Diamond robbery in Antwerp

The diamond robbery in Antwerp was the theft of valuables ( diamonds , cash, watches and jewelry) from the impregnable lockers of the Antwerp Diamond Center ( Antwerp World Diamond Center ) on the night of February 15-16, 2003. The value of the loot was at least 100 million euros; other estimates go up to 400 million euros. This is the largest amount of gemstones ever stolen.

Inadequate security of the lockers made the act possible, which could have been avoided through better measures. Some of the perpetrators could only be identified by chance as a result of unprofessional waste disposal.

The whereabouts of a large part of the prey is unexplained.

On the Easter weekend, 2. – 5. April 2015, followed in London , Hatton Garden, a jewel theft of similar value.

time

The crime was committed by the group of perpetrators described below on the night of February 15-16, 2003. Because of the wedding of the General Director of the Diamond Council and because of a tennis tournament, it was expected that the building would be even emptier than usual on the weekend. Also on duty was the concierge who lived farther from the vault in the Diamond Center. The time window was around 24 hours; the heavily packed perpetrators could not risk leaving the diamond center in daylight.

This was preceded by a preparation period of 27 months, during which one of the perpetrators (Notarbartolo) lived in Antwerp and rented an office and a locker in the diamond center.

Perpetrator

Called the “Turin School” by the investigators, it was a group of 10 to 20 criminals who were camouflaged by a bourgeois facade. They earned a large part of their income from theft, mainly in the jewelry and jewelery sector. Only a few were known by name:

• Ferdinando Finotto was physically tall and strong. It is believed that he opened most of the lockers with the device described below. He often had to deal with motion detectors.
• Elio d'Onorio (Electronics and Alarm Expert)
• Pietro Tavano
• One of the main culprits, who worked as a scout in Antwerp, was Leonardo Notarbartolo (* 1952), a jewelry designer and dealer from the Turin area . He committed his first theft at the age of six: he stole 5,000 lire from the sleeping milk dealer. He continued his criminal career in elementary school by stealing cash from teachers. He later shifted his activities to jewelry theft, often working with "experts" on locks, alarm systems, etc. He was already known to the police for stealing jewelry.
• Antonio Falleti happened to meet his childhood friend Notarbartolo again when he returned to Antwerp.

Notarbartolo rented office number 516 and locker number 149 in the Diamond Center. No information was obtained when the rental agreements were concluded. The rental agreements gave Notarbartolo optional access to the building and, during the opening hours of the vault, to his locker, which he had rented for espionage purposes. He had also rented an apartment at 33 Charlottalei, the address of which was initially unknown to the police.

During the entire preparation period of 27 months, he did not conduct a single legal business in the gemstone sector. When interrogated, he justified this behavior as attempted tax evasion; he was only active on the black market.

The exact number of men who broke into the vault is unknown. There is also no information as to whether Leonardo Notarbartolo was inside the vault at the time of the crime. The police estimate the number of executors at four to five, one of whom was "Schmiere", ie observed the building from the outside.

One of the group's specialties was communication with one another using anonymous, prepaid mobile phones. At least the SIM cards should be disposed of after every coup. In addition, care was taken not to use violence against people when carrying out the crimes.

Fuses

Regional

Hoveniersstraat , on the right the police post mentioned in the article

Most of the world diamond trade in 2003 took place in the streets

• Rijfstraat
• Hoveniersstraat and
• Schupstraat instead.

These and part of the adjacent streets are peppered with surveillance cameras. Escape journeys are prevented by retractable road barriers. There was a small police station 12 meters from the entrance to the Diamond Center. The images from the cameras are continuously monitored. In the insurance industry this area is called SADA (“ Secure Antwerp Diamond Area ”).

The address of the Diamond Center is 9–11 Schupstraat . An electronic access card was used to enter the main entrance. Identification took place here. In the underground rooms, namely in the second basement, there was a walk-in safe that contained 189 individual lockers of various sizes.

There was access via the underground car park (Lange Heerentalsestraat) without identification. However, the signal from the door opener had to be spied out and reproduced with a scanner , and a duplicate key had to be produced for a simple connecting door .

Local

There were several video cameras in the building of the Diamond Center, the images of which were observed and recorded between 7:00 and 19:00. Between 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., the images were recorded on video cassettes . The cassettes were labeled with the current date and kept in a kind of "security center".

The inside of the actual vault was not observed in order to convey a certain degree of discretion to the customers of the lockers.

The vault itself was locked with one of the most solid safe doors that can be supplied by LIPS. You need a number combination (four times 00 to 99, altogether 100 million possibilities) and a special key to open it. To enter the combination, you have to look through a lens into a window. The image is slightly distorted through this lens. It seems impossible to read the combination by looking from outside.

