All language subtitles for stolen.heist.of.the.century.2025.1080p.web.h264-accomplishedyak

This is my city...

Antwerp...

...the city of diamonds.

Thieves in Belgium are
thought to have got away

with diamonds worth
millions of pounds.

...in what could be the biggest
diamond heist in history.

No one could actually imagine

that the diamond district
could be cracked.

How they did it...
we had no idea.

No force, no violence.

And as much as 300 million
US dollars is gone.

The only leads that we had
just seemed quite a normal man,

dressed just to blend in.

Gems were taken from the world's

largest diamond distribution
center in Antwerp.

We were on the hunt...

...for a mastermind.

Monday, the 17th
of February, 2003.

A normal Monday morning.

I arrived at the office.

Most of the time, we start
with a cup of coffee.

But I saw Patrick sitting
there, ready to leave.

So I said, "Oh, no time
for coffee, Patrick?"

And he said, "No, I don't think so. We
got a call from the diamond district."

"There has been a burglary."

"A safe has been broken open."

You have to realize that
85% of diamonds worldwide

are passing in one way or
another through Antwerp.

They call it the
diamond capital.

The main streets in
the diamond district

are the Rijfstraat, the
Hoveniersstraat, and the Schupstraat.

Billions of dollars of goods are
lying in those three streets,

spread in the different vault
rooms in the diamond district.

This little square,

that is the Diamond Center,
where the burglary took place.

In the building, you
have 13 floors up

with 225 diamond
trading offices.

Most of the dealers were storing
their diamonds into the vault room.

But then, when we were entering by
car into the diamond district...

Something serious was going on.

Immediately, we were blocked
with a lot of dealers

trying to find out whether their
diamonds, gold, or money was gone.

When we saw the panic,

we realized here we are not talking about
a little theft in a diamond company.

No, this is... this
is something else.

So, we went down
in the elevator...

and I think I can
speak for myself.

I was struck by lightning.

I saw a door, the
biggest door I ever saw,

a steel door,

which was at least 30
centimeters, a foot thick.

-But the door was standing open.
-Open.

Wide open.

A metal gate was blocked
with a bucket of paint.

And when we stepped
inside the vault room...

Throughout the walls
that we could see,

they were covered with
individual lockers.

And we immediately saw

that the majority of these, uh,
individual safe deposit boxes were...

...cracked and opened.

And I was standing in
front of Ali Baba's cave.

The scale of it must
have been like millions,

because every month, you have
diamonds that are mined from De Beers

in Namibia or South Africa,

were shipped to London by plane

and then loaded
onto a smaller plane

and shipped from London
to the Antwerp Airport.

From there, those shipments of diamonds
were brought with armored trucks

to the dealers of the
diamond district...

...who buy a monthly
quantity of diamonds.

So in the building
of Diamond Center,

there were diamond dealers

that were, that week, receiving
diamonds from De Beers.

Also important was that that weekend
was the yearly tennis tournament

called the Diamond Games.

The prize, by the way,
was a golden racket

with diamonds all over,

funded by the diamond area.

A lot of diamond dealers
would be present.

So, at that moment, Antwerp
was bursting with diamonds.

One of our main questions is how the hell
that the robbers got into this building.

You have here the entrance
of the diamond area,

located in the heart of Antwerp and
regarded as being our Fort Knox.

Inside the building, there were 24
cameras working day in, day out.

For each day of the month,
there was a cassette.

But the videocassette of the
15th and the 16th February,

the weekend and the night
of the heist, were missing.

I said, "Okay, I'm going to
call the security company

and ask them when the
alarm was set off."

And, uh, he said, "No, sir,
the alarm did not go off."

"The... the safe
is still closed."

And I said, "Yeah,
this is strange,

because I'm actually
standing in the vault room."

"The door is wide
open behind me,

and you tell me that
the alarm is still on."

It's crazy.

Once this vault door is open,

they had to handle the motion detector,
the heat detector, the light detector.

We made an attempt to start with
our, uh, fingerprint investigation,

commencing with
the motion sensors,

which were manipulated
by the suspects.

It was sprayed with
a kind of product,

we assumed it was a hairspray,

which makes sure that the
surface is not smooth enough

for the use of
fingerprint powder.

So we didn't have any results that
could be used in the investigation.

The next sensor we took to have an
investigation on was this light sensor,

which was attached to the ceiling,
covered with black duct tape.

Again, here, we didn't find any
fingerprints on the pieces of tape.

I was impressed. My
colleagues were impressed.

It was flawlessly executed.

Because of the importance of
the diamond trade in Antwerp,

there was immediately a lot of
pressure of international press...

They managed to get by extremely
heavy security in the building,

which houses dozens of
gem trading companies.

...of politicians...

And the politicians put
pressure on the magistrates.

And because of that,
there was a pressure...

...of my own superiors...

...but also from
the diamond area.

It's a huge blow for the
companies involved...

I was thinking, this
must be an inside job.

So you had the security
guard, you had two concierges,

and then you had the
building manager.

We started investigating very
thoroughly on this group.

We started interrogating
them. We did house searches.

But in the end, we
had to clear them all.

We had no idea who was
responsible for this crime.

And then suddenly, in the
afternoon, I get a telephone call.

My husband August and me,
we had a general store.

I was cleaning the
shop that Monday.

And the radio was on.

And I heard the news

that there was a heist in the
Diamond Center in Antwerp.

We cautiously estimate €100
million of loot in diamonds...

August drove to a part
of the woods that we own

with some vegetable scraps,

to feed the rabbits
and the fish.

And when he entered the woods,

he said, "Goddamn it, they did it
again. People dumped their trash again."

A lot of people went
there with trash.

They took a little
road to our woods,

where they were
hidden from sight.

And then the trash got dumped.

So my husband opened the bags.

There were a lot
of torn-up papers.

So he started puzzling...

Antwerp...

