The clock strikes midnight in February 2003 and the Antwerp Diamond Centre is shrouded in darkness. The cold bite of a Winter chill nips at the skin of five men who are waiting inside an office building adjacent to the world’s busiest diamond-trading precinct. They will soon break through ten layers of high-tech security to penetrate a subterranean vault and perform the biggest diamond heist in history. The operation is flawless and they escape undetected and over-encumbered with riches. Their identities, however, are discovered after the contents of a garbage bag lead the Belgian police straight to their doors. But the fifth member is never located, and the whereabouts of the diamonds have never been discovered. This extensive write-up is the story of The School of Turin, and the night $100 million disappeared into thin air.

​

The Diamond-Trading Hub of the World

We begin this story by taking a glimpse at the scene of the crime. Nestled in the heart of Antwerp in the Hoveniersstraat lies the Diamond Centre, the biggest building in the city. Approximately 80% of all rough diamonds in the world pass through this location. All the major diamond-mining companies across the globe operate here, as do many smaller traders who facilitate import and export via marketing campaigns, conferences, and the like. It is, by definition, the diamond-trading capital of the world. And at its heart lies the vault, where the biggest heist in history was performed.

The vault, located two floors below the ground level of the Diamond Centre, houses a litany of precious items, ranging from diamonds and gemstones to cash itself. The cumulative value of the vault’s contents is said to be worth billions; some items are considered priceless. As you would expect, the security is intense. Exterior steel gates prevent access between 7 PM and 7 AM. A camera in the vault antechamber monitors all movement and activity at the main door, which is three feet of thick, dense steel. If this doesn’t sound impressive enough, then we can also add in a lock with 100 million combinations paired with a physical foot-long key specifically designed to act as a secondary defence mechanism. The vault is also secured with infrared heat sensors, seismic monitors, Doppler radar, and magnetic fields, which are all supplemented with a private security force called the Diamond Squad that monitors the entire complex. The vault was considered utterly impenetrable. This notion, however, was proven false in February 2003, when a group of five men managed to perform the impossible and loot the vault’s contents.

​

The School of Turin

The group in question consisted of five Italian thieves who were known as ‘La Scula di Torino’ (‘The School of Turin’). The figurehead of this group was a man named Leonardo Notarbartolo. Born in 1952 in Palermo, Sicily, Notarbartolo was a professional thief who began his life of crime at the age of 6 after he robbed a local milkman. He had exceptional skills in social manipulation and was able to fluently read the behaviour of those around him. These skills, perhaps, were fundamental in arranging the roster of thieves that looted the Diamond Centre in 2003. The identities of the other members have also been ascertained since that night, and Notarbartolo himself has described his accomplices in subsequent interviews, though only referring to them via nicknames and never by their real names. It is important that we meet these people before diving into the heist, as their differing skills and expertise can explain how such an impossible act was performed.

The first of Notarbartolo’s accomplices in The School of Turin is Speedy, whose real name is most likely to be Pietro Tavano. Described as an anxious, paranoid man, Speedy was a childhood friend of Notarbartolo’s whose involvement in the heist drew objections from the rest of the group. His fragile temperament was considered a risk, but Notarbartolo insisted on him being part of the team regardless. Speedy was, ultimately, the man who brought the police to the group’s door, as we will find out later.

The third member was a figure known as The Monster. As before, his real identity has never been concluded, but it is most likely to be Ferdinando Finotto. It has been suggested that The Monster may have been the one to initially suggest the heist to the group back in 1997. He also possessed great physical strength; his tall, muscular frame was intimidating to those who met him. But his expertise on the team lay elsewhere. He was exceptional in lock-picking, as well as being a skilled electrician, mechanic, and driver.

The final two members of The School of Turin were The Genius and The King of Keys. The former was a specialist in alarm systems, whose real identity is likely to be Elio D’Onorio, an electronics expert known to the police after being linked to a series of robberies before the heist. Finally, The King of Keys was the only member of the group to have never been apprehended and whose real name has always remained elusive. He was an older man said to have been one of the best key-forgers in the world. His involvement would be instrumental in bypassing the vault’s internal locking mechanisms without triggering the alarm. He would not fail in this regard.

With The School of Turin established, the five men were poised to penetrate the vault beneath the Antwerp Diamond Centre. But the process would not be easy or quick. In fact, The School of Turin meticulously planned and executed its heist over the course of 18 months.