Blasting the three-ton door required a charge that would blow up the entire building.

A magnetic device was attached to the outside of the vault door that triggers an alarm if someone should open the door outside of the opening times from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. In the vault itself there were three different sensors that responded to body heat, light and movement.

Each locker, the doors of which were precisely fitted, was secured with a code lock (bar key and three-digit letter code).

Since the external fuses including the vault door were undamaged, the investigators initially assumed that the burglars had proceeded with the help of employees of the center.

Switching off the fuses

Security gaps due to negligence of the staff

• The combination of numbers on the safe door was probably not changed at all when locking. This also eliminated the hassle of entering it when unlocking, which was true for both the operating staff and the intruders. One possibility that was rated as less admitted that the input process could have been spied on with a highly miniaturized camera. This question could not be clarified by the investigators. It is also possible that this camera established the fact that the combination remained unchanged.
• The master key to the vault door had to be inserted deep into the door on a handle. To do this, the key should be screwed onto the handle every time and unscrewed again after locking. However, it was customary to keep the handle and key in a kind of broom closet in the anteroom of the safe.

Security gaps created by the perpetrators

• The two-part magnetic device for reporting the opening of a door to the constantly manned alarm center was fastened from the outside with screw bolts to the vault door and its frame. It was probably not included in the initial planning, and for reasons of cost the builders wanted to avoid openings for the cables. The cables were not specially protected, but connected to the alarm center.

Elio d´Onorio made a custom-fit holder that fixed both magnets in their position to one another. A few days before the robbery, the bolts were loosened during the night and the magnets were easily separated from the door and frame while the current was running, in order to then fasten them unchanged with double-sided adhesive tape. The shortened bolts were reinserted for camouflage. In the event of a robbery, the magnets could be removed quickly with the help of the holder. D'Onorio had come specially from Italy and visited Notarbartolo, ostensibly to deliver a video surveillance system. To substantiate this, he had made out an invoice for this process, which in the end was not needed.

• The motion detector, consisting of an infrared source, was covered with an almost invisible film by spraying with hairspray . This could be done during opening hours on the day before the robbery.
• The light sensor in the vault was blinded with several layers of tape . That could only take place during the robbery, in almost complete darkness. Then the light could be turned on normally.
• The infrared sensor for body heat was shielded by a prepared styrofoam plate. This had to be attached high on the ceiling with a telescopic pole. This rod intended for a spider web mop was purchased at a hardware store at a reconstructable point in time. The videotapes at the till clearly showed one of the perpetrators; the cashier also remembered the 500 euro note that was used to pay for the parts.

The total value of the items used to turn off the fuses was very low. The telescopic pole was one of the more expensive things at 7 euros. In addition, the signal loop that led to the sensors in the suspended ceiling was stripped and short-circuited. The sensors were then inoperative.

Lockers and loot

In order to open the lockers, which came in different sizes, you needed a key and a three-digit combination of letters. The perpetrators didn't linger long, but instead constructed a pulling device in which a special type of bit key was inserted into the lock, turned 90 degrees and locked. The device supported itself on the side of the door with two legs and protruded horizontally into the room as soon as a threaded rod was pulled on the key and thus on the locker door. Another pull deformed the internal bolt; this ripped off the inner plastic cover. A bend of the bolt 45 degrees was enough for the door to pop open. This process was physically demanding and took about three minutes per door.

If the cover had been made of metal, it would have been bent by almost 90 degrees, which would have made it much more difficult to open the doors. This was also the case with the few doors whose lock had been replaced. The key puller described above broke off. However, the perpetrators had made spare parts in anticipation of this case.

The perpetrators opened a total of 109 lockers. In addition to diamonds, they came across cash in many different currencies, gold bars, jewelry and watches. Watches were only taken along with their original packaging, as this enabled them to achieve a better price. In order to get all the heavy loot out of the safe, they had to leave tools, empty bottles and supposedly inferior items behind, which happened according to plan in the morning around 5:30 a.m. The tapes with the recorded camera images were also taken along.

The robbery was not discovered by the caretaker until 24 hours later, on Monday, February 17th, around 6:50 a.m.

Removal and waste disposal

Notarbartolo had an apartment in Antwerp next to his office in the Diamond Center, in the Charlottalei, where he slept and lived. This apartment served as a temporary meeting point to sift through the booty and organize its onward transport to Italy. The perpetrators lost tiny emeralds that disappeared into the fibers of the carpet. These were not initially disposed of and were one of the sure clues that established a connection to the diamond center. The final sighting and division of the booty took place on February 17th near Lake Iseo , as the police were able to reconstruct based on the location of the remaining SIM cards.

