Flawless

by Scott Selby

  115 they couldn’t identify: Based on their later investigation, they came to believe that as many as eight or more people were involved in the overall operation. Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  115 Pietro Tavano drove the thieves to the Diamond Center: “The analysis of the phone calls shows Tavano was a phone user during the four crucial times of the theft and that he was in Belgium. It is also proved he left the Charlottalei apartment on February 15, 2003, at 11:47 p.m. to go to the Diamond District. That he undoubtedly provided for the transport to the Diamond Center, considering that his phone call to Notarbartolo was intercepted in Charlottalei on February 16, 2003, at 33 minutes past midnight, he was repeatedly in contact with Notarbartolo.” From the Court of Appeal of Antwerp judgment in this case on May 19, 2005.

  116 three-quarters of a mile: The drive from the apartment to the side entrance of the Diamond Center was shorter than the drive back owing to one-way streets. The drive there was a little over a half a mile, but the drive back was a bit under three-quarters of a mile. It was about a three-minute drive either way.

  117 to meet his brother-in-law for drinks on the plaza: According to what he later told police, Jacques Plompteux left the Diamond Center through the garage at some point late on Saturday night to sneak off with his brother-in-law to have some beers at the Café Joseph on the plaza around the corner. He came and went through the C Block door for the same reason as the thieves: using his badge would have left a computerized trail, showing the building’s management that he’d left his post.

  117 At 12:14 a.m.: The exact times used in this chapter come from police reconstructions of mobile phone traffic/locations as reported in the Court of Appeal of Antwerp judgment in this case on May 19, 2005.

  119 “In my opinion there is no way that a camera”: Paul De Vos, interview with author, via telephone, April 26, 2009.

  119 suggested by insurance investigator Denice Oliver: Denice Oliver, interview with author, in her office, Antwerp, September, 29, 2008.

  120 “the auto-scramble function is rarely used”: Pieter De Vlaam, Manager of Testing and Certification of LIPS/Gunnebo, e-mail to author, January 31, 2009.

  120 another eureka moment when watching any hidden video: According to this theory, after Notarbartolo rented a safe deposit box in the Diamond Center and got a feel for the security there, he planted a small video camera out of view of the CCTV cameras. It was aimed at the vault door, not in an attempt to read the actual combination but to record the concierges’ actions when opening and closing the vault door. From this, the School of Turin could have learned that that the concierges did not enter the code to the combination, but kept that portion of the vault door unlocked. Notarbartolo would not have placed the camera there in the hopes of seeing something like this, but just to learn more about their procedures and to see if either concierge used a cheat sheet of any kind. The human element tends to be the weak link with a security setup such as this, and so it is the easiest thing to check first. According to police, one concierge had a cheat sheet, and it would have been easy for the thieves to steal it from him, copy it, and put it back. If the combination was not being used, then all the thieves had to do was plant a camera again before the heist to make sure that nothing had changed. This meant one less lock the School of Turin had to get around and it explains how they got around the combination lock without inside help or drilling, something that lock experts such as Paul De Vos still find to be the greatest mystery at the heart of this entire affair. Paul De Vos, interview with author, in his home, Heist-op-den-Berg (Belgium), October 3, 2008.

  123 “tampered with”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  123 “We asked everybody . . . with any detector”: Ibid.

  125 As they forced open each new box, the loot began to pile up: The contents of the various described boxes come from the Court of Appeal of Antwerp judgment in this case on May 19, 2005.

  127 The thieves stole every carat: While there were a few big diamond companies in the Diamond Center, most of the tenants were small businesses. Bigger companies preferred the more secure buildings in the area, or tended to keep their goods under their own security measures in their offices.

