yes, As you’ve read in the title, this is, by far, the biggest diamond heist in history, and believe
it, we are not exaggerating whatsoever, The story of the diamond center is going to
blow your mind, its details and planning are far beyond the fictional robberies in movies.
The plan was hatched by Leonardo Notarbartolo and his efficient crew.
Before going on with our episode, make sure to subscribe and hit that
bill to turn on notifications. The Antwerp diamond center district
is located downtown Antwerp in Belgium, it is also known as the diamond quarter.
80 percent of diamonds of the world pass through it to be polished and incorporated
into jewelry to be sold, This is why
The center consists of a maximum security; it has its own dedicated police provided by
the Belgium government with the most artificial cameras which provide 24 /7 video surveillance,
the entire environment is surrounded with steel cylinders that could block any vehicle
attempting to escape, inside this district,
there are diamond traders from all over the world, who rent offices and stores, as well as
safe deposit boxes to store their precious goods such as diamonds and foreing currencies, which
are secured inside the building's vault. This very interesting vault that is situated two
floors below the main floor, and has a lock with 100 million possible combinations.
And an Infrared detectors monitored for body heat inside the vault, these heat detectors would
trigger an alarm if they detected any rise in ambient temperature-
, with an external security camera next to a light sensor,
and a magnetic field that would trigger an alarm if the vault door was opened.
However, to grant entry, the door still needs a foot long key.
And although there are no guards around the vault, any suspicious movement would
trigger the security force and they would readily descend with automatic weapons.
Thereby, This place really looks impossible to be robbed, isn’t it?
Well, in the year 2003, this fortified vault was successfully robbed by an Italian man named
Leonardo Notarbartolo and his crew which consisted of 4 members.
We’ll get into details in a bit, but in the meantime, it is worth mentioning
that probably without a man who approached Leo while sipping from his Espresso in the
Antwerp district, there would be no robbery. The jewelry dealer offered leo 100,000Euros,
if he could provide an answer to whether the vault in the Antwerp Diamond center could be robbed?
The answer, without a doubt, was no. Still, Leonardo decided to demonstrate
to the dealer how impossible it was to get into the center, let alone get inside the vault.
Leonardo had already been occupying an office in the center for three years, he
had a 24 hour access card that allowed him to get inside of the vault, and during his years there,
he made himself visible and gained a reputation. Consequently, the fact of having access to the
building made the idea doable, so Leo made up his mind to give this operation a shot.
But you might be wondering why among all the people in the center,
the dealer chose leonardo. What you don’t know is that Leonardo has had his
fair share of theft; ever since he was a teenager, he stole several things from several people,
and by his late 40’s he had already become a professional thief.
So, the first task that Leo was assigned to do was getting footage in the building as
well as the vault using a tiny pen with a high digital camera, placed on his chest pocket.
And within a few days, the dealer contacted Leo with the meeting place and time.
At his arrival to an abandoned warehouse, leonardo was surprised by a replica of the vault,
which was made based on the footage from the tiny pen, inside the vault there were three
Italian men conversing, each one of them with a specific nickname so as no one of them would
identify the other in case of being caught. These men were very skillful and professional;
The genius: an expert in disabling any kind of alarm system.
The monster: an electrician and mechanic. The king of keys: an expert in counterfeiting
keys; his job was to duplicate the vault’s foot long key, using a footage which was taken by
another hidden camera that Leo was able to install behind a glaring light above the vault door;
the camera captured the key as well as the combination of the lock
and broadcast them to a hidden sensor inside a fire extinguisher nearby the storage room.
Finally, Speedy, a friend of Leonardo, and though the team was not very comfortable with
him being a member, Leo vouched for him. The final preparatory step before the heist
was for Leonardo to enter the vault one more time and cover the interior heat
and motion sensor with a transparent, oily mist using women’s hairspray; as the oily film would
block the sensor’s ability to detect any changes in the room’s temperature, the only problem was that
they didn’t know for how long the spray would last. Other than this everything went smoothly,
and Leonardo executed the mission easily even though the place was literally filled with
security cameras,. the thing is, the fact that the guard was used to Leonardo’s ins and outs
of his safe deposit box in the vault, he paid no attention,
and just like that everything was ready. At this point, the team had practised and
mastered their heist process, memorizing each and every step by heart.
Indeed, on the night of february 15th 2003, Leo rented a car and dropped the Monster, the Genius,
the King of Keys and Speedy into a garden in the back of the diamond center, which happened to be
among the few places that didn't have constant video surveillance cameras in the area.
