WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.879 Okay, I want you to picture a fortress. But I 00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:06.099 don't mean the old school kind, you know, with 00:00:06.099 --> 00:00:09.160 stone walls and a moat. Right, no alligators. 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:11.599 No alligators, exactly. I mean a modern, sort 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:16.019 of claustrophobic, technological fortress. We're 00:00:16.019 --> 00:00:18.280 going to the Antwerp Diamond Center in Belgium, 00:00:18.379 --> 00:00:21.839 and this place, it isn't just a building. It's 00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:25.280 more like the heart of the entire global diamond 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:27.780 trade. It really is. It's kind of the bank for 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:29.600 the banks. If you were to walk down the main 00:00:29.600 --> 00:00:31.739 street there, the Pelican Strut, you're walking 00:00:31.739 --> 00:00:34.920 through probably the most capital -dense square 00:00:34.920 --> 00:00:37.759 mile on the entire planet. Wow. Billions, literally 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:40.700 billions of dollars in loose stones, gold securities. 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:43.560 It all moves through just a few city blocks every 00:00:43.560 --> 00:00:45.719 year. And right in the middle of all that, two 00:00:45.719 --> 00:00:49.000 floors underground, is the Halt. Now, when I 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.119 was reading through the sources for this deep 00:00:51.119 --> 00:00:53.060 dive, I kept trying to get my head around just 00:00:53.060 --> 00:00:55.960 the sheer intimidation factor of this thing. 00:00:56.060 --> 00:00:58.060 This wasn't just a locked door. It was a security 00:00:58.060 --> 00:01:01.299 system designed to be, I don't know. It was built 00:01:01.299 --> 00:01:03.840 to basically scream at you, don't even bother. 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:07.500 We're talking about a lock with 100 million possible 00:01:07.500 --> 00:01:11.780 combinations. 100 million. Then you've got seismic 00:01:11.780 --> 00:01:14.359 sensors, Doppler radar, infrared heat detectors, 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:18.170 magnetic fields. It honestly reads like the spec 00:01:18.170 --> 00:01:20.370 sheet for a missile silo, not a place that holds 00:01:20.370 --> 00:01:23.030 jewelry. It's a concept in security we call defense 00:01:23.030 --> 00:01:25.609 in depth. And the whole idea is that you don't 00:01:25.609 --> 00:01:28.370 just rely on one big lock. You have these overlapping 00:01:28.370 --> 00:01:31.810 layers of surveillance, and each layer is designed 00:01:31.810 --> 00:01:33.750 to cover the blind spots of the one before it. 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:37.420 So it's designed to defeat not just, you know, 00:01:37.420 --> 00:01:41.060 a sledgehammer brute force, but also really sophisticated 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:44.280 technical attacks. It was, for all intents and 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:46.379 purposes, considered completely impenetrable. 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:48.140 The insurance companies thought so. The security 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:50.659 firms that built it. Exactly. Everyone. And yet. 00:01:50.989 --> 00:01:53.510 That word impenetrable. It's almost like a dare 00:01:53.510 --> 00:01:55.329 in this world, isn't it? It's like waving a red 00:01:55.329 --> 00:01:58.489 flag. It is. Because on this one quiet weekend, 00:01:58.670 --> 00:02:01.409 February 2003, all that arrogance just got completely 00:02:01.409 --> 00:02:04.689 checked hard. A crew of Italian thieves. They 00:02:04.689 --> 00:02:06.489 didn't just break in. They sort of surgically 00:02:06.489 --> 00:02:08.990 dismantled the whole system. They walked into 00:02:08.990 --> 00:02:11.770 that vault and then walked out with over $100 00:02:11.770 --> 00:02:15.050 million in loot. And the thing that just blows 00:02:15.050 --> 00:02:17.229 my mind, and we're going to spend a lot of time 00:02:17.229 --> 00:02:19.969 on this today, is how they did it. They didn't 00:02:19.969 --> 00:02:22.650 use C4. They didn't do some Hollywood -style 00:02:22.650 --> 00:02:25.210 rappel down an elevator shaft. No, nothing like 00:02:25.210 --> 00:02:27.509 that. They used hairspray. They used styrofoam. 