Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History (3 page)

As a result of this concentrated wealth, the area’s obsession with security bordered on paranoia. The three streets—Schupstraat, Hoveniersstraat, and Rijfstraat—were closed to almost all vehicle traffic. Each end of the district, at the tips of Schupstraat and Rijfstraat, was protected with a space-age anti-vehicle system composed of fourteen knee-high, foot-wide, steel cylinders that sprouted from the streets to form a wide oval, like a modern interpretation of Stonehenge. It was impossible to ram through this barricade with anything less than a military tank.

Only approved vehicles could get through, and arduously at that. Police officers at the Schupstraat entrance triggered a mechanism that caused the outside of the oval to retract into the ground, the great cylinders sliding down like pins inside a lock when a key is inserted. As the vehicle moved forward, the cylinders reemerged, trapping it for a moment inside the oval. Then the cylinders composing the inside arc of the oval slid down and the vehicle could drive into the Diamond District.

This anti-vehicle system had been implemented after Palestinian terrorists detonated a car bomb outside the ancient Portuguese synagogue on Hoveniersstraat in 1981, killing three and injuring more than a hundred. Since then, the barricades had served the dual purpose of protecting the district’s substantial Jewish population and, as an added benefit, causing any gangs of thieves to scrap plans that involved driving up to their target in the hope of making a quick getaway.

Equally daunting, if not more so, was the district’s aggressive use of closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) to provide round-the-clock eye-in-the-sky surveillance of every inch of the Diamond Square Mile. Dozens of shoebox-shaped cameras surveyed the area with their wide black eyes shrouded by metal hoods. They perched on the street corners, on overhangs, and on windowsills like sentinel gargoyles, sprouting cables, high-wattage floodlights, and stout brackets anchoring them to the walls. Some cameras were mounted ten stories high for global overviews, while others were positioned just ten feet off the ground for close-ups of everyone coming and going though doors that opened onto the Diamond District.

The majority of the cameras were privately owned and operated by building and business owners. In scores of security control rooms throughout the district, guards watched monitors that broadcast footage from every conceivable angle. As with the cameras inside the Diamond Center, the placement of these cameras was overt, to serve as a reminder to anyone coming or going that they were being filmed, watched, and recorded by someone. The white plastic casings of many cameras were smeared with pigeon droppings, but that didn’t dampen the impact they had on visitors.

Video was also fed to the district’s dedicated platoon of specialized diamond police, who had their own cameras connected to joysticks and zoom lenses to follow the trail of anyone who raised their suspicion. The police also provided a physical presence by patrolling the streets in teams of two, and at two stations: one on Schupstraat next to the vehicle barrier and the other on Hoveniersstraat, a few paces from the synagogue. Uniformed officers were supplemented by colleagues in plain clothes who could easily be overlooked amid the throng of diamond traders circulating through the streets.

The overall effect of these security measures was an in-your-face display of armed, protected, and monitored fortifications that, over the years, had disheartened some of the world’s most infamous criminals. No less notorious a crook than Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski, Mafia boss John Gotti’s personal hit man, had passed on a plot to pull a job in the Diamond District. He needed only one look around to see that security was simply too daunting.

“Tight as a nun’s ass,” he told his associates.

Notarbartolo might well have been thinking the same thing. But when he awoke on the day he was first going to use his new keys, he must have been buoyed by the knowledge that the initial part of the complicated—and, at that stage, still nebulous—plot to rob the Diamond Center had gone off exceptionally well. He had nearly unrestricted access to the building he planned to rob, as Julie Boost hadn’t batted an eye at anything he’d told her. If she had any lingering doubts after he’d left her office, he was confident his story would hold up if she decided to check it out. He did, in fact, own three small jewelry stores in Turin, each of which did legitimate by-the-books business. Additionally, a call to Valenza, where his manufacturing business was located, would confirm he was well known among jewelers there. Notarbartolo was actually quite proud of his jewelry designs.

The only hitch would be if Boost called the police and mentioned his name. His track record with law enforcement in Turin wasn’t so clean; among the detectives who investigated organized crime in the city he called home, his name was synonymous with theft. Considering the ease with which the transaction for his new office had been conducted, however, it was hard to imagine Boost would bother.

Notarbartolo’s day began a few blocks from the Diamond Square Mile, in a small and dingy one-bedroom apartment that was, compared to his stately home near Turin, woefully second-rate. The walls were peach-colored and grimy, like a kindergarten classroom gone to seed. The floors, originally tiled with white laminate squares, were now so well trod that they appeared gray. The apartment came furnished with a mishmash of outdated black vinyl couches, painted plywood tables, a faded reddish rug, and a sagging mattress on a single bed. Like many of his countrymen, Notarbartolo treasured his meals, and it’s not hard to imagine his disappointment in the cramped and Spartan kitchen. There was only enough room for a college dormitory-sized refrigerator and a tiny microwave that bore the scars of heavy use by the previous tenants. The stove and the dishwasher looked as if they’d been salvaged from a soup kitchen. It was fortunate he didn’t plan on doing much entertaining.

The apartment on the seventh floor of Charlottalei 33 did have its advantages. There was a nice view onto the broad street out front that, in warmer months, was shaded with the leaves of maple trees planted in long rows in its green medians. The half mile to the Diamond Center took only about ten minutes to walk. The apartment’s main draw, though, was its anonymity: Notarbartolo paid his rent in cash and his agreement with the landlord involved only a handshake, no paperwork. Part of his assignment was keeping as low a profile as possible; the tiny one-bedroom with its scuffed tiles and drippy faucets served that purpose perfectly.