Diamonds...

And he thought, oh,
this is serious.

This isn't for me.

And then he came home mad.

He came in, and I immediately
could tell something was wrong.

I saw it on his face.

But I didn't get
the chance to ask.

He had the phone in his hands
straightaway to call the police.

That call...

...changed everything.

There were all
packages of diamonds.

You have those special papers
that are used to wrap diamonds in.

We call it in Flemish "Briefke."

We saw some very small, tiny, green
emerald stones that were left.

We saw also banknotes
that were torn up.

Tools, wrenches, flashlights.

A glove that was left behind.

A sport bag.

Even parts of a bond which
referred to the diamond area.

But there was also other stuff.

Because when all that
material came to our office,

we were laying it out on a big
table in our conference room.

And there was wine, there
was cheese, there was pasta,

even a half-eaten
salami sandwich.

This was strange, because I don't think
that they had a picnic in the vault room.

So some of the rubbish is
clearly from the vault room,

but then the kitchen rubbish
probably came from a hideout.

And they took everything
and left it at Floordambos.

This is another critical piece of
evidence that we found in the woods.

You see here the carton boxes

where they keep the video cassettes
for the footage in Diamond Center.

But the tape was removed
from all these cassettes.

So what did we do? We thought,
okay, the case happened in Antwerp,

rubbish was left in Vilvoorde.

There's actually, between
Antwerp and Brussels,

you only have that highway.

So let's do a screening
of the whole highway

and see whether they
were removing the tape

during their car journey.

So we asked the police academy
to send a class of students.

It's about 40-50 kilometers.
They had to walk it.

And they collected two or
three bags full of tape.

So we sent it to a logistics
center of Sony in Brussels,

and we asked them...

...whether they could reinstall
this tape on a black video cassette

so that we could
see what was on it.

Later on, when one of the colleagues
came back from the headquarters of Sony

with this cassette
in his hands...

We had all the
investigators together.

Also my superiors.

And then he puts
in that cassette.

The film starts...

...and it was a porn movie.

I've never been so disappointed
in a porn movie as I was then.

There was a lot of pressure.

In the morning, it was only the
Diamond Squad with six people

that was working on
this investigation.

By the evening, the team was
expanded to 20 detectives

that were full-time
working on this case.

When I became the commander,
I was 28-29, which is young.

At the time of the heist,
I was still only 33.

So it was a lot to handle for me
to get immediately 20 detectives.

A lot of them had more experience
and were much older than myself.

I had to get results.

It was really like a big
puzzle with all the pieces,

but in the wrong order.

I'm a simple police
officer, so for me,

this was something
like in the movies.

We put everything on the conference
table in the middle of our, uh, floor.

And we saw immediately that
there were a lot of papers,

a lot of ripped papers.

We started to piece together,

and at a certain moment, we see
that some pieces are fixing.

On one of the pieces,
he saw "Schupstraat."

And Schupstraat is the street where
the building Diamond Center is located.

So he started to re-puzzle and
reconstruct that whole document.

This is the document
that Gerry reassembled.

And like you see, it was
torn in different pieces.

First of all, we noticed that
the document is in Italian.

You see the title here?

"Commessa di lavoro," which
means "working order."

So we see that it's
a working order...

...to place a security
system in an office.

An office located...

...at Schupstraat 911...

...which is exactly the address
of the building of Diamond Center.

And this document
is issued by...

...the Italian diamond
company named...

...Damoros Preziosi.

Damoros Preziosi.

So with this document, we went to the
building manager in Diamond Center

and asked her whether it's
correct that Damoros Preziosi

was one of the companies that
was located in the building.

She told us that indeed it was,

but that also locker 149 belonged
to the company Damoros Preziosi.

Nothing wrong at that moment,

but that specific locker
hadn't been burglared.

So how did that company's document
end up in the rubbish at Floordambos

if the locker of that company
had never been cracked open?

So our next request was to
do a search in that office.

And we also took with
us the building manager.

The office was empty.

The desks were empty.
The cupboards were empty.

An office that was rented
for more than two years

and had never been used.

The building manager didn't
know the man very well,

but she could tell us that it
was an Italian businessman...

...of whom she had no
address, no other references.

So we decided to check the
rest of the videotapes...

...to watch people leaving the
building with the building manager.

Eventually she was able to point
out, "Okay, this is your guy."

He just seemed quite a
normal man, middle-aged...

dressed just to blend in
and not to be noticed.

He looked like many
of these people

that are walking in and out
of these buildings constantly.

We started inquiring in the
building with the guards,

with the concierges,
with even other renters.

And they all could tell us the same.
"We know him, but he never speaks."

"He's like a gray
mouse in the area."

"He's there, and when you
see him, ten minutes later,

you forgot that you met him."

The building manager
gave us the records.

And his name was
Leonardo Notarbartolo.

So we immediately
asked ourselves...

could this be the
mastermind behind the heist?

Leonardo...

do you like diamonds?

Yes, very much.

It's a passion that has
developed gradually.

As I was stealing them,

I grew closer to them.

So were you the mastermind
of the Antwerp heist?

No.

I was born in Palermo,
towards the mountains.

As a little kid of
just six years old,

I broke into the
house of this cowherd.

I saw 5,000 lire,

and I took the money, folded
it, and went downstairs.

My father would always tell me,

"Remember that what you
do will have consequences,

and you have to accept them."

So, I am a participant.

But I'm not the mastermind
behind the Antwerp heist.

Leonardo, interview, take one.

In the '80s, I opened
my first jewelry shop.

Then later I owned another one.

Then I opened the
third one in the '90s.

Logically,

I started going back and forth
to Antwerp to buy gemstones.

I started to come
frequently to Antwerp,

and I rented out an apartment

because it's the world
capital of diamonds.

It's one of the most
strategic points,

on top of Tel Aviv,

on top of New York,

on top of London.