00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:29.930 They used tape. It is a complete masterclass 00:02:29.930 --> 00:02:33.370 in lateral thinking. They looked at this multimillion 00:02:33.370 --> 00:02:36.129 -dollar digital security grid and found all the 00:02:36.129 --> 00:02:38.169 analog loopholes. But, and you know, there's 00:02:38.169 --> 00:02:41.569 always a but in these stories. For all that genius, 00:02:41.669 --> 00:02:44.150 for all of the incredible precision, they were 00:02:44.150 --> 00:02:46.449 brought down by something so ridiculously stupid, 00:02:46.590 --> 00:02:48.849 so mundane, that it almost hurts to talk about. 00:02:48.939 --> 00:02:52.419 The contrast is just it's jarring. You've got 00:02:52.419 --> 00:02:54.400 this Einstein level planning on a Friday and 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:57.139 then a Three Stooges level mistake on Monday. 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:00.780 Exactly. So that's our mission for this deep 00:03:00.780 --> 00:03:03.180 dive. We've got the police reports, the court 00:03:03.180 --> 00:03:06.259 docs, the investigative journalism. We're going 00:03:06.259 --> 00:03:08.719 to dissect the heist of the century. We really 00:03:08.719 --> 00:03:11.280 need to understand the mechanics of how this 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:13.719 crew, the school of Turin, pulled it off. And 00:03:13.719 --> 00:03:15.680 then we need to get into the psychology of the 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:18.539 crash. But let's start with the target itself. 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:21.020 Help me understand what they were actually walking 00:03:21.020 --> 00:03:24.139 into because vault is such a generic word. Paint 00:03:24.139 --> 00:03:26.560 me a picture of the physical space. Okay, so 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:28.659 to really get the difficulty, you have to understand 00:03:28.659 --> 00:03:31.240 the geography first. The Antwerp Diamond Center 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:35.789 is at 9 -11 Shipstrat. The vault itself is two 00:03:35.789 --> 00:03:38.250 levels below the street. Two floors down. Two 00:03:38.250 --> 00:03:40.990 floors down. Yeah. And that alone is a massive 00:03:40.990 --> 00:03:43.449 deterrent. It immediately removes the possibility 00:03:43.449 --> 00:03:46.610 of a ram raid. You can't just drive a truck through 00:03:46.610 --> 00:03:48.990 the wall because the wall is backed by tons and 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:50.689 tons of Belgian earth. Right. So you have to 00:03:50.689 --> 00:03:52.250 go down. You can't go through. You've got to 00:03:52.250 --> 00:03:55.030 enter the building's own ecosystem. Precisely. 00:03:55.210 --> 00:03:57.430 And once you're down there, you face the vault 00:03:57.430 --> 00:04:01.080 door. And this thing is a beast. It's basically 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:04.020 a massive steel plug. And like you said, it had 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:07.099 that combination lock with 100 million variations. 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:09.259 Let's just pause on that number for a second. 