In Antwerp the men took a shower and changed, a simple meal (salami sandwich) was eaten. Some SIM cards from the phones ended up in the general garbage, including the exotic currencies in the loot. The bill that had served to legitimize d´Onorio's stay in the Diamond Center also went to waste. Notarbartolo himself had then taken on the task of clearing away the garbage. He wanted to burn it in France. The booty itself was brought to Italy by a different route.

The waste was actually deposited in a forest near Floordambos near the A1 ( E19 ) motorway . The nervousness of an accomplice is said to have made the difference. The pensioner August “Gust” van Camp had a kind of inspection right for this piece of forest and was able to give his ferrets a run there. He had already reported wild garbage deposits several times. He discovered the freshly disposed of on February 17th. This time the matter was taken seriously because he mentioned that stationery with the address of the diamond center was among the trash.

A perpetrator is caught

The seized rubbish contained scraps of paper which, put together, resulted in the bill via a video surveillance system that d'Onorio had used as a pretext for his visit to Notarbartolo in the diamond center. Notarbartolo's DNA was also found on the bitten salami sandwich. Also included was the purchase receipt for the household items that were used in the vault, and Indian rupees, Israeli shekels and other items that were of no value to the perpetrators.

Unaware of these facts, Notarbartolo took another (last, as he thought) excursion back to Antwerp from Lake Iseo. He wanted to swipe his access card through the reader again so as not to be among those who had entered the Diamond Center before the robbery and no longer after the robbery. Since he was now one of the wanted people and was of course recognized, he was arrested. After an initial silence, he also had to give the address of his apartment in the Charlottalei, where more traces were found. His childhood friend Tonino Faletti, who was arrested at the same time, came here by chance rather than because he was involved in the robbery.

process

In joint criminal proceedings, the following were convicted:

• Elio D'Onorio: 5 years imprisonment and 5,000 euros fine
• Pietro Tavano: 5 years imprisonment and 5,000 euros fine

These two were not present at the trial.

• Leonardo Notarbartolo: 10 years imprisonment and 10,000 euros fine. He was convicted of running a criminal organization. After his arrest, he made no further statements. Various observers doubted that Notarbartolo planned and directed the deed with its details alone.
• Tonino Faletti was acquitted for unwittingly being involved in the crime. He was suspected of destroying evidence because he wanted to clear the apartment for his friend. He was able to prove that he had no further connection to the crime and did not know that it was evidence that he was dragging from the apartment.

Filmography

In 2009, JJ Abrams planned a film adaptation of the material. Apparently the film was never made.

literature

• Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell: Flawlessly. The true story of the greatest diamond heist of all time (Flawless. Inside the largest diamond heist in history, 2010). riva, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-86883-115-3 .

Web links

• Summary of the robbery and many accompanying circumstances (English)
• TV report on the robbery (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell: Flawlessly. The true story of the greatest diamond heist of all time. riva Verlag, Munich, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86883-115-3 , p. 131
2. ↑ ^{a b} Joachim Mischke: For reading: A flawless crime. In: Abendblatt.de . March 18, 2010, accessed January 17, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Biggest diamond robbery of all time ( Memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: bz-berlin.de
4. ↑ Spectacular diamond robbery in Antwerp . ( Memento from March 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: kleinezeitung.at
5. ↑ http://orf.at/stories/2272944/2272946/ Juwelencoup from London on VIdeo, ORF.at, April 11, 2015
6. ↑ Hatton Garden heist CCTV: Watch dramatic moment £ 60m gem raiders are caught on camera, Daily Mirror, http://www.mirror.co.uk , April 10, 2015 8:42 pm
7. ↑ Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell: Flawlessly. P. 100.
8. ↑ THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY ( Memento of the original from March 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: wired.com 
9. ^ ^{A b} Rachael Bell: Sensational Heists - The Antwerp Diamond Center Heist ( Memento from 23 August 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: trutv.com
10. ^ ^{A b} The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist. In: wired.com. February 16, 2003, accessed January 17, 2015 . 
11. ↑ Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell: Flawlessly. P. 103.
12. ↑ WELT.de/dpa: Diamond robbery in Antwerp: millions of dollars stolen. In: welt.de . February 19, 2003, accessed January 17, 2015 . 
13. ^ Greg Campbell: Flawlessly. Riva Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-864-13060-1 , p. 102 ( limited preview in Google book search).
14. ↑ JJ Abrams produces film about diamond theft - News & Features -. In: cinefacts.de. March 18, 2009, accessed January 17, 2015 .