Using a ladder which was hidden in the garden previously, the genius climbed up into a small
balcony, which had a heat sensor, on the second floor of the center, he managed to
place a large homemade polyester shield so as to disable the alarm and help the rest
of team to join through a wide open window. The team has succeeded in entering the diamond
center without raising any suspicion. All of the team wore plastic gloves to
avoid leaving fingerprints, and on their way to the vault they
covered all security cameras using black plastic bags in order to turn
the lights on without triggering the alarm, The team effortlessly continued their way until
they reached the vault. Where the real work began;
The very first thing that they encountered was a magnetic lock on the door that consisted of
two plates, if these magnetic plates break, they would trigger a magnetic field which also reports
and sets the alarm on. Nonetheless the genius was able to overcome this security measure, by using
a custom made aluminum plate and sticking it on the two magnetic plates, then unscrewing them
preserving their generating magnetic field. Moving on to the following step, which was the
specialty of the king of keys, as he was about to use the duplicate key, he froze for a moment
as an idea struck his mind; he noticed that the guards always visit the utility room
before opening the vault door. Thus, he decided to take the risk and take a look into the room,
Surprisingly, he found the original key, then he made up his mind to use the original one instead
of the duplicated one, in order to ensure the accuracy and manufactures of the vault.
Now they are about the final step, to open the door they have to enter the combination numbers,
but before that, they had to turn the lights off so as the light detector could not be triggered,
as you remember, Leonardo hid a tiny camera behind the glaring light of a lamp,
So the team was already familiar with the combination through the video,
they entered the combination and the vault’s door opened,
now the role of the Monster, an electromechanical, was about to begin, he already practiced in the
replica vault and memorized the number of steps, therefore, the monster was able to
reach for the ceiling in the dark so as to rewrap the wires in order not to send any alarms out,
the team continued their job in the darkness, they blinded the heat sensors with styrofoam
because the women’s spray hair which Notarbartolo had spread on before wouldn’t last long,
Simultaneously, they put a tape on the light sensors and another black
tape on the interior security camera, and while they were working on these steps,
Speedy was backed up to the stairs to notify Notarbartolo through the cell phone that the
vault’s door opened safely and they were in, Meanwhile, Leonardo was sitting outside in the car
watching the front diamond center, the king of keys assisted in opening the deposit boxes
using hand crank drill and then they rushed into emptying the boxes into the
bags in complete darkness, the bags were full of jewelry, diamonds and foreing currencies.
At 5:30 am they finished the biggest heist in history and they headed to the car,in
which they put the bags letting leo to drive to the appartement while the men headed on foot,
the gang gathered at Leonardo’s appartement to check the bags expecting 100 million $ of loot,
but they were shocked when they discovered that most of the bags are empty,
the loot they robbed was only about 20 million $ instead of 100 million $,
immediately Leonardo thought that the jewellery Dealer had set them up, and maybe he had planned
this with other dealers who were operating together, and they pulled their inventory out
of the vault before the heist in order to claim that their diamonds, jewelry and money… were stolen
to collect the insurance money. As for the team, the profit was about 20 million $ to split.
Monday 17th February, a concierge named Jorge Dia De Suisa was shocked when he discovered that the
vault was robbed and all the safety deposit boxes were opened and million of dollars of
goods were on the floor under the lights with the disappearance of 100 million $ of jewelry
with no evidence left behind and no one could understand how it was successfully done.
two days afterward each one of the team separated to different ways, and while Leonardo
and his friend Speedy were on the highway to italy carrying black plastic full of the heist evidence,
speedy was in panic, that he insisted on Leonardo to pull off into the forest,
then speedy somehow because of his panic attack instead of burning the evidence,
he hurled them on the mud while Leonardo was busy burning his own, when leonardo found out
what Speedy had done, he ordered him to go back to the car, and he thought that
no one would find the rubbish, so he left too but unluckily after a few weeks a man who owned
the land complained to the police that he found the rubbish and thought it was left by some
teenagers whom he had troubles with, however, the police paid him no attention, but when he called
again he mentioned that the rubbish consisted of the Antwerp Diamond Center envelopes, which the
police found so suspicious that they hurried up to the scene, where, indeed, they found plenty of
evidence of the heist including a salami sandwich which later on would reveal Leonardo’s DNA.
Leonardo was arrested after being connected to the crime by DNA evidence
and sentenced to 10 years in prison because he was found guilty for orchestrating the heist
and refused to specify the team and only provided the court with aliases, but he had released parole
in 2009 and he is a free man now. “So, do you admire the story of the biggest heist
in history or do you believe that leonardo only faked the part of the jewelry dealer ? Let us
know your thoughts in the comments. Subscribe and turn on notifications so
you don’t miss more videos of crime and mysteries and much more!
and I’ll see you in the next video. Take care.”