00:04:09.379 --> 00:04:12.580 100 million. It's staggering. If you tried one 00:04:12.580 --> 00:04:15.400 combination every single second, 2047, no sleep, 00:04:15.580 --> 00:04:17.699 it would take you more than three years to try 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:20.000 them all. So guessing is out. Brute force with 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.379 a computer is out. Completely out. You just don't 00:04:22.379 --> 00:04:25.779 have that kind of time on a weekend. The door 00:04:25.779 --> 00:04:28.139 is just the physical part. The real problem for 00:04:28.139 --> 00:04:30.759 any thief is the electronic nervous system protecting 00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:33.180 it. The sensors. The sensors. And this is where 00:04:33.180 --> 00:04:35.379 the story really shifts from being about thieves 00:04:35.379 --> 00:04:38.339 to being about engineers. Let's do it. I want 00:04:38.339 --> 00:04:39.939 to get into the weeds here because the sources 00:04:39.939 --> 00:04:41.800 list all these sensors, but I want to know how 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:44.040 they actually work. Let's start with that magnetic 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.939 field. The reports say there was a magnetic field 00:04:46.939 --> 00:04:49.579 on the vault door. What does that even mean? 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:52.839 Is it like a sci -fi force field? Eh, not quite, 00:04:52.959 --> 00:04:56.399 but almost as effective. It's based on what's 00:04:56.399 --> 00:04:59.819 called a B -stable switch mechanism. So think 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:02.939 of it like this. You have two very heavy -duty 00:05:02.939 --> 00:05:05.879 metal plates. One is mounted on the door, the 00:05:05.879 --> 00:05:08.519 other on the door frame. When the door is closed, 00:05:08.759 --> 00:05:11.480 these plates are just millimeters apart. When 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:14.060 the alarm system is armed, a powerful magnetic 00:05:14.060 --> 00:05:16.720 field is generated between them, locking them 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:18.980 together conceptually. So they're kind of magnetically 00:05:18.980 --> 00:05:21.639 talking to each other. Exactly. And the system 00:05:21.639 --> 00:05:23.740 is constantly monitoring that magnetic bond. 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:27.019 If the bond is broken, say, because the door 00:05:27.019 --> 00:05:30.139 opens even a tiny bit, the circuit trips and 00:05:30.139 --> 00:05:32.819 the alarm goes off. But what if you just, I don't 00:05:32.819 --> 00:05:35.180 know, cut the wire to the sensor? Ah, that's 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:37.079 the clever part. In a movie, yeah, that might 00:05:37.079 --> 00:05:39.860 work. But in a high -end system like this, no 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:42.339 way. Why not? If you cut the wire, the signal 00:05:42.339 --> 00:05:44.699 stops. Doesn't that just kill the alarm? You'd 00:05:44.699 --> 00:05:46.699 think so, but these systems use something called 00:05:46.699 --> 00:05:49.800 end -of -line resistors. The alarm panel is constantly 00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:52.160 sending a tiny electrical pulse down the wire 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:55.060 to check if the sensor is still there. It's expecting 00:05:55.060 --> 00:05:57.060 a very specific amount of electrical resistance 00:05:57.060 --> 00:05:59.800 coming back. A handshake, basically. It's a constant 00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:03.160 handshake. If you cut the wire, the resistance 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:06.500 goes to infinity. The alarm screams. If you try 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:08.959 to short the wires together to bypass it, the 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:11.360 resistance drops to zero. The alarm screams. 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:14.220 It needs to see that one. Very specific, steady 00:06:14.220 --> 00:06:17.060 value. So you can't cut it and you can't hotwire 00:06:17.060 --> 00:06:19.879 it. You somehow have to maintain that perfect 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:22.860 magnetic field while physically moving the door 00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:27.040 that's creating the field. That sounds impossible. 00:06:27.779 --> 00:06:29.660 It should be. And that's just the first layer. 