Flawless

by Scott Selby

  2. Harry Winston: News sources vary by a few million dollars on the amount; the euro amount given is 80 million. Doreen Carvajal, “The Heist at Harry’s,” New York Times, December 12, 2008.

  3. Armored car at airport: This one is a near tie with the Securitas job at 75 million or £52 million. “Dutch Seek Clues to Jewel Heist,” BBC News, February 26, 2005. Converting euros on the heist date at $1.3194 to the euro equals about $99 million. “Thieves Pull Big Diamond Heist in Holland,” MSNBC, February 25, 2005. Oddly, in a UK version of this list, 3 and 4 would be reversed; as based on pounds, Securitas would be a bigger heist than this one.

  4. Securitas Cash Depot: It was £53 million in pounds sterling of which £21 million has been recovered. Chris Summers, “What Happened to the Securitas Cash?” BBC News, January 28, 2008. In dollars, the total taken was $92 million. Sean Alfano, “3 Suspects Charged In $92M Heist,” Associated Press, March 2, 2006.

  5. Central Bank: One of the leaders of this heist was later kidnapped and despite payment of a large ransom, he was executed. “Suspect in Major Brazil Robbery Is Found Dead,” Associated Press, October 22, 2005.

  6. Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Centre: Estimates are always tricky with safe deposit boxes. Estimates went up from $32 million to $47 million (“Estimate of Big London Heist Rises,” Associated Press, August 14, 1987) to $65 million (“Tariq Panja, “Photos of UK’s Largest Cash Robbery,” Associated Press, August 1, 2007).

  7. Graff Diamonds: The same place was robbed for $37.8 million in 2003 and for $16.4 million in 2007. The most recent heist was captured on a cell phone video camera. Miguel Marquez and Ammu Kannampilly, “Record-Breaking Jewel Heist, Captured on Camera,” ABC News, August 12, 2009.

  8. Northern Bank: The robbers, believed to be IRA related, stole £26.5 million. However, $31 million worth of that was in new notes printed by the target bank, which promptly recalled all its new notes. This left around $19 million in currency that was not subject to this recall. Glenn Frankel, “Police Pin Bank Heist On IRA,” Washington Post, January 8, 2005.

  9. British Bank of the Middle East: Tied with the Northern Bank job, this heist is put just below it in the chart as estimates for it range from $20 million to $50 million. However, that is in 1976 dollars, so it would be worth much more today. This robbery, widely attributed to the PLO, occurred during the Lebanese civil war so there was no need for stealth and clever tricks, just military might. “British Bank of the Middle East—1976—Top 10 Heists,” Time, December 8, 2008.

  10. Carlton Hotel: Judy Ausuebel, “A Look at Some Major Jewel Heists,” Associated Press, December 5, 2008.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Campbell, Greg. Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World’s Most Precious Stones. New York: Basic Books, 2004.

  Epstein, Edward Jay. The Rise and Fall of Diamonds: The Shattering of a Brilliant Illusion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.

  Farah, Douglas. Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror. New York: Broadway Books, 2004.

  Fleming, Ian. The Diamond Smugglers. New York: Pan Books, 1960.

  Harlow, George E. The Nature of Diamonds. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

  Hart, Matthew. Diamond: The History of a Cold-Blooded Love Affair. New York: Plume, 2002.

  Hazen, Robert M. The Diamond Makers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, rev. ed., 1999.

  Kanfer, Stefan. The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995.

  Meredith, Martin. Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008.

  O’Donoghue, Michael, ed. Gems, Sixth Edition. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006.

  Paterson, Vicky. Diamonds. London: Natural History Museum, 2005.

  Roberts, Janine. Glitter & Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel. New York: The Disinformation Company Ltd., 2003.

  Zoellner, Tom. The Heartless Stone: A Journey through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire. New York: Picador, 2007.

  NOTES

  (“Interview with author” covers interviews that were conducted by Greg Campbell and/or Scott Andrew Selby.)

  Epigraph

  viii “better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all”: Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World chap. xxxiv, epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar. (Hartford, CT: The American Publishing Company, 1897).

