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The Old Fox: Case Files · Episode 6
The diamond heist, the rubbish bags and a salami sandwich
How do you rob a vault that's meant to be unbeatable? Rent an office upstairs.
Antwerp, 2003: heat detectors, radar, a seismic sensor and a combination lock, all beaten over Valentine's weekend. Then someone dumped the rubbish beside a motorway, with a half-eaten sandwich inside.
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What the fox said
How do you rob a vault that's meant to be unbeatable? Rent an office upstairs. Let's see what's on.
Antwerp, Belgium. The diamond district. Two floors below the Antwerp Diamond Centre sits a vault.
Heat detectors. Doppler radar. A seismic sensor. A magnetic field detector. And a combination lock with millions of codes.
Leonardo Notarbartolo rents an office in the building, posing as a gem merchant. He spends over two years preparing.
Then, over Valentine's weekend, two thousand and three, his gang gets into the vault.
More than a hundred safe deposit boxes are opened. Diamonds, gold, and jewellery.
The haul was estimated at over a hundred million dollars. Notarbartolo has claimed it was far less.
But afterwards, they dump bags of rubbish beside the motorway between Antwerp and Brussels.
A local landowner finds them, and calls the police.
Inside, documents and receipts that point to Notarbartolo. And a half-eaten salami sandwich.
Five days after the heist, police arrest him, when he goes back to the Diamond Centre.
DNA from the sandwich was used as evidence. Notarbartolo got ten years. Three accomplices got five each.
And the diamonds? Most of them have never been found.
Always take your lunch home. Case closed. Keep your nose to the wind.
Sources
- Over the weekend of 15–16 February 2003, thieves broke into a vault two floors below the Antwerp Diamond Centre, protected by a combination lock, heat detectors, a seismic sensor, Doppler radar and a magnetic field detector (Wikipedia, 'Antwerp diamond heist'; National Geographic).
- Leonardo Notarbartolo had rented an office in the building, posing as a diamond merchant, and spent over two years preparing (Wikipedia, 'Antwerp diamond heist').
- More than 100 safe deposit boxes were opened: 109 of 189 according to the book Flawless, while early reports said 123 of 160 (Wikipedia, citing Flawless).
- The haul was estimated at over $100 million, though Notarbartolo has claimed it was far less (Guinness World Records; Wikipedia).
- Rubbish dumped beside the E19 motorway between Antwerp and Brussels was found by the landowner, who called the police; it held items linked to Notarbartolo and a half-eaten salami sandwich, and DNA evidence from it was used (Wikipedia; Guinness World Records; National Geographic).
- Notarbartolo was arrested on 21 February 2003 when he returned to the Diamond Centre; in 2005 he was jailed for 10 years and three accomplices for 5 years each (Wikipedia, 'Antwerp diamond heist').
- Most of the diamonds have never been recovered (Guinness World Records; Wikipedia).
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