00:06:29.740 --> 00:06:31.579 Let's say just hypothetically you defeat the 00:06:31.579 --> 00:06:33.699 magnet and you get the door open. You're now 00:06:33.699 --> 00:06:35.740 standing in a little room just before the vault, 00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:37.939 the anti -chamber. Okay. You are immediately 00:06:37.939 --> 00:06:40.579 hit by the seismic sensors. And these are just 00:06:40.579 --> 00:06:42.500 listening for vibrations. Yep, they're what are 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:45.060 called piezoelectric sensors, and they're embedded 00:06:45.060 --> 00:06:47.240 right into the concrete floor and the walls. 00:06:47.579 --> 00:06:49.660 They can detect the high -frequency vibrations 00:06:49.660 --> 00:06:52.699 from drilling, hammering, even a thermal lance. 00:06:53.100 --> 00:06:55.180 Honestly, if you draw out a wrench, the floor 00:06:55.180 --> 00:06:56.959 hears it. So you have to be lighter than air. 00:06:57.139 --> 00:06:58.879 And even if you manage that, you've still got 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:01.560 the Doppler radar. Right, Doppler. I know that 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:03.259 from the Weather Channel. It's tracking rain 00:07:03.259 --> 00:07:06.139 clouds. What's it doing inside a diamond vault? 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:08.569 It's the same principle. Just a different application. 00:07:08.829 --> 00:07:11.810 It's a volumetric sensor, so it floods the entire 00:07:11.810 --> 00:07:14.850 room with radio waves, usually microwave or ultrasonic 00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:17.670 frequencies. These waves bounce off the walls, 00:07:17.810 --> 00:07:21.189 the floor, the ceiling, and they return to the 00:07:21.189 --> 00:07:23.529 sensor. The sensor then measures the frequency 00:07:23.529 --> 00:07:25.870 of that return signal. The Doppler shift, like 00:07:25.870 --> 00:07:28.850 when an ambulance siren changes pitch as it drives 00:07:28.850 --> 00:07:31.329 past you? Exactly like that. If the room is empty, 00:07:31.470 --> 00:07:33.329 the frequency of the waves comes back unchanged. 00:07:33.470 --> 00:07:37.009 It's static. But if an object, say a thief, moves 00:07:37.009 --> 00:07:39.670 into that field, the waves bounce off that moving 00:07:39.670 --> 00:07:42.589 object. The movement compresses the waves, which 00:07:42.589 --> 00:07:45.170 changes their frequency. The sensor detects that 00:07:45.170 --> 00:07:48.170 tiny shift and triggers the alarm. Wow. So it 00:07:48.170 --> 00:07:50.110 doesn't matter if you're silent. It doesn't matter 00:07:50.110 --> 00:07:51.629 if you're floating. If you have mass and you 00:07:51.629 --> 00:07:53.410 move, you're displacing waves. You can't hide 00:07:53.410 --> 00:07:55.250 from radio waves. You really can't. And we're 00:07:55.250 --> 00:07:57.430 still not done. Yeah. After that, you've got 00:07:57.430 --> 00:07:59.709 the infrared detectors. Heat sensors. Passive 00:07:59.709 --> 00:08:03.240 infrared sensors, or... PIRs. They're not projecting 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:04.899 anything. They're just looking for black body 00:08:04.899 --> 00:08:09.139 radiation. Heat. The vault is a cold room. You 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:11.899 know, it's all steel and concrete. A human being 00:08:11.899 --> 00:08:14.420 is basically a 98 .6 degree radiator walking 00:08:14.420 --> 00:08:17.220 around. You step in there. And to that sensor, 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:19.360 you look like a flare gun going off in a pitch 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:21.939 black cave. Okay, let me just recap this nightmare 00:08:21.939 --> 00:08:24.160 scenario for a thief. You've got a lock with 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:26.519 100 million codes. You have a magnetic seal you 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:28.300 can't break without tripping a very sensitive 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:31.100 circuit. The floors can feel you drop a pin. 