The Heist of the Century: The Antwerp Diamond Heist

The Heist of the Century: The Antwerp Diamond Heist

This article relates to A Gentleman and a Thief

It's been called the heist of the century, despite happening only three years after the turn of the millennium. At the start of the business day on February 17, 2003, police were called to the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) by frantic jewel traders claiming their highly secure vault had been breached. Investigators found the vault open and safe deposit boxes, cash, and priceless jewels scattered across the floor. In striking similarity to the exploits of Arthur Barry, the central figure of Dean Jobb's A Gentleman and a Thief, the thieves who broke into the AWDC had seemingly pulled off an impossible crime and walked away with millions of dollars.

Antwerp, Belgium has been the capital of the world's diamond trade since the 15^th century, and today more than 80 percent of the world's rough-cut diamonds and about half of the polished diamonds pass through its diamond district. The AWDC, founded in 1973, serves as the official representative and coordinator for the city's diamond trade. As such, the centre has extensive security measures, including armed guards, electronic surveillance, monitored key entry, and vehicle barriers. At the time of the heist, the main vault had an additional ten layers of security, making it seemingly impenetrable—until this theft proved otherwise. All the vault's security measures had been quietly bypassed, and the thieves had loaded up $100 million worth of jewels and cash before disappearing without a trace.

A few days later, the Antwerp police received a call from a man complaining about trash on his wooded property. When the man mentioned that envelopes from the AWDC were among the debris, the police went to investigate. They found a receipt for a video surveillance system and dozens of small diamonds. The name on the receipt was Leonardo Notarbartolo, and a quick investigation linked Notarbartolo and three other men to the crime. Notarbartolo, the theft's ringleader, was sentenced to ten years in prison, while the other three men—Elio D'Onorio, Ferdinando Finotto, and Pietro Tavano—were each sentenced to five years.

So how did this gang of thieves commit the heist of the century? It depends on who's telling the story. The police claim that Notarbartolo planned the entire heist. He had been visiting Antwerp to fence stolen diamonds for years, and he decided it was the perfect place to pull off a major job. In 2000, Notarbartolo rented an office in the AWDC and set himself up as a gem importer, which allowed him to buy a safe deposit box within the AWDC's vault. Over the next three years, Notarbartolo worked with a group of four other men to form a plan to break into the vault. Finally, on the night of February 15, 2003, the crew used a combination of hairspray, tape, Styrofoam, polyester, black plastic bags, and a one-of-a-kind key (which had been left unsecured by guards) to cover, trick, and manipulate the various security measures. Five hours later, the men had opened 109 safe deposit boxes and were heading out with as much as loot as they could carry and trash bags full of evidence that had to be destroyed.

Notarbartolo and Tavano, also known as Speedy, found what they thought was an abandoned spot to burn the evidence. Unfortunately, Speedy had a panic attack and began throwing the contents of the trash bags everywhere. Rather than retrieving the loot, Notarbartolo opted to leave everything, assuming no one would ever find the trash and realize its significance—a decision that led to his arrest.

Notarbartolo himself, however, tells a different story. The charming jewel thief claims that, after he established his business, he and his crew were recruited by a different diamond dealer and that the theft was an insurance scam. He speculated that the dealer who hired the crew wasn't working alone and that many of the dealers who kept their goods in the vault quietly removed them in the days preceding the heist and then later made insurance claims on the stolen jewels. However, the vault itself was uninsured, casting doubt on Notarbartolo's claims.

Regardless of who planned it, if it hadn't been for Speedy's panic attack, Notarbartolo and his accomplices would have gotten away with the perfect heist. Since their arrests, none of the men have ever shared the identity of the fifth member of the crew, who has never been apprehended, nor have they revealed the location of the remaining jewels and cash. Much like Arthur Barry, Notarbartolo charmed his way into the world of jewel theft. Although both were captured, questions remain around each of their biggest jobs and the still-missing jewels.

Exterior of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Filed under People, Eras & Events

This article relates to A Gentleman and a Thief. It first ran in the July 17, 2024 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.