Thieves in Belgium are thought to have got away
with diamonds worth millions of pounds.
...in what could be the biggest diamond heist in history.
Gems were taken from the world's
largest diamond distribution center in Antwerp.
They managed to get by extremely heavy security in the building,
which houses dozens of gem trading companies.
It's a huge blow for the companies involved...
My husband August and me, we had a general store.
I was cleaning the shop that Monday.
And the radio was on.
And I heard the news
that there was a heist in the Diamond Center in Antwerp.
We cautiously estimate €100 million of loot in diamonds...
August drove to a part of the woods that we own
with some vegetable scraps,
to feed the rabbits and the fish.
And when he entered the woods,
he said, "Goddamn it, they did it again. People dumped their trash again."
A lot of people went there with trash.
They took a little road to our woods,
where they were hidden from sight.
And then the trash got dumped.
So my husband opened the bags.
There were a lot of torn-up papers.
So he started puzzling...
Antwerp...
Diamonds...
And he thought, oh, this is serious.
This isn't for me.
And then he came home mad.
He came in, and I immediately could tell something was wrong.
I saw it on his face.
But I didn't get the chance to ask.
He had the phone in his hands straightaway to call the police.
Leonardo...
do you like diamonds?
Yes, very much.
It's a passion that has developed gradually.
As I was stealing them,
I grew closer to them.
So were you the mastermind of the Antwerp heist?
No.
I was born in Palermo, towards the mountains.
As a little kid of just six years old,
I broke into the house of this cowherd.
I saw 5,000 lire,
and I took the money, folded it, and went downstairs.
My father would always tell me,
"Remember that what you do will have consequences,
and you have to accept them."
So, I am a participant.
But I'm not the mastermind behind the Antwerp heist.
In the '80s, I opened my first jewelry shop.
Then later I owned another one.
Then I opened the third one in the '90s.
Logically,
I started going back and forth to Antwerp to buy gemstones.
I started to come frequently to Antwerp,
and I rented out an apartment
because it's the world capital of diamonds.
It's one of the most strategic points,
on top of Tel Aviv,
on top of New York,
on top of London.
My goal was to get an office in Antwerp,
in the Diamond Center,
to gain the confidence of the big diamond suppliers.
So I turned up.
I had to give them all my Italian documentation
about my business, where I had my office.
They said, "Okay."
"We'll do our checks
and research, then we'll tell you."
And the week after, they accepted me.
They let me open up the office there.
Leonardo, the Belgian police are convinced that
you rented the office in the Diamond Center
in order to do this heist. Did you?
No, absolutely not.
I didn't. I went there to work.
Did you know that there was a vault inside the Diamond Center?
Yes, sure. I knew it.
I knew the building had a vault with safe deposit boxes.
You had to apply for it, and eventually they'd say,
"If you want it, there's one available."
That's what happened to me.
Not immediately.
After a few months, one came up,
and I got it.
So who was the mastermind behind the heist?
His name was Alessandro.
I mean, he went by Alessandro.
It probably wasn't his real name.
He told me, "We met in Italy."
And he asked, "Can we have a coffee together?"
He said, "I know very well who you are."
"You could do something for me,
for a group of mine,
and we'll give you loads of money."
"I'll give you a Biro... a pen."
"This pen, it has a tiny little camera here."
"It could store 1,000 photos."
"Take photos of your vault for me."
"And if it's all as it should be,
I'll give you 100,000 dollars."
Of course, there was some wariness in the approach, you know?
Were you scared?
Of course, I was scared in that moment. But that's normal.
Those who don't have fear aren't normal.
Fear must exist.
And I said, "Okay...
I'm in."
When I went into the Diamond Center...
I put the pen into my jacket pocket.
There was downright obsessive monitoring of the place.
If I was found with the little camera, you understand,
I would immediately be reported and kicked out of my workplace.
So from there, I framed up the whole hallway of the Diamond Center.
I take the stairs and go down to the vault.
I ring. I'm behind the door.
Of course, the concierge sees me and lets me in.
I expect they want to see the layout of the boxes.
Are there any open?
Strategic points,
there were the video cameras, the two sensors...
Clearly, I had a lot of anxiety inside me.
I tried to move in a way
that the pics would be as clear as possible.
I opened my box,
as anyone else would do.
Then I turn around very slowly,
and I head for the door.
I take the lift and go back to my office.
And so, we met again.
I gave him the pen.
He said...
"Leonardo...
I don't want to speak for you, but why settle for this sum
when there's a lot more money to gain?"
"Approximately, there's $100 million worth of goods."