​

The Timeline of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist

The Preparation Phase

To ensure the heist proceeded efficiently and without hitch, the group needed to conduct reconnaissance on the complex and its security measures. Since the only people who frequented the Diamond Centre were traders, a similar guise was needed to avoid detection. Notarbartolo rented a furnished office property in a building adjacent to the Diamond Centre. As a paying tenant, he was awarded an ID card that granted him access to the building during opening hours. He also had a legitimate reason to visit the vault that he would later target. Notarbartolo owned a safe-deposit box in the vault and would occasionally visit to survey its contents. His presence became known to the security guards who grew remiss in his company. All the while, he was seeking ways to neutralise the very measures they were charged with employing.

On each visit Notarbartolo made to the Diamond Centre and its vault, he was said to have used discreet camera pens to take covert images of the interior and its key security elements. On one occasion, he also placed a camera in a position above the vault door that was angled towards the door lock. Its data was broadcast to a nearby sensor contained within a watertight chamber that had been concealed inside a functioning fire extinguisher. The data was then relayed to the group, who relentlessly studied it to determine the code that would bypass the lock. Their methods were objectively effective and went entirely undetected for 18 months.

But still, this wasn’t enough. Even if the group had the combination of the lock, the other sensors and measures would be a problem. One mistake would end the entire heist and send them straight to prison. They needed to perfect their technique, and the only way to do this was to practice. Amazingly, a full-scale replica of the vault was constructed in a warehouse that allowed the group to repeatedly perform their heist until every step had been perfected. This was reportedly achieved with the assistance of an insider, but the veracity of this cannot be confirmed. The replica vault allowed the men to solidify their technique until they were confident that it would work. It was a timely affair and great patience was needed, but eventually that day arrived.

On the day before the heist, Notarbartolo once again visited the vault as part of a routine inspection of his safe-deposit box. But this time, whilst attention was directed elsewhere, he doused the thermal-motion sensors across the vault with hairspray. Its oil was transparent and served to temporarily insulate the sensor from the temperature fluctuations that would occur once they invaded. Their time would be limited, but it would be enough. With one measure neutralised, the stage was set for the group to return later that day.

​

The Night of the Heist

The doors to the vault routinely closed at 7 PM on the evening of Saturday 16th February. Hours later, after midnight, the heist began. Notarbatolo waited inside a getaway vehicle positioned nearby whilst the four other men conducted the heist. At the time, no night guards were on duty, and the two concierges who normally kept watch were inside their apartments. The gates were locked, but an empty office building next to the Diamond Centre provided passage to the building. Within moments, the group were inside the complex.

Immediately, the infrared light sensors that observed the garden terrace needed to be eliminated. The Genius, using a large shield made of polyester, navigated his way to the camera and then placed the shield in its view. Polyester has specific properties that prevented the camera from detecting the group’s presence. Next, the Genius disabled an alarm on the balcony windows. Afterwards, they were able to enter the bowels of the building unhindered.

The group successfully made their way to the vault antechamber. Light-sensing cameras in the room were covered with black plastic bags, which allowed the men to illuminate the space. The vault door was the next focal point. Its lock was secured with two magnetic plates. If separated, the magnetic field would deactivate and an alarm would be triggered. The Genius fashioned a custom-made aluminium plate with tape on one side that allowed him to remove the bolts securing the magnetic lock in place. The lock was shifted out of its natural position, but the magnetic field was still active. No alarms were triggered, and the group could proceed onwards.

The combination to the door lock was obtained via the hidden security camera Notarbartolo had deposited in the antechamber, but the physical key was still needed to fully bypass the lock. The group noticed that, on the same security footage, guards tended to enter a nearby utility closet before opening the vault door. They theorised that the key was hidden inside this room. They were right. However, it would not have mattered if their hypothesis had been wrong, because The King of Keys had successfully fabricated a replica of the physical key using the video footage as a template. He opted to use the original key, not wanting to alert the authorities to the fact the key could be replicated after all.

With the door lock bypassed, the lights in the antechamber were turned off before opening the vault door. Sensors inside would trigger an alarm if they detected any visible light. Whilst the King of Keys picked the lock to the internal gate beyond the vault door, The Monster went into the centre of the room and removed a ceiling panel from above, exposing the security system’s intricate wiring. Any electrical current along these wires would trigger an alarm, so he stripped the plastic coating from the wires and shunted the circuit with an additional copper wire. The possibility of the alarm triggering was now mostly removed.

Few security measures remained once inside the vault. Heat sensors on the walls were blinded with styrofoam boxes, and the men worked in darkness to place duct tape over the light sensors. But even with the tape in place, the group still worked in darkness and only briefly activated the lights in order to position their drills over the security boxes. They had memorised the vault’s interior from practising in the replica, so they had little issue navigating the space. A hand-cranked drill operated by The King of Keys permitted access to the safe-deposit boxes, and the contents were systematically looted.