  127 brown cognacs to yellow canaries: The more intense the color, the more value it adds to a stone. For instance, an intense green diamond would be worth much more than a comparable stone with a green hue to it. The stone with the green hue though would still be worth more than a comparable white diamond. While brown and yellow are the two most common colors, and as such are generally worth less than comparable white diamonds, diamonds come in a wide range of colors such as red, orange, green, blue, purple, black, gray, brown, and pink. More than three hundred different colors have been labeled thus far by the industry.

  These colors are the result of imperfections in the stone itself—a perfect diamond is by definition colorless. The causes of such colors vary—blue is the result of boron contaminants; yellow, often nitrogen contaminants; red, structural defects; and green, radiation in Earth’s crust. See, e.g., Emmanuel Fritsch, “The Nature of Color in Diamonds,” The Nature of Diamonds (edited by George Harlow).

  127 in their blister packs . . . proved authenticity: In addition, it would have taken time to remove them all from blister packs. And this information helps establish the value of each diamond, so having it made things easier when the time came to split up the goods.

  128 the pulling tool wouldn’t have worked at all: Of course then Notarbartolo’s own box would have been upgraded so he and his fellow thieves would have known about this problem. While their device would no longer have been an option, perhaps they would have come up with some other solution to this barrier and still robbed the place.

  129 brooch depicting a bird in its nest made of gold and diamonds: Such a piece would have been risky to sell as is. The safest course of action would be for the thieves, or whoever bought it off them, to remove the jewels and melt down the gold. This would result in a loss of value, as the whole was worth more than the sum of its parts, but it would no longer be recognizable. The tragedy of this is when treasured pieces of art, especially of historical importance, are destroyed in order to make their constituent parts unrecognizable.

  130 had been thoroughly cleaned: As they knew going into the job that they would have to leave equipment behind, they should have brought with them something to destroy any trace of evidence that could have remained on their tools or been left during their time in the vault. For example, the thieves in a 2008 bank vault heist sprayed the vault with a fire extinguisher and plugged a sink to flood the place. David P. McGuinn, Safe Deposit, available online at [http://http://www.sdspec.com/PDF/SDBM.pdf] http://www.sdspec.com/PDF/SDBM.pdf (accessed October 2, 2009).

  130 tapes that had recorded the happenings of February 10: The tapes were organized and clearly labeled by date, so this was not as hard as it would have been if the Diamond Center had used another method for marking the tapes such as sequentially numbering them.

  131 outdated Belgian francs: Although Belgian francs had stopped being legal tender about a year before the heist, they could still be exchanged at the Belgian National Bank for euros. The exchange rate was set in January 1, 1999, with one Belgian franc valued at 0.024789. There is no time limit for this exchange for banknotes in Belgium so although traders could no longer use this money for diamond transactions, there was no rush for them to exchange them for euros. Coins, though, became worthless at the start of 2005. “Opinion of the European Central Bank at the Request of the Nationale Bank van België,” the European Central Bank, June 26, 2001.

  132 four or five hundredths of a carat: They were four or five points, which means 0.04 or 0.05 carats. Stones so small would not be polished in Antwerp but in a country with very low labor costs such as India, Thailand, or Sri Lanka. Stones like that are worth about a dollar a carat, so 4 or 5 cents a stone. Lieve Peeters, the expert u
sed by the court regarding these stones, interview with author, via telephone, February 1, 2008.

  132 “Even though this . . . small coins”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  Chapter Nine: One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure

  135 “They always call it ‘the crime of the century,’ but it never is”: Lodovico Poletto, interview with author, in the La Stampa office, Turin, January 16, 2009.

  135 “The lights were on . . . everything on the floor”: Jorge Dias De Sousa, interview with author, via telephone, April 24, 2009.

  136 “People were making gestures . . . how it was possible”: Philip Claes, interview with author, in his office at the AWDC, September 22, 2008.

  137 “Apparently, he had memory problems . . . like a headless chicken down there”: Denice Oliver, interview with author, in her office, Antwerp, September 29, 2008.

  137 “Our dear Jorge . . . from the inspector”: Fay Vidal, interview with author, Antwerp, September 28, 2008.