"That's ten or 15 million each."
"That's the least you would make."
"What do you think about taking part?"
And I said, "Yes."
So you said "yes" straightaway?
I said yes because...
I've always wanted
to be part of something like this.
I mean, the whole thing was getting too tempting.
Fifteen million... I truly started thinking I could solve a lot of problems.
And until that point, you had no idea who else was involved?
No, not then.
In Turin, the presence of a number of individuals
specializing in thefts from banks and bank vaults
has created, as coined by journalists essentially,
a school of thieves, "The School of Turin."
In Turin, the presence of the metalworking industry of Fiat...
meant that the skills for working with metal
were more advanced than in other cities.
Certainly, these people knew how to work metals well.
They understood the mechanics of vaults and fortified walls.
Having so many specialized individuals
concentrated in such a small area as Turin
led to the creation of this term, "The School of Turin."
Alessandro told me, "We're meeting the other guys."
We go to an industrial area
where there are warehouses.
I go inside. There are three people there.
Alessandro does the introductions.
With fictitious names, obviously.
The first guy was a master
when it came to locks and alarms.
A pretty boy!
Looks like a film star.
He's 1.93 meters tall.
Well-built.
That's why I call him The Monster.
The other one, The Genius.
He was a little man.
Really, really, really smart. Really intelligent.
He was half hacker and half computer geek
and an expert in alarms.
Then there's the one that seems a bit of a thug,
a bit coarse.
A very calm and quiet person.
He can open any door in the world.
He can open any lock.
- What did you call him? - The Key Master.
Was that the whole team?
Were there no others?
No, there wasn't anyone else there.
- No? - No.
Who was the boss?
The boss for the whole time was Alessandro.
They pull down these big plastic sheets.
And I see this place which looks just like the vault.
I say, "Bloody hell! It's exactly the same!"
They say, "Are the two video cameras positioned correctly?"
"Yes."
"Is the central one correctly positioned?"
"Yes."
"Is the little sensor right?" "Yes."
"How does the central one seem?"
I say, "It's identical."
"You made it the exact same."
Do you think your wife could have ever dreamed
that you'd gotten yourself into something so big?
Absolutely not. She would have never thought that I...
I'd get into such a situation, a theft of this kind.
No, absolutely not.
My wife and I have known each other since I was 17,
and she was 14-15 years old.
Since the first time I decided what to do with my life,
I told her the truth. I said, "Look, I'm a little crazy."
"Be aware that I might end up in trouble."
Of course, I don't involve her in what I do, or what I plan to do,
not at all, no.
I hide it from her. I try not to give her this grief.
They think we came in through the garage,
that we went in underneath the Diamond Center,
and from there to the vault.
No. No.
They really don't know.
They were coming in and out of that place like a Swiss cheese.
To make copies of the keys, to check things, and so on.
So, in your opinion, how many times did they go in?
Thirty.
- Thirty? - At least 30 times.
And never left a trace.
Every few months,
we would go and study something and report it the following day.
We entered from Pelikaanstraat,
where the car park is,
a place where you could park cars behind the Diamond Center.
By skirting along the walls of the Diamond Center,
we arrived right at our building.
And we went up with a stepladder that we brought with us, the folding ones.
We climbed up to the first floor.
The Genius had bypassed the alarm that was on this balcony.
Yes, he had the key.
The key that had been prepared by The Key Master.
And from there, we entered.
The biggest problem we had was the door
with its three obstacles.
The lock, that is the key,
the combination, and the alarm.
The biggest problem to resolve, clearly, was the combination.
When The Genius
realized there was a light bulb above the door,
he told me,
"Let's place a micro camera above it."
We had to find a way to transmit the images.
We couldn't place a receiver there.
The only way was to find a spot where to hide it.
And that spot was in the boiler room, which had some fire extinguishers.
The Genius took one, he made photos,
checked how it was made,
and, in Italy, we modified one,
cutting the bottom and inserting a receiver inside.
Every evening, when the concierge went down to close up
and he inserted the combination,
we had the recordings.
The camera was also needed to measure up the key.
We could see every frame as the concierge inserted it.
We'd take a still shot, and we could see the key's size and structure.
The Antwerp judicial service provided more information
about last week's major diamond heist.
The video cassettes from the weekend of the 15th and 16th
have disappeared.
Explain to me how you chose the specific day.
We didn't choose a day.
We'd reached a point where it had been going on for two years.
Sooner or later, someone will start asking questions.
The only remaining worry was a sensor inside the vault,
which was a bit more sophisticated than the other ones.
Alessandro told me, "Look,
we still need a bit more."