My goal was to get
an office in Antwerp,

in the Diamond Center,

to gain the confidence of
the big diamond suppliers.

So I turned up.

I had to give them all
my Italian documentation

about my business,
where I had my office.

They said, "Okay."

"We'll do our checks

and research, then
we'll tell you."

And the week after,
they accepted me.

They let me open up
the office there.

Leonardo, the Belgian
police are convinced that

you rented the office
in the Diamond Center

in order to do this
heist. Did you?

No, absolutely not.

I didn't. I went there to work.

Did you know that there was a
vault inside the Diamond Center?

Yes, sure. I knew it.

I knew the building had a
vault with safe deposit boxes.

You had to apply for it,
and eventually they'd say,

"If you want it,
there's one available."

That's what happened to me.

Not immediately.

After a few months, one came up,

and I got it.

So who was the mastermind
behind the heist?

His name was Alessandro.

I mean, he went by Alessandro.

It probably wasn't
his real name.

He told me, "We met in Italy."

And he asked, "Can we
have a coffee together?"

He said, "I know very
well who you are."

"You could do something for me,

for a group of mine,

"and we'll give you
loads of money."

"I'll give you a Biro... a pen."

"This pen, it has a tiny
little camera here."

"It could store 1,000 photos."

"Take photos of
your vault for me."

"And if it's all
as it should be,

I'll give you 100,000 dollars."

Of course, there was some wariness
in the approach, you know?

Were you scared?

Of course, I was scared in
that moment. But that's normal.

Those who don't have
fear aren't normal.

Fear must exist.

And I said, "Okay...

I'm in."

When I went into the
Diamond Center...

...I put the pen into
my jacket pocket.

There was downright obsessive
monitoring of the place.

If I was found with the
little camera, you understand,

I would immediately be reported
and kicked out of my workplace.

So from there, I framed up the
whole hallway of the Diamond Center.

I take the stairs and
go down to the vault.

I ring. I'm behind the door.

Of course, the concierge
sees me and lets me in.

I expect they want to see
the layout of the boxes.

Are there any open?

Strategic points,

there were the video
cameras, the two sensors...

Clearly, I had a lot
of anxiety inside me.

I tried to move in a way

that the pics would be
as clear as possible.

I opened my box,

as anyone else would do.

Then I turn around very slowly,

and I head for the door.

I take the lift and
go back to my office.

And so, we met again.

I gave him the pen.

He said...

"Leonardo..."

I don't want to speak for you,
but why settle for this sum

"when there's a lot
more money to gain?"

"Approximately, there's $100
million worth of goods."

"That's ten or 15 million each."

"That's the least
you would make."

"What do you think
about taking part?"

And I said, "Yes."

So you said "yes" straightaway?

I said yes, because...

I'd always wanted

to be part of
something like this.

I mean, the whole thing
was getting too tempting.

Fifteen million... I truly started
thinking I could solve a lot of problems.

And until that point, you had
no idea who else was involved?

No, not then.

As soon as we had
Mr. Notarbartolo's name...

we took contact with our
Italian counterparts,

and asked whether that gentleman had
any previous conviction or whatever.

After a few hours, we
received the information

that Mr. Notarbartolo was a
well-known criminal in Italy...

...and that he was convicted
for burglary, for heist,

for diamond theft, or
jewelry theft at least,

and they thought he was
living somewhere in Turin.

Next, we got a very
interesting call

from a colleague from
our same department

about a kind of a similar burglary
that took place six years before.

First of all, it was an
attempt on a vault room,

where the perpetrator
rented an individual locker.

Second of all, he was pretending
to be a diamond dealer,

located in the Diamond Center.

Our colleague said, "I
still have a file about it,"

and the guy that was arrested in that
case was also from the city Turin,

"and his name was
Ferdinando Finotto."

There was an arrest warrant
for Ferdinando Finotto,

but they could not find
him anymore in Belgium.

So we had no idea
where they were,

but our best guess at that point
was maybe there is a lead to Italy,

and it could be
like an Italian gang

that especially came to
Belgium to commit this crime.

So, immediately, we
were put in contact

with the head of that
Squadra Mobile in Turin.

He told us that...

In Turin, the presence of
a number of individuals

specializing in thefts
from banks and bank vaults

has created, as coined by
journalists essentially,

a school of thieves,
"The School of Turin."

Our very first reaction was,

"What the fuck is 'The
School of Turin'?"

"Do you have actually a school
of criminals here in Turin?"

Mr. Martino explained that
it was a bunch of people,

each of them was specialized in
some form of criminal behavior.

So they picked who they needed
according to his or her specialty.

In Turin, the presence of the
metalworking industry of Fiat...

meant that the skills
for working with metal

were more advanced
than in other cities.

Certainly, these people knew
how to work metals well.

They understood the mechanics
of vaults and fortified walls.

Having so many
specialized individuals

concentrated in such
a small area as Turin

led to the creation of this
term, "The School of Turin."

It made a lot of sense to us.

Certainly, given the way the thieves
had tackled all these security systems,

The School of Turin
probably had the knowledge

to do this kind of crime.

Alessandro told me, "We're
meeting the other guys."

We go to an industrial area

where there are warehouses.

I go inside. There are
three people there.

Alessandro does
the introductions.

With fictitious
names, obviously.

The first guy was a master

when it came to
locks and alarms.

A pretty boy!

Looks like a film star.

He's 1.93-meters tall.

Well-built.

That's why I call
him The Monster.

The other one, The Genius.

He was a little man.

Really, really, really
smart. Really intelligent.

He was half hacker
and half computer geek

and an expert in alarms.

Then there's the one that
seems a bit of a thug,

a bit coarse.

A very calm and quiet person.

He can open any
door in the world.

He can open any lock.

-What did you call him?
-The Key Master.

Was that the whole team?

Were there no others?

No, there wasn't
anyone else there.

-No?
-No.