  137 “Not me . . . I don’t know that”: Jorge Dias De Sousa, interview with author, via telephone, April 24, 2009. Note that the other concierge, Jacques Plompteux, quit working at the Diamond Center shortly after the heist and couldn’t be located by the authors.

  138 following his boss’s orders to keep his mouth shut: Denice Oliver, interview with author, in her office, Antwerp, September 29, 2008.

  138 they could tell from a glance that it was a professional job: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 26, 2008.

  138 Two forensic technicians: The description of forensic collection in this chapter comes from author’s April–June, 2009, e-mail correspondence with Peter Kerkhof, who was one of these technicians. He was a federal police officer, specialized in forensic investigations; in Belgium he is a member of the Technical and Scientific Police; in the United States, he could be called a crime scene investigator. The second forensic technician in the vault that day was his colleague Gerlinde Vermeiren.

  139 “We spoke about it . . . So we didn’t”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  139 “I can assure you . . . bar of gold”: Ibid.

  139 “The landing was full of people . . . opened or not”: Fay Vidal, interview with author, Antwerp, September 28, 2008.

  139 “decimated, destroyed”: Ibid.

  140 “The floor was littered . . . floor as well”: Ibid.

  140 “Everything in that building was just so lax”: Denice Oliver, interview with author, in her office, Antwerp, September 29, 2008.

  140 De Vos explained that . . . he always averted his eyes: The description of De Vos’s activities the day the heist was discovered come from his own narration of these events to authors. De Vos was present when the combination was reset, as it had been his job to come in and reset the combination whenever a manager or concierge left the job. That way, only the owner, manager, and two concierges ever knew the code, and former employees did not. Paul De Vos, interview with author, in his home, Heist-op-den-Berg (Belgium), October 3, 2008.

  141 Once, he discovered a pile of dozens of old tires . . . a victim of foul play: The description of Van Camp’s activities surrounding his discovery of the trash in the Floordambos comes from his own narration of these events to the authors. The authors accompanied him on a guided tour of the dumpsite on October 3, 2008.

  142 turned on to a wooded road where a tongue of dirt emerged between the trees on the right and led into the cornfield: At the time of the heist and its aftermath there was no gate between the dirt path and the paved road. There was only the gate inside the property between the cornfield and the woods. A locked gate was later installed here to protect the property. Ibid.

  142 decided to take a stroll into the forest: Van Camp’s cousin was with him that day, but he left before Van Camp contacted the police. August Van Camp’s wife, Annie Lauwers, interview with author, via telephone, April 28, 2009.

  144 His wife, however, tells a slightly different story: August Van Camp’s wife, Annie Lauwers, interview with author, at her house, Vilvoorde (Belgium), October 3, 2008.

  145 “On every highway . . . collect it”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  145 Doing so would have risked drawing unwanted attention: Peys explained that if the thieves set the garbage on fire “then police might cross the highway and ask ‘what’s burning.’ Seen afterward they made an enormous mistake, but again it’s partly coincidence and partly because there are no other options just to throw it away and get away. You could take it to Italy if you would have the nerves and, in Italy, I would imagine when you are at home you would know where to get rid of it . . . or even burn it in a quiet place where you wouldn’t see anybody. They likely didn’t have the nerve.” Ibid.

  145 “We’re talking about . . . by people”: Ibid.

  146 “It was the day after . . . I assure you”: Ibid.

  146 The bags contained . . . emerald pointers: Ibid. Also, Peter Kerkhof, e-mail to author, April 20, 2009.

  147 more than 100 million to more than 400 million: Belgian authorities announced the more-than-100-million figure three days after the heist was discovered. Some American journalists forgot to convert this number into dollars, leading to them reporting a figure of $100 million. The 400-million figure is what the police believe and what one of the prosecutors told the court during the criminal case. Philip Claes also placed the amount stolen at 400 million in Mega Heist.

