2/16/2003 - At the heart of the world's diamond business, Belgium's Antwerp Diamond Center is hit for more than $100 million (no one will ever really know how much booty the thieves get away with) in loose diamonds, gold, silver, and other types of jewelry in a two-day robbery the authorities will call "the heist of the century."
Taking over two years of planning and prep work, career criminal Leonardo Notarbartolo (his first robbery takes place when the crook is only 6, taking $8 from a sleeping merchant that his mother has sent him to buy milk from) and a group of five thieves known as "The School of Turin," complete an almost perfect crime in which Notarbartolo poses as a diamond merchant and rents an office in the Antwerp Diamond Center (for $700 a month) that gives him 24-hour access to the building and his own safe deposit box in the vault of the building. Photography in the Diamond Center (a gray fortress-like 14-story structure) monitored and restricted, Notarbartolo uses his access to take pictures of the building and underground vault (requiring an elevator ride to reach it) using a miniaturized digital camera concealed in the cap of an apparently innocuous
Robbery moves practiced on a mock-up of the vault, women's hair spray is used to temporarily bypass a thermal-motion sensor, which is later brought down in full by a thief known only as "The Genius'' (thought to be a man named Elio D'Onorio, the action doing this is recorded the day before the heist, but ignored by security personnel use to the Italians's visits). During the robbery, Notarbartolo sits in a getaway car (a gray Peugeot 307) monitoring a police scanner, plastic gloves are used so that DNA and fingerprints are not left behind. To avoid the many security cameras watching the building, a thief known as "The King of Keys" gets the gang access to the structure through an unused office in the building next store that shares a private garden with the Diamond Center that is not under surveillance. A small ladder is used to climb up on to a balcony and get into the Center, "The Genius" using a homemade, polyester shield to block the infrared sensor and then disabling the alarms on the balcony's access window. Security cameras are negated with black plastic bags which allow the crooks to turn on the lights and not work in the dark. A magnetic field on the vault door is overcome by "The Genius" using an aluminum plate and two-sided heavy-duty tape that allows the field on the vault to appear intact as it is pivoted out of the way and taped to a wall.
Even with the combination to the vault, a foot-long key is required which "The King of Keys" creates, but doesn't use when he discovers the original in an unlocked room used by guards prior to giving clients access to the vault. Moves memorized but taking no chances, the gang works in the dark (except for briefly turning on pen lights to make sure of their positioning during the theft ) of the vault once "The Genius" picks the lock on an internal gate and another crook, called "The Monster" (Ferdinando Finotto) based on his height, strength, and ability to master any assignment he is given, moves to the center of the room, pushes up a panel in the ceiling, uses a bypass and reroutes the light monitors (tape on each is also used), while heat sensors are beat with the use of Styrofoam boxes. And using a hand-cranked drill created by "The King of Keys," the men break into 123 of the 160 safety deposit boxes in the vault (made of steel and copper, each box also requires a key and a combination lock, each with 17,576 possibilities), dumping their contents into large duffel bags and stealing all the security tapes before vacating the premises (the robbing stops at 5:30 and takes an hour to extract themselves from the building. Perfect, the next morning the vault appears sealed tight on all The Center's monitors, but reality underground is quite different.
Unfortunately though for the crooks, the clean-up in which evidence like diamond envelopes is to be burnt up in France on the road back to Turin, is botched by a neurotic criminal friend of Notarbartolo named "Speedy" (Pietro Tavano) who has a panic attack that causes Notarbartolo to turn on to a dirt forest road and dispose of evidence in the woods, instead of burning it. Sure enough, a hunter that owns the land, August Van Camp, soon finds the rubbish near the side of the road, contacts the police, and Notarbartolo is linked to the crime by a receipt for a low-light surveillance system purchased by Notabartolo, DNA on a salami sandwich wrapper that links Finotto to a surveillance tape made at a sandwich store. at a local store where he bought the item. Arriving in Turin, the men divide their booty and then appear to renew leading ordinary lives. But the Notabartolo lead is enough for detectives to figure out a major chunk of the crime. Never ratting out his partners, Notabartolo is discovered to have 17 certified polished diamonds which can be traced back to the Diamond center (and another handful is found in a rolled-up rug from his Antwerp apartment. Placed on trial he will receive a 10 year sentence. After raiding the French Riviera home of Finotto's girlfriend, the crook receives a five-year sentence for possessing marked $100 bills that can be traced back to the robbery. D'Onorio receives a five-year sentence when his DNA is found on some adhesive tape left in the vault. And Travano gets five years when cell-phone evidence is presented at his trial that triangulates him into the vault and shows he was in almost contact with Notabartolo during the heist. Guilty and yet no one talks, awaiting their release and hopeful reunion with their loot ... and the fifth participant, "The King of Keys" is never identified.
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