  Prologue

  xiii Ali Baba expected to find . . . he went: Edward Forster, trans., “The History of Ali Baba, and of the Forty Robbers, Killed by One Slave,” The Arabian Nights, 4th ed., (London: William Miller, 1815), 4:231.

  xv They had robbed: We are using rob and robbery in the colloquial sense throughout this book to include theft and burglary. A legal definition of robbery requires two things that were absent in the Antwerp Diamond Heist: 1) that the property be taken from the person/immediate presence of someone, and 2) that this be done by force or fear. As for burglary, a traditional definition applies only to theft from a dwelling at night; statutes have expanded this definition to include other buildings at any time. The Diamond Center satisfies the old-fashioned definition’s requirement that it be at night, but although the concierges lived in the building, the parts of the building the thieves trespassed through were not used for living quarters.

  Chapter One: The Trojan Horse

  1 Money isn’t everything. There’s also diamonds: Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips & Quotes, (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1968), 218.

  2 some 200,000 carats . . . million: Philip Claes. Quoted in Mega Heist (executive producer/head writer Todd Moss), which aired December 16, 2008, on the Investigation Discovery Channel.

  6 the Hoge Raad voor Diamant: The name and structure of this organization has changed over the years. The HRD (aka the Diamond High Council) was founded in 1973 and disbanded in 2007. It was replaced with the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), which took over representation for the Belgian diamond sector. The AWDC in turn became the primary shareholder in HRD Antwerp NV (also known as HRD Antwerp or just the HRD), which handles the commercial activities of the former HRD. These include five divisions: the Diamond Lab, formerly HRD Certificates; the Precious Stones Lab; Education, formerly the HRD Institute of Gemmology; HRD Research; and HRD Equipment, formerly Comdiam. “Official Launch of AWDC and HRD Antwerp NV Announced at Press Conference in Antwerp,” press release, HRD/AWDC, Antwerp, Belgium, May 30, 2007.

  8 “Tight as a nun’s ass”: Philip Carlo, The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, hardcover ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 313.

  9 in a small and dingy one-bedroom apartment: The description of Notarbartolo’s apartment on Charlottalei is based on a visit by the authors on September 25, 2008. It had a new tenant then, but the furniture was the same as it belonged to the landlord (the apartment came furnished).

  13 None of the gold was recovered: Denice Oliver, interview with author, in her office, Antwerp, September 29, 2008.

  Chapter Two: The School of Turin

  21 “This is the city of Turin . . . twentieth century”: The Italian Job, directed by Peter Collinson, written by Troy Kennedy-Martin (1969).

  24 as high as $200,000: Marlise Simons, “Milan and the Mafia: Who Has a Line on Whom?” New York Times, July 1, 1991.

  25 making il pizzo tax deductible: Ibid.

  26 the AutoVox Melody stereo: Massimo Numa, “Chi E’ Il Ladro Considerato la Mente del Colpo Milionario,” La Stampa (Turin), February 28, 2003.

  26 Wooden Head: Jo-Ann Garbutt, “A Chronicle of Criminal Coincidences,” unpublished manuscript, August 2008.

  29 using scientific methods . . . they track: For instance, in 1985, the FBI developed a computerized system of tracking unsolved murder cases in the United States with the hope of comparing them with other homicides. Detectives enter specific information about a victim, a crime scene, even the weather, and the database (known as Vi
-CAP) matches them to similarities in other crimes. That way, homicide investigators can look for patterns or connections that wouldn’t have been otherwise obvious, in the hope that they will lead to a suspect.

  30 delivering paper for a local company: Numa, “Chi E’ II Ladro Considerato la Mente Del Colpo Milionario.”

  30 within the booklet was a set of rules: This booklet was for a special category of criminals, similar to parole; they had to carry it around always, like an ID. In case they were stopped by the police, they had to show it to them. It’s not used anymore. Rules in it included: find a job within a month, find your residence and let us know within a month where you live, never leave your residence without notice to the public authorities, live honestly, obey the laws, never give rise to suspicion, do not habitually associate with people who have received sentences or who are under security or safety measures, do not come home after 11:00 p.m., do not leave your house before 6:00 a.m. unless you have a documented emergency, do not detain or carry weapons, do not habitually attend wine bars, and do not attend any public meetings. Authors viewed Notarbartolo’s red book in Turin, Italy, January 2009. The rules are paraphrased from a rough translation provided by Antonia Bonito, an interpreter for the Turin police.