"We'd like to have more angles."
"I'll give you a small camera...
I'll give you a little bag, and I'll tell you how to do it."
I go towards the boxes.
I pretend I'm stretching like this...
pointing the camera upwards...
trying to keep it pointing to the center.
In comes the security guard. He asked, "Are you unwell?"
"Do you have a problem?"
I tried to say my side hurt.
I felt a bit off, so I leaned on something.
"Okay, fine."
And so talking it through between us, one told me
that once he had tried
to fog up a sensor using hairspray,
and it had worked.
So three days before the heist, I was asked to eliminate it.
Were you not scared they could see you when you did that?
Of course I was scared someone would come downstairs.
But the cameras could not see me.
The camera on the side was already after the sensor.
It aimed to the other side. I went alongside the wall with my hand.
I fit perfectly.
So, basically, I have three nights to see that the hairspray did not get darker,
because every morning, they enter to clean the vault.
Come Saturday... we decided to do it that evening.
If not, it's over.
Why Saturday?
Saturday is the Sabbath for Jewish people, and they don't go into the office.
The day of the hit,
they decided to have me stay outside.
So they told me,
"Who could be better than you,
who has known the environment for so many years,
who has studied it actively for three years?"
"You know the policemen."
"Maybe you'll spot them in plain clothes. You never know."
On one side, it was disappointing, as I would have liked to be inside.
And on the other side, I understood that what they said made sense.
It was not just to get rid of me. Why would they want to get rid of me?
One by one, we set off from my apartment.
In the final act, in the end, how many are you?
We four were the main ones.
The Monster, the Genius, the Key Master, and I.
The fifth was "My Friend."
He had excellent qualities in our line of work.
But they had to wait for me to arrive by car.
I would park alongside, and then they came to the door,
and I gave them the equipment I had to pass to them, all suitcases.
So they got in and, as usual, they ran along the wall.
Once there, they put the stepladder up and got in.
From that moment, I turned around again and went to the park.
From that position, I could see the police cabin...
and I could see the main door of our building.
This is a model of the floor of the vault,
looking exactly as it was.
They had to walk all the corridors of the Center...
go down the stairs,
and exit through this door.
And when they came out,
they had to immediately deactivate the two side cameras.
Once they had deactivated these, they had to work on the main door.
The magnet, the numerical combination, and the lock.
They took the small video camera and watched it
to see the last combination that was entered that night.
The key worked beautifully, very well,
but the third problem with the door was the magnet.
Obviously, The Genius had already studied it.
When you opened the door,
the first thing they found were two anti-theft alarms.
One, the central one, was a sensor that could detect light,
and another one could detect heat and movement.
A sort of polystyrene box was created.
It does not reflect nor let the rays in,
and it doesn't let the heat get out.
This was stressing me out.
Also because my wife was calling me.
She suspected I might have a woman, some affair...
"Why didn't you come home for Valentine's Day?"
"It was an important day to be together, and you didn't come home."
It was truly a big stress.
When... When she gets mad, she's terrifying.
It was already more than two hours past midnight
when he called me and said, "We are ready to open the boxes."
"From now on, we are doing our job, and in a few hours, we are out."
In the morning, people would start to move to get to work.
We had to be out at 5:00, 5:30 a.m., no later.
And this was a problem,
because, with only one tool, he had to open all those security boxes.
Stones do not require much space.
Any other object would require space.
They threw hundreds of thousands on the floor.
I could not turn on the car, so I had to stay cold.
I was nervous, very nervous.
Eventually, after three hours, they called me and told me,
"Uh, Leo, we are finishing. We are stopping now."
"Move to the opposite side, to Pelikaanstraat."
"Wait for us at the same spot."
I loaded all the goods and equipment and headed home.
Getting home to my apartment,
the car is open, and I take one suitcase upstairs.
Then someone gets another suitcase and comes upstairs.
Once upstairs, The Monster and I,
from my apartment, go up to the roof.
The two of us went high up
to hear if there were any sirens or any agitation in the city.
We waited there for ten minutes in the cold,
to listen to the city to hear if something was wrong.
But we didn't hear anything.
We accomplished an endeavor that looked so impenetrable.
We felt really proud for doing something so strong, powerful.
Don't you feel guilty, for instance,
for people who lost their business?
I don't feel guilty due to one reason.
Everyone I robbed always earned from it.
How do you mean?
If I stole 10 kilos of gold, they reported 30 kilos.
If I stole 13, they said 25.
Do you mean that through insurance they got more?
Of course.
I mean, I'm dishonest, but in the end... facts are different.