  147 “It was no good . . . trust anymore”: Philip Claes, interview with author, in his office at the AWDC, September 22, 2008.

  148 “My colleagues started . . . to find”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  149 “We saw that . . . hadn’t been opened”: Ibid.

  150 suspicion away from the staff: The staff was eventually cleared of any involvement, although they would never live down many people’s suspicions. Such suspicions lingered given that it was never known for sure how the thieves got past the combination lock on the sturdy LIPS vault door.

  150 empty of anything worthwhile: One published account of the heist noted that there was a packet of diamond papers, a small black Samsonite case, and a yellow notepad in Notarbartolo’s safe deposit box. Jean-Charles Verwaest, De Diamantroof van de Eeuw, 179.

  151 it would be very difficult to extradite: At the time of the heist, the thieves were relatively safe from extradition as long as they stayed in Italy. All four known thieves were Italian citizens. Article 26 of the Italian Constitution did allow for extradition of citizens under certain circumstances. This was also set forth in article 697 et seq. of the Code of Criminal Procedure. However, as a practical matter, it would have been hard for Belgium to extradite them from Italy. The law later changed to make extradition easier with Italy’s implementing the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in 2005. This had to do with extradition between Italy and other European Union member states such as Belgium.

  Chapter Ten: Been Caught Stealing

  152 “If you want to steal . . . be caught”: Keith B. Richburg, “Mobutu: a Rich Man in Poor Standing; As He Teeters in Zaire, Questions Mount Over His Wealth,” The Washington Post, October 3, 1991. Mobutu was president of Zaire at the time of this quote, which is from a May 1976 statement he delivered to a conference of his ruling party. A fascinating book on the blatant kleptocracy that Mobutu ruled over is In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo by Michela Wrong.

  152 they believe it was a villa: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  154 didn’t even put Notarbartolo in the same league: Lodovico Poletto, interview with author, in the La Stampa office, Turin, January 16, 2009.

  154 “He was a man with a dream”: Ibid.

  155 the caravan of police cars wound through: Much of the information regarding the sear
ch of Notarbartolo’s house in Trana is based on a series of interviews, both in person and via e-mail, with a confidential source, a member of Italian law enforcement who was present at both searches of this property.

  155 brothers opened the door without a fight: Interview with confidential source, a member of Italian law enforcement with knowledge of this case, via e-mail, May 15, 2009. The source was present at both searches of Notarbartolo’s house in Trana and was 100 percent certain that the door was not knocked down on either occasion. Instead, the police were let in.

  158 He’d made the trip from Haarlem in the Netherlands to Antwerp with time to spare: The description of Falleti’s activities the day he and Notarbartolo were arrested comes from his own narration of these events to the authors in a series of in-person interviews in Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium in September 2008. Also of assistance in describing Falleti’s point of view that day was “A Chronicle of Criminal Coincidences,” an unpublished manuscript, dated August 2008, by Jo-Ann Garbutt, with whom Falleti cooperated to tell the story of his involvement in the case. Garbutt was Falleti’s girlfriend after his divorce from Judith Zwiep. The diamond detectives also discussed what they knew of his activities that day and the Court of Appeal of Antwerp judgment in this case on May 19, 2005, contained some relevant details.

  159 “ridiculous”: Philip Claes, interview with author, in his office at the AWDC, September 22, 2008.

  162 “It doesn’t happen . . . the permission”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  162 “The interview with . . . go first”: Kris De Bot, interview with author, via telephone, April 24, 2009.

  163 “We needed guys . . . it stops”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.

  163 “I’m not always . . . stalling him”: Ibid.

  164 “ten seconds”: Kris De Bot, interview with author, via telephone, April 24, 2009.

  164 “Notarbartolo, because he’s . . . burned his last bridge”: Patrick Peys, interview with author, in his office, Antwerp, September 23, 2008.