Where it All Began
It was February 16th, 2003, a freezing Sunday night in Belgium. Leonardo Notarbartolo pulled onto the E19 motorway, exiting Antwerp and heading north. In his passenger seat sat a fidgety man named Speedy. Neither of the men had slept in two days, and neither of them said a single word to one another.
He's Cracking
Notarbartolo and Speedy had worked together for 30 years. They were childhood friends turned criminals together and this was their greatest heist yet. All of the jewels and cash they stole were on their way to Milan, and all the two friends needed to do was get rid of the evidence they had in the back seat of their car. The plan was to get across the border and burn it, but Speedy couldn’t handle the stress…
Dude, Calm Down
Speedy begged Notarbartolo to pull over the car, he was having a panic attack and he felt like he needed to get the incriminating objects out of the car. Notarbartolo wanted to keep driving, he knew the best plan of action would be to continue going forward, but his friend was freaking out. He reluctantly pulled the car off of the motorway onto a dirt trail most likely only used by hunters and the police.
Just Toss It
The duo dumped the trash bag full of evidence onto the ground, got back into their car and sped the opposite way. Notarbartolo knew that this was the absolute worst thing they could have done, but they could not change the past. He knew that if they got caught now, the year of effort they put into pulling off this heist would have been completely useless…
The Bad Egg
Flashback to February 1st, 2002. Notarbartolo, who had been a professional thief his entire life, was living in Italy. Leonardo Notarbartolo was raised in Sicily. His parents were middle-class do-gooders that believed in hard work and morality. Somehow, their son ended up being the complete opposite way.
Headed to Brussels
Leonardo stole the entirety of his current wealth. He paid for his beautiful home just north of Milan with stolen cash that had never been traced, and no questions were asked. Despite his family’s moral structure, Notarbartolo never let guilt stop him from getting what he wanted, and he admittedly loved being a thief. In particular, he set his eyes on a small town in Brussels called Antwerp, where he planned on working on his next heist…
The Center of it All
Antwerp, Brussels was the jewel trade capital of the world. African businessmen wearing powder blue suits, Armenian gangsters, French aristocrats, and American elites frequently littered the sidewalks of the small town, all involved in the jewel trade in some way. At night, the commotion ended, just like Wall Street in New York. This is where Notarbartolo set his next heist, but in order to do it right, he needed to blend in.
Absolute Unit
Just 6 months before Notarbartolo even considered pulling off this heist, he decided to rent out a small apartment in Antwerp. He purchased a few diamonds, in cash, and rented out a storage unit in a bank vault that stored hundreds of millions of dollars worth of jewels, cash, gold, and other precious metals. This unit in this particular bank just so happened to be the wealthiest, and most difficult to rob, storage unit in the entire world...
The Mystery Man
So, Notarbartolo waited, and waited, and waited. He became a regular at the bank, he would frequently deposit small amounts of cash and diamonds so the security guards would recognize him. After 4 months of living in Antwerp, an old diamond trader who had previously done business with Notarbartolo approached him with an inquiry.
Talk to Me
Notarbartolo was sitting in a coffee shop enjoying an espresso when this diamond dealer approached him. The man was older, around 60 years old, and he was a familiar face would trade within his circle in the diamond district of Antwerp, very close to where Notarbartolo did the very same thing. The man asked Notarbartolo to go for a walk with him, and as they walked out of the trading district, the man’s tone changed quickly...
That's a Lot of Money
The unnamed man offered Notarbartolo 100,000 euros to answer a very simple question for him. The question was, did Notarbartolo think that his vault could be broken into? Notarbartolo took his time to answer, but he concluded that his answer was no, but for 100,000 euros, he was happy to take some photographs and provide evidence that the vault was actually impenetrable.
Pictures Down Under
The diamond district had very strict photography laws, but Notarbartolo was an experienced thief. He had a high-resolution camera lens implanted inside the shell of a highlighter pen. This camera stored 100 hi-res photos, which was perfect for photographing the security system in the vault. Notarbartolo started taking photographs of the police checkpoint at the beginning of the walk to get to the vault, all the way into the vault, documenting how tight the security was down there…
Oh, You're Back?
The unnamed man disappeared completely. Notarbartolo believed that he just gave up based on the information he was given, but three months later Notarbartolo received a phone call from the man. The diamond dealer asked Notarbartolo to meet him in a warehouse about 10 miles south of the city, and he obliged. When Notarbartolo arrived, he was shocked at what the man had to offer him.