We had a small party, you know.
We drank and ate everything.
In the apartment, we glanced over the goods we had taken
and worked out that, to the naked eye,
it could have been close to 100 million.
The appointment was the following day,
for everyone, if everything had gone well, to meet in Italy, in Brescia,
to divide the loot
and decide who'd take care of selling the loot.
Anything we had touched,
we touched with gloves and with masks,
for fear of saliva going anywhere...
For the rubbish, it was decided that I should take the bags
as I had found a place to burn them.
And I went to take a shower,
so I didn't see what happened in that room.
Someone from the group, I don't know who it could have been,
took the garbage bag from my apartment,
from when we ate our meal,
and they throw that in the bag too.
I get out of the shower, but I don't know what was thrown inside.
I saw "My Friend," who was there ready. I told him, "You come with me of course."
"We will take out the rubbish. I know where to burn it."
We leave Antwerp and get on the highway.
All of a sudden, he says, "No, I want to take the train, go to Paris,
and from Paris I'll go to Turin."
That really disappointed me.
So at the last minute, we found a different spot from what I had decided.
You enter this country lane which ends in this groove.
Always running alongside the highway.
I noticed, in passing, that on the left there was a wooden house.
And I told him, "Wait a second, so I can check what's inside the house."
"I'll go check that the owner isn't there."
As I was going towards the house,
when I was almost, let's say, 20 meters away...
there was a kind of metallic crash.
With something metallic falling, I thought someone was there.
I can't possibly burn anything here.
When I got back,
I don't know why, but he...
Partly because the bin bags got tangled in the weeds and the wood,
and they had ripped, at that point, a lot of things had fallen,
and he scattered it there.
It was impossible to pick everything up.
I said, "Look, the owner is probably there."
"If he sees the license plate, he can report us."
"We've just thrown some garbage. Let's get out of here."
Carelessness?
Tiredness?
Call it what you want.
We got back in the car, and we left.
I left him at the station
and carried on alone.
We all had to meet the following day in Brescia.
I headed towards the border...
and I arrived in Italy at 7:00 in the morning.
We met up in an apartment in Brescia.
Starting with the pleasantries, "How are you?"
Hugs and kisses.
I said, "It's upsetting, but I have to tell you about something
that happened on the way here."
And they were all relaxed about it.
They said, "What can happen? They can't get to us from the rubbish."
And they said,
"You should go back to Antwerp to return the car,
to pay for the office,
to pay rent for the apartment."
I had to look like I had nothing to hide.
Leonardo, you have just stolen a lot of money.
Weren't you taking a bit of a risk?
I scoured the TV newscasts for my name, but I didn't find it anywhere.
I mean, that's why I had the confidence in me to say,
"Okay, I'm at ease going to Antwerp."
And so it happened. I stopped in Turin.
My wife said, "Since you're going on a round trip,
I'll take the car with you, and then we can come back together."
"I wanna go see what this apartment looks like."
My wife is obsessed with cleaning apartments.
She'll even clean your apartment if she goes there.
That's just her nature.
When I got near my office,
I saw the manager at the door.
She saw me, "Mr. Notarbartolo, Mr. Notarbartolo!"
"Have you heard what happened? There's been a theft in our vault!"
When I saw her delaying, I realized the police were on the way.
I had no way out anymore at that point.
By then you surrender. Let's face the situation.
And I tried to beat around the bush.
I tried not to tell them that. Right?
"I don't remember the full address." "Not sure about the house number."
My wife?
Well, this...
pains me.
She's never, ever abandoned me. She's never left me alone.
Wait a moment.
It's all right.
No, when I talk about these things, I have a hard time, unfortunately.
Four suspects were arrested for the diamond heist in Antwerp.
Leonardo Notarbartolo, jeweler from Turin,
arrived in Antwerp in November 2000.
He immediately rented an office at the Diamond Center,
the building where the robbery took place.
Leonardo, was the only reason you came to Antwerp in 2000
because you were in fact the mastermind of this heist?
No.
I mean, I got nothing.
I never got a penny from anyone.
The mastermind is Alessandro.
To be honest, I've always thought of him as a ghost.
I mean, he appeared and he disappeared, like... I don't know what.
He said his name was Alessandro.
It probably wasn't his real name.
He said, "I know exactly who you are."
Did you know there was a vault inside the Diamond Center?
Yes, sure. I knew it.
The Italian Leonardo Notarbartolo
was far from impressed this morning.
The judge gave him the expected ten years for the diamond heist.
Three other gang members were jailed for five years.
According to the judges, Notarbartolo was one of the gang's leaders.