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:33.840 There's radar that sees you move and thermal 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:36.980 eyes that see your body heat. And on top of all 00:08:36.980 --> 00:08:39.039 that, there's a private security force in the 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:40.840 building and a police station right around the 00:08:40.840 --> 00:08:43.269 corner. Correct. It's a system designed... on 00:08:43.269 --> 00:08:45.610 paper, to be absolutely perfect. And yet this 00:08:45.610 --> 00:08:48.669 guy, Leonardo Notarbartolo, and his team, they 00:08:48.669 --> 00:08:50.730 looked at this insane list of specs and just 00:08:50.730 --> 00:08:53.330 said, yeah, we can take that. So that brings 00:08:53.330 --> 00:08:56.370 us to the man himself. Who is this guy? Because 00:08:56.370 --> 00:08:58.509 he doesn't strike me as a brute force kind of 00:08:58.509 --> 00:09:01.529 criminal. No, not at all. Notarbartolo was a 00:09:01.529 --> 00:09:04.169 career thief, but he had a very specific style. 00:09:04.389 --> 00:09:08.159 He was a charmer. He was a salesman. In the world 00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:11.720 of heists, we kind of differentiate between technical 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:15.360 hacking and social engineering. Notar Bartolo 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:18.120 was an absolute grandmaster of social engineering. 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:20.879 The long con. The longest con. I mean, most heist 00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:23.639 crews will case a joint for a week, maybe a month 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:26.039 if they're really careful. Notar Bartolo rented 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:28.559 an office in the Diamond Center two and a half 00:09:28.559 --> 00:09:31.139 years before the robbery. Two and a half years. 00:09:31.259 --> 00:09:34.080 That is just, it's incredible discipline. Think 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:36.580 about the overhead. paying rent in the Antwerp 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:38.820 Diamond District just to maintain a cover story. 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:41.340 It was a long -term investment. And by renting 00:09:41.340 --> 00:09:43.940 that office at 9 -11 Shoopstrite, he bought himself 00:09:43.940 --> 00:09:46.139 a whole new identity. He wasn't some suspicious 00:09:46.139 --> 00:09:48.759 Italian guy loitering in the lobby. He was Mr. 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:51.340 Notar Bartolo, a respectable diamond merchant. 00:09:51.480 --> 00:09:53.340 He had a tenant ID card. He had a key to the 00:09:53.340 --> 00:09:55.340 front door. He had a legitimate reason to be 00:09:55.340 --> 00:09:57.159 there at all hours of the day and night. And 00:09:57.159 --> 00:09:59.340 that kind of access is what kills a security 00:09:59.340 --> 00:10:01.440 culture, isn't it? Because once you're seen as 00:10:01.440 --> 00:10:05.179 one of us, people just stop looking at you. That's 00:10:05.179 --> 00:10:07.980 it exactly, the gray man theory. You just become 00:10:07.980 --> 00:10:10.000 part of the background radiation of the building. 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:12.639 He'd say hello to the guards every morning. He'd 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:14.740 complain about the weather. He'd grab a coffee. 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:17.399 He established a pattern of behavior that was 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:21.519 so boring, so utterly predictable, that he became 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:23.779 invisible. But he wasn't just drinking coffee 00:10:23.779 --> 00:10:26.399 and making small talk. He was using that access 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:29.399 to do some very serious reconnaissance. Oh, absolutely. 00:10:29.639 --> 00:10:32.350 He was mapping the place in his head. And because 00:10:32.350 --> 00:10:34.730 he had a rented office, he was also entitled 00:10:34.730 --> 00:10:38.090 to a safe deposit box inside the vault. The Trojan 00:10:38.090 --> 00:10:40.070 horse. That was his Trojan horse. It gave him 00:10:40.070 --> 00:10:42.090 a legitimate reason to walk into the vault area 00:10:42.090 --> 00:10:45.250 again and again and again over months, over years. 