  31 But in September 1990 . . . once the police arrived: Numa, “Chi E’ II Ladro Considerato La Mente Del Colpo Milionario.”

  36 open an account at KBC bank: The heist attempt was at the bank’s old location on Pelikaanstraat. KBC left this location in 2007 and later sold the building. Stef Leunens, press officer, KBC, confirmed details of this heist attempt, e-mail to author, December 16, 2008.

  Chapter Three: Probing Missions

  39 “Maybe I am . . . its field”: Valerio Viccei, Live by the Gun, Die by the Gun: The Beautiful Women, the Diamonds, the Ferraris—My Whole True Story at Last (London: Blake Publishing, 2004), 323.

  40 the stark white foyer: The author recreated this on October 1, 2008, by taking the elevator down to the vault level and walking up to the day gate, then taking the elevator back to the lobby and exiting the building.

  41 a copy of the building’s blueprints: The original blueprints could also be viewed by members of the public for free at the Antwerp City Archives, but since the blueprints were copied for him by the building’s staff, Notarbartolo didn’t need to go through the trouble. At the archives, patrons could take all the notes they wanted, and with Notarbartolo’s talents for drawing he could have taken his time and reproduced the whole plan. While photographing was forbidden, it would not be hard to secretly snap photos of the plans. The authors examined the building’s blueprints, including the vault floor, at the archives (Stadsarchief, Stad Antwerpen) on September 26, 2008.

  42 Her boss, Marcel Grünberger: Marcel Grünberger’s father, Samuel Grünberger, founded their diamond company. He also purchased the Diamond Center in the late 1960s; the two properties at 9 Schupstraat and 11 Schupstraat had already been combined into a single property (9–11 Schupstraat) forty years prior. Samuel Grünberger hired the architect Leon Fox to completely rebuild the property. The permit for this work was approved in April 1969, and the building was completed by 1972. Blueprints and other documents at the Antwerp City Archives, Stadsarchief, Stad Antwerpen, on September 26, 2008. For this reason, the Diamond Center is also often referred to as the Grunberger Building.

  Marcel Grünberger was born in Antwerp on April 28, 1936, according to a legal document filed with the Commercial Court of Antwerp on May 29, 2006, for the “Foundation Marcel Grünberger.” He eventually took over the building and diamond business from his father. “Grunberger Precision-Cut Small Brilliant Diamonds,” available online at [http://www.grunbergerdiamonds.com/about/about-Flash.html] http://www.grunbergerdiamonds.com/about/about-Flash.html (accessed October 2, 2009).

  42 focus on his diamond-trading business: The family’s diamond company, Grunberger Diamonds, had an office in the Diamond Center as well as one in Great Neck, New York, run by Marcel’s son David. Marcel’s other son, Simon, also a New Yorker, was listed as the treasurer of the Foundation Marcel Grünberger, which was formed in 2006. From a legal document filed with the Commercial Court of Antwerp on May 29, 2006, for the “Foundation Marcel Grünberger.”

  They had two other offices run by nonfamily members, in Vietnam and China. Vietnam was where they did the cutting, with 850 cutters as of 2005. They first used Thailand but moved to Vietnam as labor there was cheaper. Their focus was on small brilliant diamonds. Robert Weldon, “Tiny Treasures,” Professional Jeweler Magazine (Philadelphia), March 2005.

  42 nosy superintendent: Boost began her career in the Diamond Center at Grunberger Diamonds. There she worked as Marcel Grünberger’s head administrator. She also came to handle matters related to the building itself and eventually took over as manager of the building. Her duties included dealing with tenants, such as Notarbartolo, as well as handling the hiring and firing of the building’s staff. In addition to her boyfriend being on the payroll as concierge, her mother worked for Grünberger in the building. Fay Vidal, interview with author, Antwerp, September 28, 2008.

  43 The others were Boost and Grünberger: Marcel Grünberger told the police after the heist that while he had at one time known the combination to the vault, he no longer remembered it. In that case, there would be three people left who knew the combination.

