to bed at midnight and had not heard or seen anything.
00:26:52
Then there was a break in the case, from an unlikely source. August van Camp, a retired grocer owned a small stretch of land in Floordambos, next to the highway between Antwerp and Brussels.
00:27:07
Mr van Camp was known to be very environmentally conscious and he often called police if passers-by had left litter on his property. Police never took his calls seriously and always pacified him by promising to send a patrol car around, which they hardly ever did.
00:27:24
So when the retired grocer called on this given day in February 2003, police thought it was just another complaint about an empty beer bottle on his land. But when Mr Van Camp mentioned diamonds, police arrived within the hour.
00:27:38
A short distance from the highway, just off a dirt road, they found a strange scene. There was a trash bag, but most of the contents had been thrown out. Tape was pulled out of video cassettes and thrown onto surrounding trees, like Christmas tree decorations.
00:27:53
Among the trash, officers could see the unmistakable glint of diamonds. Quite a few were still in the trash bag, some more were trampled into the mud.
00:28:03
The lead investigator of the district of Vilvoorde called the Federal Police in Antwerp and said that he was looking at some of the loot and material used in the robbery they were investigating. Police were relieved that they had found something to kick off the investigation.
00:28:20
The contents of the trash bag were sent to Antwerp for forensic examination. Investigators could not believe their luck. With an almost perfect crime, it was strange that this evidence simply fell into their laps. They were cautious that it could be a red herring, but they could not ignore what was inside.
00:28:40
There were a couple of random items: an empty bottle of wine, empty yogurt containers and half-eaten sandwiches. Then there was also something more concrete: a card with the name and address of someone by the name of Elio D’Onorio. Looking into his background, Elio was a known criminal in Italy, mostly in auto theft and dealing in cocaine.
00:29:04
A second document was found in the trash bag. It was torn up in many small pieces, but the forensic team pieced the puzzle together. They found another Italian name, this time, the name of a company ‘Damoros Preziosi’, which had offices at the Antwerp Diamond Centre. But the company had no business registration number and also no tax number.
00:29:29
When police went to the offices, there was nobody there. It had a desk and some basic office furniture, but there was nothing to indicate that this was the offices of a running business. There was no signs of administration or filing system, no stationary or anything.
00:29:48
A theory emerged that the offices were rented to gain access in order to scout the building. Investigators determined that the owner of the company was an Italian man by the name of Leonardo Notarbartolo.
00:30:01
They asked Italian police if they had any information about this man and it didn’t take long to receive his rap-sheet. It included arms dealing, robbery, burglary – mostly to do with jewellery.
00:30:14
Fingerprints pulled off the door at the offices of Damoros Preziosi at the Antwerp Diamond Centre, matched Leonardo’s.
00:30:23
A week after the heist, the concierge came forward and confessed that his initial statement was partially incorrect. He did not go to bed at midnight as he had said before. He went out drinking and dancing. In fact, he had quite a bit to drink and couldn’t remember exactly what time he went back home.
00:30:42
By this time, law enforcement already knew that the concierge was not in on the deal. His only crime was that he was NOT vigilant and at his post when he was supposed to have been.
00:30:55
Police had to catch up with their prime suspect. They had reason to believe that he had returned to Italy and a task force was assembled to make the arrest.
00:31:05
Leonardo had gone to his family home just outside of Turin. He spent a couple of days there, then set out to complete the heist cover-up. He had to return the rental getaway car to Antwerp. He also had to show his face at the Diamond Center, so as to NOT look suspicious.
00:31:24
Investigators would be looking at all the tenants, and he did not want to change anything in his normal behaviour. If he suddenly disappeared, police could have wondered. What he did not know, was that police were already onto him.
00:31:41
They were also high on adrenaline when he and the Gang were in his Antwerp apartment, and he knew he had some cleaning up to do. His wife said that she wanted to join him, and he agreed.
00:31:53
A couple of hours after they left their home in Italy, police surrounded the house. Leonardo’s son, 24-year-old Marco was home, but he refused to open the door. He tried to call Leonardo, but his phone was on silent and he didn’t hear the call come in. Then Marco tried to call his mother, but her phone was switched off.