Who was the boss?

The boss for the whole
time was Alessandro.

They pull down these
big plastic sheets.

And I see this place which
looks just like the vault.

I say, "Bloody hell!
It's exactly the same!"

They say, "Are the two video
cameras positioned correctly?"

"Yes."

"Is the central one
correctly positioned?"

"Yes."

"Is the little
sensor right?" "Yes."

"How does the central one seem?"

I say, "It's identical."

"You made it the exact same."

Do you think your wife
could have ever dreamed

that you'd gotten yourself
into something so big?

Absolutely not. She would
have never thought that I...

I'd get into such a situation,
a theft of this kind.

No, absolutely not.

My wife and I have known
each other since I was 17

and she was 14-15 years old.

I went into the police
force when I was 19.

I did not do so well in
secondary school, actually.

My mother said, at
a certain point,

"You know what? When you're 19,
you still have opportunities."

"There are still
chances in life."

"There is a job center nearby,

and there will be representatives
of the police force

to see whether you are interested.
Let's go there together."

And I thought, oh no, I'm not
going to join the police force.

This is not it for me.

Since the first time I decided

what to do with my life,

I told her the truth. I said,
"Look, I'm a little crazy."

"Be aware that I might
end up in trouble."

Of course, I don't involve her in
what I do, or what I plan to do,

not at all, no.

I hide it from her. I try
not to give her this grief.

I learned a lot from that.

You need to put yourself aside

and not think that you
are the smartest guy.

Once you think that you are
Sherlock Holmes or James Bond,

then it will go wrong.

If we were correct that
Notarbartolo was the mastermind...

...renting his office
for more than two years,

obviously, he would have
needed a place to, uh, to stay.

That is clear.

We checked the hotels, and on
the name of Mr. Notarbartolo

we could find no name, and we
checked all the hotels in Antwerp.

Whether he was staying then in an
apartment or in a... in a house,

that was not clear to us.

We also hadn't worked out how,

on the night of the heist,

he got his gang into the building
without leaving any traces,

as far as we could see.

That security guard's
office is always open

between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

After that, they go home.

So the weak point was the
entrance of the garage,

which was on the Lange
Herentalsestraat.

When you are into the garage,
there is a connecting door

that leads you directly into the
building on the ground floor.

In Floordambos, in the rubbish,

we found an Allen key
that was modified,

and we tried it on that
particular door in the garage...

...and it was easy to open the
door with that modified key.

They think we came in
through the garage,

that we went in underneath
the Diamond Center,

and from there to the vault.

No! No!

They really don't know.

They were coming in and out of
that place like a Swiss cheese.

To make copies of the keys,
to check things, and so on.

So in your opinion, how
many times did they go in?

Thirty.

-Thirty?
-At least 30 times.

And never left a trace.

We, as you know,
conducted an interview

with Mr. Notarbartolo.

He claims, in fact, that the gang went
in multiple times, up to 30 times,

for months and months and
months before the heist.

The fact that they made
reconnaissance missions,

uh, that makes sense to me,
yes, that makes sense to me.

Every few months,

we would go and study something
and report it the following day.

We entered from Pelikaanstraat,

where the car park is,

a place where you could park
cars behind the Diamond Center.

By skirting along the walls
of the Diamond Center,

we arrived right
at our building.

And we went up with a stepladder that
we brought with us, the folding ones.

He claimed they did not
go in through the garage,

that they had found a building
site behind the Diamond Center

and gained access direct
into the Diamond Center.

On which floor then?

We climbed up to
the first floor.

The Genius had bypassed the
alarm that was on this balcony.

Was it with that
same modified key

that they could open the door?

Because that key was fitting perfectly on
the door of the garage downstairs then.

Yes, he had the key.

The key that had been
prepared by The Key Master.

And from there, we entered.

The biggest problem
we had was the door

with its three obstacles.

The lock, that is the key,

the combination, and the alarm.

The biggest problem to resolve,
clearly, was the combination.

So the combination dial
on... on the... the safe door

was changed weekly,

and that dial would give you a
hundred million possibilities.

You see in the movies often
these guys are using stethoscope

to make sure that they
find the correct code.

Well, specialists told me
that this is impossible.

It will take you days
or weeks to find it.

When The Genius

realized there was a
light bulb above the door,

he told me,

"Let's place a micro
camera above it."

Makes sense. That makes sense.

We had to find a way
to transmit the images.

We couldn't place
a receiver there.

The only way was to find
a spot where to hide it.

And that spot was in the boiler room,
which had some fire extinguishers.

Fire extinguisher. Okay.

Okay.

Placing the camera is,
let's say, not impossible.

Placing a recorder in a fire extinguisher,
because there was one, that's correct,

uh, that's a different story.

I mean, how are you going
to do that in reality?

We're not talking about movies.

The Genius took
one, he made photos,

checked how it was made,

and, in Italy, we modified one,

cutting the bottom and
inserting a receiver inside.

Every evening, when the
concierge went down to close up

and he inserted the combination,

we had the recordings.

The camera was also needed
to measure up the key.

We could see every frame as
the concierge inserted it.

We'd take a still shot, and we could
see the key's size and structure.

Now, we know from experience
that it's possible

to place a very small camera

to see somebody, for example, who
is, uh, taking money from a bank.

You can film it, and
you can film the code.

But we're talking
about the year 2003.

Batteries of a cell phone, for
example, it lasted one day.

Batteries of a camera, a
few hours, a video camera.

Yeah, okay, fine.

That part, according to me, is
again the category bullshit.

Five days after
the... the heist,

the details of the evidence
that was found in Floordambos,

and the details of those two names
that already came to our attention,

had to stay out of the press, so
that those guys stayed in the dark.

The Antwerp judicial service
provided more information

about last week's
major diamond heist.

For example, the videocassettes

from the night of
the heist were gone,

and the international press was
already reporting about this event.