The heist lasted for several hours. Once the men had filled their duffel bags with more loot than they could carry, they vacated the vault at around 5.30 AM and carefully made their way back through the complex and to the car waiting outside. On their way out, they also stole reams of security footage recorded on the cameras inside the building. Once outside, they leapt into the car Notarbartolo had been waiting in and sped off into the night. The record-breaking heist had finally been completed.

A few hours later, the concierge made the shocking discovery that the vault had been robbed. The Diamond Squad (the complex’s private security force) descended on the vault and alerted the city police. Empty jewellery boxes and bags were strewn across the room. Even diamond bracelets worth 35,000 Euros were left behind; only the most expensive items were the objects of desire. The total value of the heist was estimated to have been around $100 million, earning it a place in the Guinness World Records and the history books. The methodology had been flawless and effective, but it was all about to be undone by the most mundane of mistakes.

​

The Big Mistake

With the heist complete and the police furiously hunting for the thieves, The School of Turin needed to dispose of any evidence linking them to the crime. Plans that had been written on paper and other notes were amongst this evidence, not to mention the plethora of diamonds now burning a hole in their pockets. A day after the heist, Speedy was overcome with panic at the idea of transporting such incriminating evidence and was convinced that the police were moments away from snatching them. Despite reassurance, he entered into a full-blown panic attack as the group were travelling between Antwerp and Brussels in a region known as Vilvoorde. Whilst Notarbartolo was burning his own evidence, Speedy made the fatal error that led to the group’s downfall: he haphazardly disposed of a garbage bag full of evidence without burning it. Assuming nobody would find the bag anyway and conscious of limited time, the group contentedly left the scene. Perhaps if the land had been different they may have indeed gotten away with such a mistake. This was not the case.

The land on which the bag had been left belonged to a local grocer named August Van Champ, who kept a relentless watch on the goings on in and around his property. It did not take long for him to discover the abandoned garbage bag, and, believing it to have been dumped by teenagers, he informed the police. Officers were reluctant to visit the property as Van Champ had a habit of calling in frivolous reports, but the mention of the bag containing glittering jewels drew a rapid response. When they attended the property, the contents were thoroughly examined. As we will see in due course, the bag led detectives straight to Notarbatolo and to the identity of the thieves who had ransacked the Antwerp Diamond Centre that night.

​

The Police Investigation

Upon examination of the garbage bag, detectives found an assortment of items. A wine bottle. Empty yoghurt containers. Half-eaten sandwiches. There was also an ID card bearing the name of Elio D’Onorio—a name they would realise belonged to a known Italian criminal who mostly dealt in vehicle theft and cocaine dealings. There was also a shredded document that, when reassembled, bore the name of a company called ‘Damoros Preziosî’. The business held office space at the Diamond Centre. When detectives visited the location, however, they saw no signs that the business was operational. Its set-up had been established to gain access to the building. The owner of that business was none other than Leonardo Notarbartolo.

This was not the first time Notarbartolo’s name had been noted during the investigation. His visits to the vault, and the fact he always carried a notebook, did not go unnoticed. Nor did the fact his safe-deposit box was one of the few not looted on that night. But even with the newly found items inside the garbage bag, they needed more conclusive evidence. They arrested Notarbartolo and, whilst the interrogation was taking place, formally attended his Antwerp apartment. Inside they found his family in the process of clearing out the flat. They did not answer any questions, but they didn’t need to. Inside, detectives discovered duct tape that would match the fragments used in the heist. They also located a sim card that could be connected to Pietro Tavano (Speedy), whose call records indicated it had been in the vicinity of the Diamond Centre on the night of the heist. A receipt matching the items inside the garbage bag was found, and when camera footage from the store was analysed, they saw Ferdinando Finotto (The Monster) purchasing said items. And if that wasn’t enough, investigators observed strange glittering objects littered across a carpet the family were in the process of removing. These were found to be the same diamonds that were missing from the vault and those inside the bag at Vilvoorde.

The evidence against Notarbartolo was, at this point, overwhelming. Despite this, he did not relinquish any information during eight hours of interrogation. In March 2005, he was the only member of the group to have been arrested and sentenced. In Belgium, sentence length does not vary depending on the value of the stolen goods. All thefts are treated equally, which is typically a sentence of 5 years. Notarbartolo, however, received ten. Elio D’Onorio was later apprehended but denied involvement in the heist. His fingerprints were discovered on the tape used to cover the sensors inside the vault, and he was subsequently sentenced to 5 years in prison. Ferdinando Finotto had a girlfriend who lived in the French Riviera—the property in which $100 bills were found that were traced back to the vault. He was arrested in Italy in November 2007 and also sentenced to 5 years. Speedy was also caught and sentenced to 5 years, although when I couldn’t determine. The King of Keys was the only member of The School of Turin to never be apprehended—a fact that remains true to this day.