00:10:45.590 --> 00:10:48.509 So he's inside the belly of the beast. What's 00:10:48.509 --> 00:10:50.950 he looking for on these visits? Everything. He's 00:10:50.950 --> 00:10:52.870 clocking the guard shift changes. He's looking 00:10:52.870 --> 00:10:55.269 at where the security cameras are pointed. And 00:10:55.269 --> 00:10:57.190 more importantly, where they aren't pointed. 00:10:57.669 --> 00:11:00.090 He's timing how long it takes for the vault door 00:11:00.090 --> 00:11:03.279 to close. But there was one piece of data he 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:05.659 just couldn't get by watching. He needed the 00:11:05.659 --> 00:11:08.019 combination to the vault. And you can't just 00:11:08.019 --> 00:11:09.720 stand over the guard's shoulder and watch him 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:11.899 dial in the code. That's way too obvious. Way 00:11:11.899 --> 00:11:14.820 too obvious. So they turned to technology. And 00:11:14.820 --> 00:11:17.340 this is one of those details that sounds like 00:11:17.340 --> 00:11:19.580 it's straight out of a movie. But the police 00:11:19.580 --> 00:11:22.419 evidence confirms it happened. They decided they 00:11:22.419 --> 00:11:25.080 needed to install a camera inside the antechamber, 00:11:25.139 --> 00:11:27.340 positioned right above the vault door. Okay, 00:11:27.379 --> 00:11:29.940 but this is 2003. Cameras weren't exactly microscopic 00:11:29.940 --> 00:11:32.059 yet. And how do you power it? How do you get 00:11:32.059 --> 00:11:33.720 the footage? You can't just run an extension 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.740 cord down the hallway. No. And this is where 00:11:36.740 --> 00:11:39.720 the real ingenuity comes in. They built a custom 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.559 surveillance unit inside a fire extinguisher. 00:11:42.580 --> 00:11:45.720 A fire extinguisher? A standard red industrial 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:48.659 fire extinguisher. They hollowed it out. Inside, 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.240 they mounted a tiny high -resolution pinhole 00:11:51.240 --> 00:11:54.159 camera and a transmitter. They just walked in, 00:11:54.279 --> 00:11:56.379 swapped the real extinguisher on the wall for 00:11:56.379 --> 00:11:58.759 their spy extinguisher, and mounted it right 00:11:58.759 --> 00:12:01.460 near the vault's combination wheel. That is unbelievably 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:03.720 bold. I mean, what if there was a fire? Hey, 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:06.919 then the jig is up. But it was a calculated risk. 00:12:07.100 --> 00:12:10.039 The camera was perfectly positioned to look down 00:12:10.039 --> 00:12:12.860 at the dial of the combination lock. So every 00:12:12.860 --> 00:12:14.899 time the guards opened the vault, they'd spin 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:17.179 the wheel, and the camera would record the sequence. 00:12:17.500 --> 00:12:19.759 But wait, you said the combination has 100 million 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:22.470 possibilities. Even if you can see the numbers, 00:12:22.590 --> 00:12:24.990 isn't the precision required to dial it in incredibly 00:12:24.990 --> 00:12:27.690 high? It is. The camera probably didn't give 00:12:27.690 --> 00:12:29.929 them the exact code down to the last micron. 00:12:30.330 --> 00:12:32.950 But what it did was narrow the field significantly. 00:12:33.470 --> 00:12:36.309 It gave them the sequence of turns. Left three 00:12:36.309 --> 00:12:38.789 times, right two times, left again. It gave them 00:12:38.789 --> 00:12:40.950 the rough stopping points. So it turned a one 00:12:40.950 --> 00:12:44.679 in a hundred million problem. into maybe a 1 00:12:44.679 --> 00:12:48.000 in 10 problem, which a truly skilled safecracker 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:50.340 can work with. Okay, so Notar Bertolo provides 00:12:50.340 --> 00:12:53.139 the access and the intel, but he's not the one 00:12:53.139 --> 00:12:55.000 who's going to be bypassing the Doppler radar. 