The video cassettes from the
weekend of the 15th and 16th

have disappeared.

But what was much
more interesting

was that the videocassette
of the 10th February,

which was a Monday
before the theft,

was also gone.

That raises questions.

If they were interested in that
specific cassette of the 10th, Monday,

probably preparations were done
and caught on camera on the 10th.

Next, there was another piece of evidence
found from the rubbish in Floordambos,

which was an envelope,

and the name said "Elio D'Onorio,"
with an address close to Rome.

We found out that Elio
D'Onorio is a specialist,

an alarm specialist,

and known as an
Italian criminal too.

I remember that document
that we found in Floordambos,

which was a working order to
work on alarm systems on cameras.

Probably, this document
is used as a cover

to get people in Diamond Center

to work on that vault door.

Imagine that a tenant
would ask any questions,

they could say,
like, "No problem."

"We have a working order,

and we need to, uh, fix the
alarm here," for example.

Uh, that is the reason why this document
was created by Damoros Preziosi.

We had Leonardo Notarbartolo,

Ferdinando Finotto,

and we had a third Italian
name, Elio D'Onorio,

who, according to Marco Martino, were
all related to The School of Turin.

So, together with our
Italian colleagues,

everywhere where there was a
possibility to hide was searched.

But actually, we had no idea
whether they were in Italy,

still in Belgium, or
somewhere else in the world.

Because there are so many
possibilities to leave Antwerp.

-The train...
-Diamonds are easy to transport.

Also.

You can bring them to
international markets

all over the world and
sell them immediately.

Um, so, we feared, actually, that
we lost, uh, the... the diamonds.

It was one of our
main fears, actually.

Time was running
out. We knew that.

But where to start? At that
moment, very difficult.

Explain to me how you
chose the specific day.

We didn't choose a day.

We'd reached a point where it's
been going on for two years.

Sooner or later, someone
will start asking questions.

The only remaining worry was
a sensor inside the vault

which was a bit more
sophisticated than the other ones.

Alessandro told me, "Look,

we still need a bit more."

"We'd like to have more angles."

"I'll give you a
small camera..."

"...I'll give you a little bag,
and I'll tell you how to do it."

I go towards the boxes.

I pretend I'm
stretching like this...

pointing the camera upwards...

trying to keep it
pointing to the center.

In comes the security guard.
He asked, "Are you unwell?"

"Do you have a problem?"

I tried to say my side hurt.

I felt a bit off, so
I leaned on something.

"Okay, fine."

And so talking it through
between us, one told me

that once he had tried

to fog up a sensor
using hairspray,

and it had worked.

So three days before the heist,
I was asked to eliminate it.

Were you not scared they could
see you when you did that?

Of course I was scared
someone would come downstairs.

But the cameras
could not see me.

The camera on the side was
already after the sensor.

It aimed to the other side.

I went alongside the
wall with my hand.

I fit perfectly.

So basically I have three nights to see
that the hairspray did not get darker,

because every morning, they
enter to clean the vault.

On closer inspection of the
rubbish from Floordambos

where we found this receipt
on 14th of February,

which is Friday evening
before the heist,

on 5:30 p.m.,

someone was buying...

...from Brico,

a hardware store located in Mechelen
between Antwerp and Brussels...

...different items that
were used in the robbery.

For example, we
see here "ragebol,"

an extendable mop that was
found in the vault room.

So we had a drawer
from the federal police

who made an Identi-Kit picture

showing one of the, uh, people

that bought that material
in the hardware store.

Sometimes on a case,
you get a feeling.

We were getting closer.

They were only just
out of our reach.

Come Saturday... we decided
to do it that evening.

If not, it's over.

Why Saturday?

Saturday is the Sabbath for Jewish
people, and they don't go into the office.

The day of the hit,

they decided to have
me stay outside.

So they told me,

"Who could be better than you,

who has known the environment
for so many years,

who has studied it
actively for three years?"

"You know the policemen."

"Maybe you'll spot them in
plain clothes. You never know."

On one side, it was disappointing,
as I would have liked to be inside.

And on the other side, I understood
that what they said made sense.

It was not just to get rid of me.
Why would they want to get rid of me?

On the day of the heist,
Mr. Notarbartolo says

he was told by the gang

that, in fact, he was not to
go into the vault himself.

It's possible.

On the other hand, you have to
think that he was the only one

that in reality knew
the building inside out.

-So he might be lying?
-Uh, it's one of his habits, I suppose.

One by one, we set
off from my apartment.

In the final act, in the
end, how many are you?

We four were the main ones.

The Monster, the Genius,
the Key Master, and I.

The fifth was "My Friend."

He had excellent qualities
in our line of work.

But they had to wait
for me to arrive by car.

I would park alongside, and
then they came to the door,

and I gave them the equipment I
had to pass to them, all suitcases.

So they got in and, as usual,
they ran along the wall.

Once there, they put the
stepladder up and got in.

From that moment, I turned around
again and went to the park.

From that position, I could
see the police cabin...

and I could see the main
door of our building.

This is a model of the
floor of the vault,

looking exactly as it was.

They had to walk all the
corridors of the Center...

go down the stairs,

and exit through this door.

And when they came out,

they had to immediately
deactivate the two side cameras.

Once they had deactivated these,
they had to work on the main door.

The magnet, the numerical
combination, and the lock.

They took the small video
camera and watched it

to see the last combination
that was entered that night.

The key worked
beautifully, very well,

but the third problem with
the door was the magnet.

Obviously, The Genius
had already studied it.

This is the magnetic
alarm system

that we found on Monday morning

when we stepped
into the vault room.

You see here two metal plates.

One metal plate was attached to
the vault door with four screws.

The other metal plate was
attached to the doorjamb.

If someone would try
to open the vault door

while the alarm is
still activated,

it would break the magnetic field,
and the alarm would set off.