While getting ready, Notarbartolo considered his wardrobe. Again, balance was key. Everything about his appearance needed to be both appropriate and forgettable. A stroll through the Diamond District showed a wide diversity of styles, from crisply attired Indians wearing sharp Armani suits with shiny leather shoes to Hasidic Jews in long black jackets, dark pants, white shirts, and old fashioned brimmed hats. There were also dreadlocked messengers in T-shirts and jeans, as well as a smattering of badly dressed tourists gawking at all the security cameras and police. In the end, Notarbartolo sought the middle ground, completing his ensemble with an overcoat and his attaché case.

The elevator in the apartment building was ridiculously small. Notarbartolo’s bulky 5-foot-11-inch frame nearly filled the car. After it discharged him into a tiny lobby, Notarbartolo walked through the security door, past a bank of post boxes, and exited into the brisk air on Charlottalei. He was in character from the moment he stepped outside, a humble Italian jeweler on his way to work, just a tiny cog in the machinery of the multibillion dollar international diamond industry, a simple merchant among the hundreds who bought and sold diamonds in Antwerp.

Though he would soon become an expert in the little universe between his apartment and his office at the Diamond Center, Notarbartolo was still a stranger to the city during this morning walk on his first official day. Turning right outside the building, he strolled to the end of the street, where its neighborhood charm was left at the curb of a busy intersection. If he were to turn right from here, it was a short walk on Plantin en Moretuslei to the Delhaize grocery store, which was blessed with a decent selection of Italian meats, cheeses, and wine. If he turned left, he could stroll through Stadspark and admire its small groves of trees and its little manmade pond. Instead of turning, he walked straight ahead, past an old brick building across the intersection which was fitted with a modern blue and white illuminated sign that read
Politie
, which meant “police.” Notarbartolo must have enjoyed the subversive thrill that came from walking by the local police station on his way to the Diamond District.

Beyond the police station hung a business sign with a familiar name: Fichet, the famous British safe manufacturer. Among locksmiths and safecrackers, the brand held an esteemed reputation, one Notarbartolo knew well. If you wanted to keep your valuables safe, Fichet was a godsend; if you were trying to steal those valuables, it was a curse. If there was any silver lining to the obstacles he faced, it was that the vault door in the Diamond Center wasn’t a Fichet, although it was small consolation. LIPS vaults were among the best in the world, up there with other well-respected manufacturers like Tann and Sargent & Greenleaf. The Fichet store displayed vault doors, safes, and examples of bulletproof glass in its window, a signal to pedestrians that they were close to the Diamond District. It was also a sign for Notarbartolo to turn right on the next avenue.

The moment he turned the corner onto the narrow boulevard, Notarbartolo appeared on the Diamond Square Mile’s CCTV network, albeit as a dot in the background. If he were in a car, he could only go another block before being stopped by the security cylinders blocking Schupstraat that prevented unauthorized vehicles from continuing straight ahead. On foot, Notarbartolo simply walked through the barriers and past the police substation, a small enclosed booth filled with video monitors and, presumably, a small arsenal of weapons and ammunition.

In passing the security cylinders, Notarbartolo had entered an invisible shell of safety and security. Insurance investigators had a name for it, the Secure Antwerp Diamond Area, or SADA. The SADA was defined by a hard line drawn around all the buildings facing Schupstraat, Hoveniersstraat, and Rijfstraat. Diamond businesses outside that boundary on adjacent streets comprised what was known in insurance lingo as the ADA, the Antwerp Diamond Area. This area included a long row of glittering retail diamond shops for tourists on Pelikaanstraat, which abutted the SADA. There were still plenty of cameras in the ADA, but there were more cars and fewer cops; therefore, insurance premiums were generally higher for diamond businesses in the ADA than in the SADA.

As a rule, diamond dealers kept their goods inside the SADA, the three-block bubble of electronic surveillance and crack-proof vault doors. There was no hesitation when they needed to carry diamonds across the streets of the SADA to have them evaluated, polished, or sold. The merchants simply put them in their pocket and walked out the door. Or, if they wanted a little extra reassurance, they carried their goods in briefcases handcuffed to their wrists with high-tensile-strength steel chains. It was astounding to consider the wealth being toted from building to building in passing backpacks, attaché cases, and courier bags.

Considering the staggering value of the diamonds people carried—a small handful can be worth tens of millions of dollars—it was easy to conclude that diamonds were handled casually, almost recklessly, on the streets of the district. While most transactions took place indoors behind several layers of security, the streets were important meeting places for spontaneous wheeling and dealing; it was a testament to the diamond brokers’ confidence in the Big Brother surveillance of a myriad of CCTV cameras and a squad of cops to discourage theft attempts. It provided them with the sort of psychic comfort needed to be able to produce from a coat pocket a paper parcel filled with millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds while chatting with a colleague during a cigarette break.

Even on days when the Belgian sky was overcast, some of the diamonds being admired on the district’s street corners were large enough to sparkle like miniature flashbulbs from twenty yards away. What was most amazing was not their beauty or their jaw-dropping value, but how unceremoniously they were unwrapped and passed from one unarmed merchant to another, right there in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street filled with strangers. The diamond dealers may have been offering each other sticks of gum for all the drama these displays seemed to generate.

A few paces beyond the security bubble, though, out into the ADA, this laissez-faire attitude evaporated. The feeling of exposure—to thieves, muggers, con artists, even to the possibility of getting hit by a car while carrying millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds—could be chokingly claustrophobic. That was why whenever diamonds left the secure zone in any notable volume, they did so in armored Brinks trucks or customized bulletproof personal cars filled with private security guards. Diamond dealers might have chanced crossing out of the Diamond District’s borders with a small cache of stones in a locked briefcase, but only if they were going just around the corner to a cutter and polisher. No one left with any sizable stash on his person. Not only was it too dangerous, but there was simply no practical reason to do it.