Warning: This post contains spoilers for Stolen: Heist of the Century
Stolen: Heist of the Century, a documentary about what’s considered the world’s largest diamond heist, is a cut above other true crime fare because in this one, the filmmakers interview the mastermind of the crime about how he pulled it off.
The robber, Leonardo Notarbartolo, who had an office in the building he stole from, speaks on camera for the first time about his role in the theft of about $100 million worth of diamonds in Antwerp, Belgium, over the weekend of Feb. 15, 2003. His memory is selective, however, and Stolen also features law enforcement officials who fact-check his claims.
The documentary, out on Netflix on Aug. 8, is based on the 2010 book Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, which examines how the diamond thieves pulled off the heist and what led to police eventually catching them. Here, the book’s co-author Scott Selby talks to TIME about the “flawless” theft and what he thinks about Notarbartolo’s account.
How the thieves pulled off a massive diamond robbery
Antwerp has long been considered the diamond capital of the world: About 85% of the world’s diamonds pass through the city. The thieves targeted a building called the Antwerp Diamond Center, which housed dozens of gem trading companies.
While the center was heavily guarded on the weekdays, there was less security on the weekends. Authorities believe that the thieves entered through the garage where a door led to the ground floor of the building and then opened it by modifying an alien key. Stolen shows thieves covering motion sensors with hairspray, light sensors with black duct tape, and cameras with black plastic bags. When the thieves were done, they stole security tapes so that no one could see them committing a crime.
Somehow, they managed to break into the explosion-resistant steel door to the vault.
“For me, the biggest mystery is, how did they get past that combination lock?” Selby says.
In the doc, Notarbartolo claims he hid a camera inside a fire extinguisher, which enabled him to see what combination was inside. But Selby argues the only way to see the numbers on the lock is through a piece of glass on top of the lock that acts like a magnifying glass.
To open each safe deposit box in the vault, the thieves invented a device that hooks into the keyhole and then uses leverage to bend the deadbolt so the door pops open.
Notarbartolo claims he trained for the heist in a recreation of the vault outside of the building. But Selby doesn’t believe that because Notarbartolo had a safe deposit box in the vault. “I’m not sure why one would need a replica of a vault that you already have total access to,” he says.
To this day, almost all of the diamonds remain unaccounted for. Many of the safe deposit box owners did not have insurance because the Antwerp Diamond Center was considered the safest place to store diamonds, with plenty of CCTV and armed police guarding it during the week.
“It’s important to remember these real victims,” Selby says. “Real people with small businesses were wiped out.”
Notarbartolo does not seem to have any regrets. “I’ve always wanted to be part of something like this,” he says in the film, adding later, “We felt proud of doing something so strong and powerful.”
How the thieves got caught
“The theft itself was flawless—I mean, they pulled it off, right? It’s just that the getaway was badly bungled,” says Selby.
Police found some helpful clues in a heap of trash that was tossed into the last bit of forest off of the highway between Antwerp and Brussels. Unfortunately for the thieves, they dumped their trash onto the property of a man named August Van Camp, who routinely picked up the trash ditched by drivers and sifted through it to see if he could identify who was littering, regularly reporting the contents to the police. In this case, he told police that the trash had diamond-related materials, and since they were in the process of investigating the diamond heist, the police showed up right away.
Inside the trash were tiny emeralds. There was a supermarket receipt, and police were able to go to the store and look at security footage to identify the person ringing up the listed items, Ferdinando Finotto, someone police had been looking for in connection to a different robbery.
There was a piece of paper identifying Elio D’Onorio, an alarm specialist, authorizing him to do security work for Leonardo Notarbartolo, who had a safe deposit box at the Antwerp center. Police found out that he was from Turin, Italy, and called the head of the detectives for the robbery squad in the city to find out who Notarbartolo was and learned he was on their radar. Turin authorities told Antwerp authorities about the so-called School of Turin, a network of criminals in the area.
Then, the building manager of the Antwerp Diamond Center was able to point him out for authorities on security footage. Notarbartolo’s safe deposit box was one of the safe deposit boxes that had not been broken into, which was suspicious.
Nearly a week after the heist, on Feb. 21, Notarbartolo was caught when he returned to the scene of the heist to enter the building with his badge so that it didn’t look like he was the only tenant who didn’t go into the building after the heist. The building’s security team had already been fielding questions from authorities about him for days, so they recognized him immediately when he showed up. The building manager called the police, and then stopped Notarbartolo at the door, talking his ear off until the police arrived and arrested him.
“By then, you surrender,” Notarbartolo says in the doc. “You face the situation.”
Police ordered Notarbartolo to direct them to the thieves’ safe house, where they found a carpet covered in emeralds, the same kind that police found in the trash pile.
Notarbartolo was sentenced to 10 years in prison, because he was found guilty of being the mastermind, while D’Onorio and Finotto were each sentenced to five years in prison.
What happened to Notarbartolo?
Notarbartolo already did his time for the crime, so he can talk openly about it.
“There’s no longer any legal jeopardy for him,” Selby explains. “He served his time.”
Notarbartolo lives with his wife in the countryside on the outskirts of Turin, where police still monitor him closely. He has a small business making wood pellets commonly used for fireplaces.
Throughout the doc, he talks about how a man named Alessandro commissioned him to do the heist. But authorities interviewed say they never found any evidence of a partner named Alessandro. “I don’t think any outside partner commissioned him to do this,” Selby says.
While the diamond heist was a complex operation, there are everyday steps that people can take to keep their personal property safe. ”Just because you live in a gated community doesn’t mean that you don’t need a good lock on your door,” says Selby. “It doesn’t mean that you can be complacent and just not have your security alarm on.”
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