So we think they did some preparations
a few days earlier, before the heist.

You can detach this magnetic
plate from the vault door

by unscrewing these four screws,

and you can also detach this
metal plate from the doorjamb.

Next thing is they
shortened the screws

so that from the outside,

everything still looks fine,

but on the inside, the screws are
not attaching the door anymore.

Now, with double-sided tape,

they can attach these two metal
plates back in the original position

on the vault door
and to the jamb.

On the night of the heist,

they pulled them away
from the vault door.

Now the magnetic
field is still intact,

the alarm is still on,

but they are able to
open that vault door.

When you opened the door,

the first thing they found
were two anti-theft alarms.

One, the central one, was a
sensor that could detect light,

and another one could
detect heat and movement.

A sort of polystyrene
box was created.

It does not reflect
nor let the rays in,

and it doesn't let
the heat get out.

This was stressing me out.

Also because my
wife was calling me.

She suspected I might have
a woman, some affair...

"Why didn't you come home
for Valentine's Day?"

"It was an important day to be
together, and you didn't come home."

It was truly a big stress.

When... When she gets
mad, she's terrifying.

They opened the vault door, they
neutralized all the alarm systems,

but now they are still facing
these 189 safe deposit boxes,

and each box had
an individual key

and a three-digit dial.

Now, for 189 safes,

you need 189 codes and
189 keys to open them.

Initially, we didn't have a clue how
those individual boxes were opened.

It was already more than
two hours past midnight

when he called me and said, "We
are ready to open the boxes."

"From now on, we are doing our job,
and in a few hours, we are out."

Now, in Floordambos,

we saw that these metal pieces
were found between the rubbish,

and we realized that some
of these metal pieces

were left in the vault room.

One of us was able
to combine them

into a kind of a... a
homemade construction.

Looking at the ingenuity
in their work...

...I could not believe this.

The whole tool looked a
bit like a corkscrew...

with two metal bars

that you can place on the
side of each safe deposit box.

So with the handles, you
could actually turn...

...and put force on that lock,

forcing it to jump open.

In the morning, people would
start to move to get to work.

We had to be out at 5:00,
5:30 a.m., no later.

And this was a problem,

because, with only one tool, he had
to open all those security boxes.

Stones do not
require much space.

Any other object
would require space.

They threw hundreds of
thousands on the floor.

I could not turn on the
car, so I had to stay cold.

I was nervous, very nervous.

Eventually, after three hours,
they called me and told me,

"Uh, Leo, we are finishing.
We are stopping now."

"Move to the opposite
side, to Pelikaanstraat."

"Wait for us at the same spot."

I loaded all the goods and
equipment and headed home.

Getting home to my apartment,

the car is open, and I
take one suitcase upstairs.

Then someone gets another
suitcase and comes upstairs.

Once upstairs,
The Monster and I,

from my apartment,
go up to the roof.

The two of us went high up

to hear if there were any sirens
or any agitation in the city.

We waited there for ten
minutes in the cold,

to listen to the city to
hear if something was wrong.

But we didn't hear anything.

We accomplished an endeavor
that looked so impenetrable.

We felt really proud for doing
something so strong, powerful.

Don't you feel
guilty, for instance,

for people who lost
their business?

I don't feel guilty
due to one reason.

Everyone I robbed
always earned from it.

How do you mean?

If I stole 10 kilos of gold,
they reported 30 kilos.

If I stole 13, they said 25.

Do you mean that through
insurance they got more?

Of course.

I mean, I'm dishonest, but in the
end... ...facts are different.

Bullshit.

Sorry for my language,
but that's... that's big.

It's very stupid to
believe like that.

The cost of insurance is a big cost
that diamond companies have to bear.

The Diamond Center
was considered

the safest of all the
premises you could be in.

So most prefer not
to take insurance.

A hundred percent of my
assets were wiped away.

A few days after the robbery,

we were allowed to
go into the vault.

There was an older man, sitting
on the ground, crying like a baby.

Somebody, uh, stole
the work of his life.

And when a thief wipes with his
hand, saying, "It's nothing,"

and minimizes the
implication of his acts,

it's disgusting.

We had a small party, you know.

We drank and ate everything.

In the apartment, we glanced
over the goods we had taken

and worked out that,
to the naked eye,

it could have been
close to 100 million.

The sole reason
that they succeeded

was the successful reconnaissance
done by Mr. Notarbartolo.

If you get that far,

people can feel more relaxed.

But at the same time,
you might make mistakes.

The appointment was
the following day,

for everyone, if everything had gone
well, to meet in Italy, in Brescia,

to divide the loot

and decide who'd take
care of selling the loot.

Anything we had touched,

we touched with
gloves and with masks,

for fear of saliva
going anywhere...

For the rubbish, it was decided
that I should take the bags

as I had found a
place to burn them.

And I went to take a shower,

so I didn't see what
happened in that room.

Someone from the group, I don't
know who it could have been,

took the garbage bag
from my apartment,

from when we ate our meal,

and they throw that
in the bag too.

I get out of the shower, but I
don't know what was thrown inside.

I saw "My Friend," who was there ready.
I told him, "You come with me of course."

"We will take out the rubbish.
I know where to burn it."

We leave Antwerp and
get on the highway.

All of a sudden, he says, "No, I
want to take the train, go to Paris,

and from Paris
I'll go to Turin."

That really disappointed me.

So at the last minute, we found a
different spot from what I had decided.

You enter this country lane
which ends in this groove.

Always running
alongside the highway.

I noticed, in passing, that on
the left there was a wooden house.

And I told him, "Wait a second, so I
can check what's inside the house."

"I'll go check that
the owner isn't there."

As I was going
towards the house,

when I was almost, let's
say, 20 meters away...

there was a kind
of metallic crash.

With something metallic falling,
I thought someone was there.

I can't possibly
burn anything here.

When I got back,

I don't know why, but he...