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:58.500 He needs a team, and the team he built, I just 00:12:58.500 --> 00:13:00.679 love the name the police gave them, the School 00:13:00.679 --> 00:13:03.419 of Turin. It sounds like a Renaissance art collective, 00:13:03.419 --> 00:13:06.480 doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. But these guys 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:08.580 were artisans of a completely different kind. 00:13:09.429 --> 00:13:11.409 Let's break down the roster because the level 00:13:11.409 --> 00:13:13.830 of specialization here is fascinating. It wasn't 00:13:13.830 --> 00:13:16.389 just, you know, five guys with crowbars. It was 00:13:16.389 --> 00:13:19.230 a surgical team. Absolutely. First, you have 00:13:19.230 --> 00:13:22.870 the guy they nicknamed the genius. Elio Denorio. 00:13:22.970 --> 00:13:25.690 Right. Police are pretty sure this was Elio Denorio. 00:13:26.009 --> 00:13:28.429 And his nickname wasn't ironic. The guy was an 00:13:28.429 --> 00:13:32.490 electronics wizard. He specialized in alarm bypasses. 00:13:32.490 --> 00:13:34.269 He didn't just know how to cut wires. He understood 00:13:34.269 --> 00:13:36.129 the logic boards, the resistance values, the 00:13:36.129 --> 00:13:38.409 frequencies of the sensors. He'd been linked 00:13:38.409 --> 00:13:40.570 to other sophisticated robberies where alarms 00:13:40.570 --> 00:13:43.649 were just disabled without ever triggering. He 00:13:43.649 --> 00:13:45.809 was the guy who had to defeat that whole electronic 00:13:45.809 --> 00:13:48.090 nervous system we talked about. Then you have 00:13:48.090 --> 00:13:51.610 the monster, Ferdinando Finotto. Now, with a 00:13:51.610 --> 00:13:53.870 name like the monster, I'm picturing a brawler, 00:13:53.950 --> 00:13:57.549 you know. The muscle. And he was. He was a big, 00:13:57.549 --> 00:13:59.750 physically imposing guy, which is where the name 00:13:59.750 --> 00:14:02.129 came from. But he was also a master mechanic 00:14:02.129 --> 00:14:05.250 and a lockpicker. He was the hands of the operation. 00:14:05.929 --> 00:14:08.450 So while the genius was focused on the delicate 00:14:08.450 --> 00:14:11.250 circuitry, the monster was handling the physical 00:14:11.250 --> 00:14:14.049 barriers, the drilling, the cranking, all the 00:14:14.049 --> 00:14:17.029 heavy lifting. But don't underestimate his finesse. 00:14:17.129 --> 00:14:19.470 He was apparently an expert electrician, too. 00:14:19.809 --> 00:14:22.450 Then we have this almost mystical figure in the 00:14:22.450 --> 00:14:26.860 group. The king of keys. Irlegal key. Yeah. And 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:28.779 to this day, his identity is the most mysterious. 00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:31.440 He was an older man. His entire life's work was 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:33.879 the forgery of keys. And we're not talking about 00:14:33.879 --> 00:14:36.559 duplicating your house key at a hardware store. 00:14:36.679 --> 00:14:39.139 We're talking about forging these complex, double 00:14:39.139 --> 00:14:41.600 -bitted, three -dimensional vault keys from scratch, 00:14:41.860 --> 00:14:44.240 often just from photos or maybe an impression. 00:14:44.519 --> 00:14:46.899 And why was that so important? Because that massive 00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:49.059 vault door didn't just have a combination lock. 00:14:49.240 --> 00:14:52.990 It had a keyway. A huge physical key was required 00:14:52.990 --> 00:14:55.509 to retract the main locking bolts. You could 00:14:55.509 --> 00:14:57.710 have the correct code, but without that specific 00:14:57.710 --> 00:15:01.009 key, the door stays shut. The king of keys had 00:15:01.009 --> 00:15:04.169 to create a perfect replica of a key for a mechanism 00:15:04.169 --> 00:15:06.210 he had never actually seen or touched before 00:15:06.210 --> 00:15:08.210 the heist. That feels like a dying art form. 00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:11.490 It is. Digital security is taking over, but back 00:15:11.490 --> 00:15:14.549 in 2003, a master key forger was worth his weight 00:15:14.549 --> 00:15:17.870 in diamonds. Literally. And finally, we have 00:15:17.870 --> 00:15:22.750 Speedy. Pietro Tavano. Yeah. Noto Bartolo's old 00:15:22.750 --> 00:15:25.110 friend. And honestly, probably the weak link 00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:26.769 in the chain. The name Speedy makes me think 00:15:26.769 --> 00:15:28.610 of a getaway driver, someone fast on their feet. 00:15:28.750 --> 00:15:32.289 Or someone who's high as strung. Tavano was anxious. 