00:32:15
Marco could not tell police where his parents had gone. The diamond thief had given authorities the slip.
00:32:22
It was five days after the heist when the Notarbartolo’s arrived in Antwerp. Leonardo’s wife and friends set out to clean the apartment while he went to his office. It was Friday night the 21st of February 2003, when Leonardo Notarbartolo was spotted inside the Antwerp Diamond Centre.
00:32:42
The concierge knew that police were desperately looking for him, so when she saw him, she stalled him, while one of her colleagues called police. She managed to engage him in conversation for no less than 15 minutes. The task team arrived in full force and arrested him on the spot.
00:33:01
During questioning, Leonardo was as cool as a cucumber. Police could see that he was a professional, who knew how to handle himself in a police interview. He calmly answered all questions and seemed unfazed and confident. He told them that he was a diamond dealer.
00:33:19
He graciously admitted that he was arrested in 1983 for stealing a car. But he denied breaking into the vault at the Antwerp Diamond Center.
00:33:28
Police did not have enough evidence tying Leonardo to the crime, but they knew he had something to do with the heist. When they went to his apartment, that was within walking distance of the Antwerp Diamond Center, they literally bumped into his wife and some friends as they were leaving.
00:33:44
It was obvious that they were clearing out the apartment, as they had suitcases and boxes with them. One man even carried a rolled-up carpet.
00:33:54
The whole group was taken in for questioning, but they didn’t give up anything. Investigators had to rely on the evidence to do the talking.
00:34:03
They searched Leonardo’s rented apartment in Antwerp and found tape that matched the duct tape that covered the sensor in the vault. There was also a sim card that could be connected with Pietro Tavano (or Speedy), a known associate of Notarbartolo.
00:34:19
Phone records showed calls that were made using the sim card, pinged off of towers in the vicinity of the Diamond Center on the night of the robbery.
00:34:28
Another piece of evidence found in the apartment, it was a receipt from a food store, Delhaize, with items matching items found in the trash bag in Vilvoorde: a bottle of wine, cheese, yoghurt…
00:34:43
When they pulled surveillance footage, they were able to capture a frontal shot of the man who purchased the items. Facial recognition software identified the man as Ferdinando Finotto (better known as “Il Mostro” or “The Monster”).
00:34:58
Back at police headquarters, after eight hours of interrogation, the seasoned criminal Leonardo Notarbartolo was still not talking. Police tried to shock him by proving that they were onto him and his whole gang when they showed him a photo of “The Monster”. Leonardo didn’t even flinch.
00:35:16
Investigators would have to build the case from scratch, as they could clearly not count on a confession from Leonardo.
00:35:23
Surveillance cameras inside the Diamond Center filmed him in the vault in the months and years leading up to the heist. He was walking around with a notebook, looking at all the different safes and locks, he also looked up to the ceiling and pointedly looked at each and every security camera throughout the whole building.
00:35:44
Forensic technicians immediately saw a couple of shiny stones as they unrolled the carpet one of Leonardo’s friends was carrying. A specialist vacuum was used to extract every last stone from the carpet.
00:35:57
All the diamonds retrieved from the apartment in Antwerp as well as the diamonds from the trash bag scene at Vilvoorde were confirmed to be part of the missing loot.
00:36:08
Part of the elaborate plan in committing this crime, was to assess the risk involved. In Belgium, one is not punished by value of what you steal. Theft is theft, whether you stole a teddy bear or $100 Million’s worth of diamonds. And for theft, the maximum punishment is five years in prison.
00:36:31
On the 3rd of March 2005, Leonardo Notarbartolo was the only member of the School of Turin charged with the Heist. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He received a double sentence as he was seen as the mastermind behind the operation.
00:36:48
Elio D’Onorio (or The Genius) denied any involvement in the heist, but his fingerprints were found on the tape inside the vault that was used to cover the light sensor. He was extradited to Belgium and given a five-year sentence.
00:37:03
Ferdinando Finotto’s girlfriend had a property on the French Riviera. Police found a couple of $100 bills that could be traced to the vault at the Antwerp Diamond Center in her home. He was finally arrested in Italy in November 2007 and given 5 years behind bars.
00:37:23
Speedy was also captured and served his five years in an Italian prison.