Partly because the bin bags got
tangled in the weeds and the wood,

and they had ripped, at that
point, a lot of things had fallen,

and he scattered it there.

It was impossible to
pick everything up.

I said, "Look, the owner
is probably there."

"If he sees the license
plate, he can report us."

"We've just thrown some
garbage. Let's get out of here."

Carelessness?

Tiredness?

Call it what you want.

We got back in the
car, and we left.

I left him at the station

and carried on alone.

We all had to meet the
following day in Brescia.

I headed towards the border...

and I arrived in Italy
at 7:00 in the morning.

We met up in an
apartment in Brescia.

Starting with the
pleasantries, "How are you?"

Hugs and kisses.

I said, "It's upsetting, but I
have to tell you about something

that happened on the way here."

And they were all
relaxed about it.

They said, "What can happen? They
can't get to us from the rubbish."

And they said,

"You should go back to
Antwerp to return the car,

to pay for the office,

to pay rent for the apartment."

I had to look like I
had nothing to hide.

Leonardo, you have just
stolen a lot of money.

Weren't you taking
a bit of a risk?

I scoured the TV newscasts for my
name, but I didn't find it anywhere.

I mean, that's why I had
the confidence in me to say,

"Okay, I'm at ease
going to Antwerp."

And so it happened.
I stopped in Turin.

My wife said, "Since you're
going on a round trip,

I'll take the car with you, and
then we can come back together."

"I wanna go see what this
apartment looks like."

My wife is obsessed with
cleaning apartments.

She'll even clean your
apartment if she goes there.

That's just her nature.

During that first week,
we were hardly at home.

And even if you are at home,

still your mind and my brains were
thinking only about this case.

When I was driving back
home on my motorcycle,

I saw that I missed
three phone calls.

I heard my colleague,
Gerry Vanderkelen...

...saying that they received
news from the Diamond Center

that Mr. Notarbartolo
had returned to Antwerp.

And at that moment, he
was in the Diamond Center.

And I thought, repeat
this again, please.

Leonardo Notarbartolo,
our main suspect,

returned to Antwerp

and was standing now,
waiting in the building

that he had robbed
a week before?

It's unbelievable.

"He's there. He's located
in the Diamond Center."

"Get your ass here
to the office."

I had to take the highway.

I didn't have too much traffic. It
took me only 15 minutes to get there.

Indeed, I was excited.

So I got back on my motorcycle
and back to the office.

When I got near my office,

I saw the manager at the door.

From the interrogations
during that week,

the building manager realized

that one of our main suspects
was Mr. Notarbartolo,

because we were constantly
asking information about him.

She saw me, "Mr. Notarbartolo,
Mr. Notarbartolo!"

"Have you heard what happened?
There's been a theft in our vault!"

I told my colleague Gerry, like,

"Make sure that you send
immediately people to arrest him."

I remember it like yesterday.

I was a driver, and believe
me, I drove like hell.

So we arrived just in front
of the Diamond Center,

and, uh, we immediately
run into the building.

When I saw her delaying, I realized
the police were on the way.

In the hallway, we saw
the building manager

together with Mr. Notarbartolo.

I had no way out
anymore, at that point.

By then, you surrender.
Let's face the situation.

I spoke to him. I said,
"Mr. Notarbartolo."

"Good evening, sir."

"My name is Gerry Vanderkelen,
and I'm going to arrest you."

We handcuffed him, and I think
he never asked any questions.

Nothing at all.

One week after the heist,

we actually have our main suspect
arrested and sitting in our car.

That was a wonderful feeling.

I asked him, like, "Okay, Gerry,
but we don't know his hideout,

so try to find out
where he is staying."

They tried as good
as they could.

"Okay, point out which direction we
have to drive to go to your house."

And I tried to beat
around the bush.

I tried not to tell
them that. Right?

And all these following minutes,

they were circling around
the diamond district,

but no house was found.

He said a few times, "It's too
dark. I always go by foot."

"I don't remember
the full address."

"Not sure about
the house number."

My colleagues did not
stop asking the question.

"Is it this street?
Is it this street?"

"Take your time. Take your
time and find his house."

He then suddenly decided that he
remembered where he was staying.

In an apartment,
Charlottalei number 33.

We parked our car almost
in front of the building.

And he says, "I'm staying
at the seventh floor."

And both colleagues are
looking at the seventh floor,

and at the same time
as they are looking,

they see that the lights on
the seventh floor go out.

The door opens,

and three people step
out of the apartment,

the wife of Mr. Notarbartolo
and the two other friends.

One man is carrying a
carpet on his shoulder.

Yeah, a carpet. Yeah.

Like in the movies. A carpet.

-On their shoulder?
-On their shoulder. A carpet.

First of all, they ask,

"Sir, what are you planning
to do with this carpet?"

And the first reaction of this
guy is like, "Which carpet?"

At that moment, I saw some
change in Mr. Notarbartolo's...

in his face.

I think he must realize
at a certain moment,

"Shit, what have I done?"

My wife?

Well, this...

pains me.

She's never, ever abandoned
me. She's never left me alone.

Wait a moment.

It's all right.

No, when I talk about these things,
I have a hard time, unfortunately.

The police officers took
the people in custody,

and the laboratory was
asked to go to Charlottalei,

where the apartment was,

to have a thorough
investigation.

There was food in the fridge,

there were chairs around the table, there
was a bottle of grappa, there were...

...toothbrushes, uh,
razor blades, tissues.

Also there's a small leather
bag, some kind of toilet bag,

and on the side,
they made a hole.

And this hole, actually, was
perfect to fit a video camera in.

We also found a receipt from a
local supermarket in Antwerp,

Delhaize.

On that receipt, we saw
different food items,

like wine, pasta,
cheese, and salami,

and pieces of that food we
found back in Floordambos.

So as soon as we had
Mr. Notarbartolo into custody,

we could easily get his DNA.