  43 while keeping the important part safely in his pocket: This also provided additional security in that, if the key were used as intended, one would need to obtain two parts of the key from two different locations.

  45 they relied purely on technology for the building’s security: Jean-Charles Verwaest, De Diamantroof van de Eeuw (Antwerp: Standard Publishing, 2006), 159.

  45 what the video monitors showed him: Ibid., 160.

  46 the Beurs voor Diamanthandel . . . What a visitor noticed: Author’s visit to the trading hall of the Beurs voor Diamanthandel (with an HRD guide) on September 29, 2008. The discussion of membership in the diamond bourses comes from this visit as well as a visit two and a half years prior by the author to the Antwerpsche Diamantkring bourse (with Lucien Cornelissens, the director of the bourse), February 2006.

  46 unfolded into the shape of a paper box: These white tissue packets, known as diamond papers, were folded up and used to hold loose diamonds with a trader writing information about the stone on the paper’s flap. Traditionally, these have three pieces of paper: an inner layer of very thin and smooth bluish glassine, a middle layer of white glassine, and an outside layer of bond paper. Another high-value substance that is often traded in glassine is heroin. Lincoln Anderson and David Spett, “Fatal Heroin Overdoses Claim Two Lives in One Week,” The Villager (New York), July 26, 2006.

  46 ten single-carat brilliant-cut diamonds . . . $200,000 at retail: This figure is based on a one-carat ideal-cut, D-color, and IF-clarity diamond for sale on [http://bluenile.com] bluenile.com for $20,077. (Stock number LD01477526, viewed on July 9, 2009). A one-carat diamond with a signature ideal cut, a D color, and FL clarity would cost significantly more. Certain fancy diamonds, such as red, would be much more expensive.

  47 also his extended family’s: The importance of family members vouching was one of the main reasons for the prominence of religious Jews in the diamond trade and, later, for the rise of Jains from India. Both groups share key characteristics linked to success in the global diamond trade—they are members of a religious minority accustomed to having to depend on each other and in which large families with extended relations exist with members spread around the world.

  Although competitive at times, Jews and Jains work closely together in Antwerp and without animosity. The Jains rose to prominence in recent decades with their access to the cheap labor available in India, specifically Surat, making it possible to profitably polish small stones that previously had little value. Dan Bilesky, “Indians Unseat Antwerp’s Jews As the Biggest Diamond Traders,” Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2003.

  48 to be settled in civil court:
Iris Kockelbergh, Eddy Vleeschdrager, and Jan Walgrave, The Brilliant Story of Antwerp Diamonds (Antwerp: Ortelius Books, 1992), 231.

  49 “I remember times when there was absolutely no security”: Fay Vidal, interview with author, Antwerp, September 28, 2008.

  49 “You’d put . . . worth of diamonds”: Ibid.

  50 member of another bourse. The World Federation of Diamond Bourses: All four bourses in Antwerp are members of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB). A member of a WFDB-affiliated bourse can trade in any other member bourse in the world.

  51 diamonds were paid for . . . usually American dollars: This reliance on cash described here relates to the time period leading up to and including when the Diamond Center heist took place. In 2004, the Belgian Anti-Money Laundering Law was amended to effectively end the use of cash in Belgium’s diamond business. It stated that merchants could not settle in cash a sale of goods at a price for more than 15,000. As the Antwerp diamond trade runs on amounts much higher than this, the legal use of cash for diamantaires effectively ended. Cash has still had its place since then though, to keep on hand in case of emergencies, for minuscule transactions, and for transactions that have been, for whatever reason, not aboveboard. See, e.g., “Belgium: Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes,” IMF Country Report No. 06/72, February 2006.

  52 in its private offices, which was expensive: In addition, such alterations would be at the tenant’s own expense; the landlord would not give any credit for such changes. This then tied tenants down to their rented offices because if they moved out of the building, they gave up all the money they had sunk into security, which could be very substantial. This reality may have created a perverse incentive for the Diamond Center’s owner to allow its security to lapse to the degree that many of the tenants were forced to protect their own offices rather than put their faith in the protections offered by the building. The building benefited by the tenants’ being locked into the place.