00:37:28
The 5th member – the King of Keys – was never named and never apprehended. No matter how many times the other members were interrogated about him, nobody ever revealed his real identity.
00:37:43
As for the main man, Leonardo Notarbartolo… He finally broke his silence, six years after his arrest, and agreed to an interview with Joshua Davis (an American journalist for Wired Magazine).
00:37:57
He told Joshua about his accomplices, he would never refer to their actual names, he only ever used their nicknames and spoke about their roles in the gang.
00:38:08
In this interview, Leonardo also claimed that he was not the instigator of the heist. He said that he was commissioned by a Jewish diamond dealer. The deal was that the client would finance the whole operation, then claim a third of the total takings, while the rest could be divided amongst the other members of the gang.
00:38:29
After the job, when Leonardo and his men went through the loot, they discovered that it was far less than they had originally thought. According to Leonardo, the total takings were more like 200,000 Dollars, not $100 Million.
00:38:44
They felt that they had been played. They would still each receive a solid cut, but not nearly as much as they had initially thought. They suspected the whole robbery was a case of insurance fraud.
00:38:57
Police back in Antwerp would be told that $100 Million Dollars’ worth of diamonds was stolen, but in fact it was way less. Insurance would pay out and the mysterious claimant (who was never named) would make loads of money.
00:39:12
It was curious that the heist itself was flawless – the perfect crime. It was the getaway that made everything come undone. It turned out that the gang’s instinct to keep Speedy out of the deal, was right on the money. In the end, it was him who gave them away.
00:39:32
Leonardo said that, after the heist, he intended to drive to France with Speedy and dispose of the trash there, by burning it in an abandoned warehouse. The rest of the gang was driving to Italy with the diamonds.
00:39:47
On the way, Speedy was extremely anxious. He was convinced that police would stop them and insisted they got rid of the trash bag as soon as they could. Leonardo pulled off the highway, onto August van Camp’s land, to reason with Speedy. As soon as he stopped, Speedy jumped out of the car with the trash.
00:40:08
Leonardo thought he would let Speedy leave the trash bag, so he could calm down. However, Speedy did not return to the car and Leonardo got out to look for him.
00:40:19
He saw Speedy in a clearing – he had lost it. He was clearly in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. Tape was pulled out of video cassettes and thrown onto surrounding trees.
00:40:30
The contents of the trash bag was strewn everywhere. Speedy was tearing up pieces of paper and money and throwing it aside. Some of their loot, smaller diamonds were also in the bag in it was trampled into the mud during Speedy’s hysterical outburst.
00:40:48
It was time to get Speedy back into the car before anyone saw them. The land seemed isolated enough and he felt it was a good place to leave the garbage. The plan was to drive back to Antwerp in a couple of days without Speedy. He could then pick the trash back up and burn it.
00:41:03
Leonardo managed to calm his friend down and pulled him back to the car and they left, resuming their journey to Italy. 36 hours after the break-in, the School of Turin reunited at a bar in Adro, Italy, north of Milan.
00:41:21
According to Leonardo, they were supposed to meet the Jewish Diamond Merchant in the bar after the heist, but he did not show up. They were not surprised, as they were convinced he stood to gain more from his insurance fraud. So the gang divided the takings and went their separate ways.
00:41:39
His story to wired, of a dealer who had commissioned the whole thing was perhaps an effort to distance himself from being the instigator. If someone else could be the real villain, he could walk out of prison with less of a criminal shadow following him.
00:41:54
Leonardo was released after four years in prison, in 2009, on the condition that he had to pay a monthly restitution to the victims. He stopped paying after a while and was eventually re-captured in Paris in 2013 to serve the remaining 1443 days (well, four years) of his sentence.
00:42:17
Today, all members of The School of Turin have been released. The bulk of the loot taken during the 2003 Antwerp Diamond Heist has never been recovered. Leonardo Notarbartolo is proud of his status as the ringleader of the heist of the century.
00:42:37
If you’d like to read more about this case, have a look at the resources used for this episode in the show notes. Also visit and like our Facebook Page at facebook.com/evidencelockerpodcast/” to see more about today’s case.
00:42:52
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00:43:05
This was The Evidence Locker. Thank you for listening!