And then we saw that his
DNA matched with the DNA

found on the half-eaten salami
sandwich in the Floordambos.

But second of all, the receipt
mentioned the date, 13 February,

two days before the heist, around
1:00 p.m. in the afternoon.

So we went to the supermarket

to see whether we could
find any footage still.

And on the footage,
we saw a... a guy

that was actually approaching
the checkout at the supermarket

to pay for all the items.

Very tall guy,
sportive, short hair.

And we were able to identify
this man as Ferdinando Finotto.

The most important evidence that
we found was two SIM card holders.

One of them mentioned "mio," and
the other mentioned "non-mio."

As far as my Italian goes, it
means like "mine" and "not mine."

The SIM card holder
had a serial number.

From the serial number,

you can, first of all,
identify the SIM card,

in which telephone
the SIM card was put,

and you can actually follow
the movements of the SIM card.

First important
result was that...

...the weekend of
the actual robbery,

these SIM cards, we can
place under the cell tower

of Charlottalei number
33, from where they start.

Then, during the night,

from Saturday and Sunday,

under the cell tower
of Diamond Center.

After 6:00 a.m.,

we see these cards again
activated in Charlottalei 33.

Afterwards, our targets
left from the apartment

and drove straight to a place
in Italy called Brescia,

coming together under the
same cell tower over there.

Maybe they are specialists
on alarm systems,

but they were certainly not aware of what
the possibilities are to follow a phone.

The carpet, which was
retrieved downstairs,

was back put into the apartment,

and from the moment we unrolled it,
it all began to, uh... to sparkle.

The nice thing is that in
the trash of Floordambos,

we have found small
green emeralds,

and in the carpet, there were
also small green emeralds.

So we decided to have the
stones examined by an expert,

who came to the conclusion

these were all stones from
the same shipment, let's say.

So these stones
belonged to each other.

Based on these green emeralds,

we could link the
apartment with Floordambos.

And automatically then, actually,
you can link it with the vault room.

So we had this triangle now
of these three crime scenes

that were linked
with each other.

Based on the telephone records
and on the DNA profiles,

we were able to
identify four people

as 100% sure that they were
involved in this crime.

Four suspects were arrested for
the diamond heist in Antwerp.

Ferdinando Finotto.

Elio D'Onorio.

And from the telephone records,

we could finally identify a
third person, Mr. Pietro Tavano,

an old friend of
Mr. Notarbartolo,

and also a member of
The School of Turin.

The fourth person
was Mr. Notarbartolo.

Now, based on all the
evidence that we had,

it was clear that he was not
only present during this heist,

but that he also was the
mastermind of this whole operation.

Leonardo Notarbartolo,
jeweler from Turin,

arrived in Antwerp
in November 2000.

He immediately rented an
office at the Diamond Center,

the building where the
robbery took place.

Leonardo, was the only
reason you came to Antwerp

in 2000

because you were in fact the
mastermind of this heist?

No.

I mean, I got nothing.

I never got a penny from anyone.

The mastermind is Alessandro.

To be honest, I've always
thought of him as a ghost.

I mean, he appeared and he
disappeared, like... I don't know what.

The whole story about Alessandro...
I mean, yeah, no, sorry.

If there was any Alessandro
in the diamond area,

we would have found him.

He said his name was Alessandro.

It probably wasn't
his real name.

We analyzed more than
200,000 telephone contacts.

We have DNA profiles.

We interrogated so many people.

He said, "I know
exactly who you are."

We found trash and
paper in Floordambos,

in the diamond vault.

We did house searches on his
apartment, in his office.

The name Alessandro, I
have never heard of. Never.

It is a fiction.

Meeting in a warehouse?

Spy pens?

Replica vaults?

This isn't the story of a crime.

It's more like the
script of a movie.

There was no super criminal
lurking in the background.

It was just him.

Mr. Notarbartolo
is a smart person.

He knows the diamond world.

Did you know there was a vault

inside the Diamond Center?

Yes, sure. I knew it.

And from our investigation,

we only can conclude

that Mr. Notarbartolo was the
head of a criminal organization.

A bunch of guys from
The School of Turin,

especially assigned to
do a particular job.

The Italian Leonardo
Notarbartolo

was far from impressed
this morning.

The judge gave him the expected
ten years for the diamond heist.

Three other gang members
were jailed for five years.

According to the judges, Notarbartolo
was one of the gang's leaders.

Take 16.

Back in... in 2015,

you yourself were arrested
and ultimately convicted

because hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of diamonds were found in your home.

What do you have to...

It is, um, it is correct
that I was, uh, in 2015,

that I was hiding, uh,
diamonds in my house.

Um, I was not laundering anything.
I never sold any diamonds.

I never, uh, bought any
diamond or whatever.

I made a mistake.

Um, I had reasons... I had
my reasons to... to do this.

Um, but one thing is for sure.

Whatever happened in 2015,

has nothing to do with the investigation
of, uh, of the diamond heist in 2003.

That's 12 years later.

The fact that I lost my job

and that I cannot perform
anymore as a police officer,

it almost destroyed
me personally.

I mean... it's clear
that in your career,

that you will face,
uh, difficulties,

and that there are, uh, yeah...

...moments that you have to
be, uh, strong and smarter.

But, again, I faced
the consequences.

I lost my job, and that, um,
that was... that's a pity.

Everyone deserves
a second chance.

That's what I...

That's what I constantly hear.

But to get that second chance,

it's not so easy.

No diamonds or
money was recovered.

At the very end, we came up
with the 100 million US dollars.

But again, if you ask
me today, honestly,

I'm absolutely sure

that the amount is much higher
than 100 million US dollars.

Think he's got the money?
You think he's got his cut?

Probably he got the
most of all of them.

He's not driving around Turin now
in a Ferrari, that's for sure.

And that is... that
is very smart of him.

But we know him as a smart guy.