Notarbartolo served 4 years of his sentence before being released on parole in 2009. The conditions of his release stipulated that he had to make every effort possible to remunerate the victims of the heist. He failed to do this, and he was re-arrested in 2013 and sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his original sentence.

As of 2017, all of the men have been released and are living their lives across the world. They are no longer the focus of police scrutiny, but their actions are still observed from time to time. There are reports that none of the men are living in luxury and do not appear to be benefiting from the proceeds of any stolen diamonds. But the fact remains that the diamonds taken from the vault have never been discovered, and the thieves have never disclosed any information that might lead to their location. So where exactly might they be? And could there have been another reason for the heist?

​

A Case of Insurance Fraud?

Although Notarbatolo did not disclose any information during his police interrogation, he did sit down for an in-depth interview with a journalist from Wired magazine in 2009. During this interview (which you can access in the links below), he went into extensive detail about the heist and his involvement. But that was not all. Notarbartolo also made claims that the men had been contracted for the heist by a Jewish diamond merchant, who presumably funded the operation. The deal, he claimed, was that the client would take a third of the takings and the group would divide the remainder amongst themselves. The job, Notarbartolo insisted, had been an attempt to defraud insurance companies into compensating for the theft. He also claimed that the value of the items was closer to $20 million, not the $100 million figure often touted. The veracity of these erroneous claims cannot be determined, but there is one key fact that pours scorn on their accuracy: the vault was not insured at the time of the theft. There may be a possibility that the contents themselves were insured at the owner’s discretion, but this is not known. Therefore, we must cautiously consider Notarbartolo’s claims about the true nature of the heist.

Whatever the intent, the fact remains that the theft was the biggest diamond heist in history. Its execution was patiently planned and flawlessly executed, and the perpetrators would likely have gone completely unknown had their actions not been so disorganised after the event. Despite this, one member of the group was never apprehended and we know nothing of their true identity. Who was this person, and what happened to them after that night? Moreover, the bulk of the diamonds stolen from the vault has never been recovered. Are they sitting out there somewhere waiting to be discovered, or did another fate befall them in the interim? Perhaps one day we will be able to answer this question. Until then, the case will remain unsolved.

​

Important Questions

So, there’s a lot of information to unpack here, huh? I’m sure you have a thousand questions and I have a few of my own. I’ll discuss these here, but please feel free to share your own.

​

1. Who funded the heist? The tools the group used to conduct the theft were low-cost and amazingly simplistic, but there were other costs involved. The rental fees for the bogus business, for instance, and the fees that would’ve been associated with constructing a full-scale replica vault for the group to practice their technique. The same replica that would’ve needed accurate depictions of internal wiring for the practice sessions to be useful—knowledge that had to be obtained elsewhere. The group alluded to an unknown ‘insider’ providing this information, but who was this mysterious benefactor?
2. Was the heist purely one of profit or were there alternative reasons? I do not believe the insurance fraud theory for one second, but the men do not seem to be benefiting from the proceeds of their loot. Perhaps it’s just become too ‘hot’ to sell these items, or maybe the theft occurred for other reasons of which we are unaware.
3. Who was The King of Keys? How did he escape identification whilst all of the others were apprehended? Is he even still alive? And if he is, could he know the whereabouts of the diamonds?
4. The final, most glaring question: what happened to the diamonds? Are they buried somewhere, waiting to be retrieved? Were they taken and sold by someone in the group or elsewhere? Could some of them be sitting in a personal collection somewhere, their owner entirely unaware of their significance? From what I can gather, the time difference between the heist and the discovery of the garbage bag was less than 48 hours, leaving the group not much time to sell or bury the diamonds. The exact length of time, however, cannot be completely confirmed. Nevertheless, the possibilities are numerous and curious to ponder.

​

Links

Wired Interview with Notarbartolo

BBC News

ABC News

Economic Times

Evidence Locker Podcast

______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this (long) write-up! I was attracted to this story mostly because I find heists of such improbable locations fascinating, but also because it reads like the script of an Oceans movie. Also, the dichotomy between the insane heist and the sloppy work afterwards is truly baffling. I think there have been plans over the years for a movie to be produced based on the events, but it has yet to materialise. Maybe one day.

Also, if anybody has any suggestions for cases (of any kind) you would like me to take a look at and potentially cover, please feel free to send me a message. I have a list of cases I plan to cover, so if it ends up on the list, I will be highlighting it at some point!