The Three Veterens
The man had recreated the entire vault, with all of the precise blueprints and security systems that the vault had installed. Sitting within the vault were three men. They introduced themselves to Notarbartolo as The Genius, The Monster, and The King of Keys. Notarbartolo knew of all of them, they were some of the most elite thieves in all of Europe, and the man stated that they would be working together to handle this heist…
Masters of Their Craft
The team worked tirelessly for 7 whole months, rehearsing the heist multiple times a day to make sure that everything would go over perfectly. The team had to dismantle 7 security protocols, and they had to break into a door that is graded to be impenetrable by any commercially available tools. Fortunately, these men were experts.
The Foot Long Key
The only thing that could have thwarted their plans was the locked door. The lock took a key that was over a foot long to open, but fortunately, the King of Keys knew how to replicate a key just like it, he only needed a picture or video of the original key. In September of 2002, Notarbartolo entered the vault as he usually did, but he quickly installed a small camera onto the top of the fire extinguisher that was hanging on the wall of the room, capturing a video of the original key used to unlock the door, and with that information, the men were ready to take on the challenge…
While You Sleep..
Incredibly early in the morning on February 16th, 2003, all of the robbers arrived at the scene of the vault about three hours before the security guards would be arriving on the scene. Across town, Venus Williams was scheduled to play a tennis match for a diamond-encrusted tennis racquet. Fortunately, every cop in the city was on the other side of town preparing for the influx of tennis fans.
Getting In
The men all showed up to the scene in the same car. They piled out, and single file descended the stairs to the vault together. The Genius disabled the magnetic field and security cameras, while the King of Keys unlocked the vault, and The Monster disabled the alarm from a box hidden above the ceiling tiles. Notarbartolo and Speedy waited in the car outside while the other men worked…
Open and Close
The men successfully opened over 100 of the 181 lockboxes that were in the vault and drained them of their contents. It took them an hour to haul the duffel bags full of gems up to the surface level, where Speedy and Notarbartolo waited anxiously in their getaway car.
How Could This Be?
The three vault-dwellers walked back to Notarbartolo’s apartment from there, while Notarbartolo and Speedy drove around the city with the bags of gems in the back of their car. They eventually made it back to Notarbartolo’s apartment, where the walked in on the rest of the team eating salami sandwiches, puzzled by the contents of the bags that were supposed to be full of jewels…
Bits and Pieces
The bags were full of roughly $20 million worth of jewels and gold, not the $100 million they were promised. The team wondered if there was some sort of setup that happened that dropped the amount of money they inevitably earned. In the end, Notarbartolo figured out what really went down…
The Crown Jewel
Turns out, the diamond dealer that set them up with the job advised his cohorts about the thieves. They likely removed their jewels from the vault prior and hid them so they could collect the insurance money, and still have the money from their precious gems. This dropped the profit from the heist to a fifth of what it was supposed to be, but $3 million each is still a pretty decent paycheck…
Bag it Up
Regardless, the team had to retrace their steps to make sure that there was no evidence backing them into a corner. They scoured everything in Notarbartolo’s apartment, and they took all the evidence that any of them were in there and put it all in one trash bag.
Dumping the Evidence
Notarbartolo and Speedy were tasked with getting rid of the evidence, so they hopped into the getaway car and headed to Brussels, which brings us back to the beginning of the story. For a gentle reminder, Speedy couldn’t handle the stress, and he dumped the evidence on a dirt road off of the motorway.
Those Darn Kids
Well, it turns out that the man who owned that property had a real problem with local teenagers coming back onto his dirt roads, partying, and leaving their trash everywhere. He had called the police numerous times beforehand, and they never really followed through with him, until he discovered trash that had envelopes from the Antwerp Diamond Center.
Just a Little Salami
The police rushed to the site, and sure enough, they found the evidence that Speedy demanded they throw into the woods. Envelopes with codes and time written on them, a salami package, and a half-eaten salami sandwich were strewn around on the ground. The police took all of the objects as evidence.
We're Coming In
The name Leonardo Notarbartolo was on one of the envelopes, and sure enough, the police were able to trace down his apartment while he was off spending time with his family in Milan. The police officers were able to obtain a warrant and search through Notarbartolo’s place.
Always Keep the Reciepts
Everything seemed to be in order until they found a receipt for the same brand of salami that they found the packaging from. That salami also matched the salami in the sandwich. The police went to the grocery store that Notarbartolo purchased the meat from, got access to the closed-circuit camera footage, and found that he did, in fact, purchase the salami that was present at the crime scene.
Down Goes the Ringleader
Although this wasn’t technical enough to incriminate the man, all of the other evidence and former evidence of thievery passed guilt onto Notarbartolo, and he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
The End
Speedy, The Monster, and The genius were all caught as well, and they served 5 years each for their involvement in the robbery. The King of Keys, however, never got caught. Notarbartolo told this story 3 years into his prison sentence. This is the only information available about the robbery.