00:15:32.450 --> 00:15:34.389 He was paranoid. He was a longtime friend of 00:15:34.389 --> 00:15:36.570 Noto Bartolo's, and he was brought in for logistics 00:15:36.570 --> 00:15:39.350 and muscle. But he just didn't have the icy veins 00:15:39.350 --> 00:15:41.370 of the other guys. And as we're going to see, 00:15:41.490 --> 00:15:44.009 his psychological fragility is what ultimately 00:15:44.009 --> 00:15:46.450 brings the whole house of cards down. Okay, so 00:15:46.450 --> 00:15:50.220 the team is set. The genius, the monster, the 00:15:50.220 --> 00:15:53.539 king of keys, Speedy, and Notre Bartolo, the 00:15:53.539 --> 00:15:56.480 architect. It's the weekend of February 15, 2003. 00:15:56.759 --> 00:15:58.919 The Diamond Center locks up for the weekend. 00:15:59.100 --> 00:16:02.100 The streets of Antwerp go quiet. And the operation 00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:04.600 begins. Walk us through the how. This is the 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:06.419 part I really want to visualize. They're at the 00:16:06.419 --> 00:16:08.259 outer perimeter. They get into the building, 00:16:08.340 --> 00:16:10.580 probably using Notre Bartolo's access card through 00:16:10.580 --> 00:16:12.980 a garage or a side entrance. Now they're facing 00:16:12.980 --> 00:16:15.179 those sensors. Let's go back to the hairspray. 00:16:15.629 --> 00:16:18.470 The genius is staring at a thermal and motion 00:16:18.470 --> 00:16:22.809 sensor. How does a can of, you know, hair product 00:16:22.809 --> 00:16:25.250 defeat a piece of high -tech surveillance? It's 00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:26.870 all about understanding the physics of the lens. 00:16:27.049 --> 00:16:29.370 The sensor sees the world through a special lens 00:16:29.370 --> 00:16:31.389 that allows infrared or visual light to pass 00:16:31.389 --> 00:16:33.990 through. So Nordea Bertolo, during one of his 00:16:33.990 --> 00:16:36.450 many reconnaissance visits, had managed to spray 00:16:36.450 --> 00:16:38.549 those sensors. Wait, wait, he did this before 00:16:38.549 --> 00:16:42.100 the heist? Yes. Weeks or months before. Imagine 00:16:42.100 --> 00:16:44.340 the nerve that takes. He's standing there in 00:16:44.340 --> 00:16:46.259 the hallway, maybe pretending to tie his shoe 00:16:46.259 --> 00:16:48.340 or clean his glasses, and he just gives the sensor 00:16:48.340 --> 00:16:51.080 a quick spritz. The hairspray dries clear. It 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:54.539 creates this very thin, transparent film over 00:16:54.539 --> 00:16:56.559 the lens. So the guards walking by would never 00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.940 see it. Never. Yeah. But that film has different 00:16:59.940 --> 00:17:02.679 refractive and insulative properties than the 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:05.329 air. It basically acts like a cataract on the 00:17:05.329 --> 00:17:07.990 sensor's eye. It blurs its vision. It doesn't 00:17:07.990 --> 00:17:09.930 blind it completely because that might trigger 00:17:09.930 --> 00:17:12.549 a tamper alarm, but it dulls the sensitivity 00:17:12.549 --> 00:17:15.349 just enough that it can't detect the subtle changes 00:17:15.349 --> 00:17:18.230 of a person moving in the dark. It just raises 00:17:18.230 --> 00:17:20.549 the threshold of what the sensor considers movement. 00:17:20.809 --> 00:17:22.930 So they essentially sedated the sensors. Okay, 00:17:23.049 --> 00:17:25.950 that gets them past the outer eyes. Now for the 00:17:25.950 --> 00:17:28.769 big boss battle, the magnetic field on the main 00:17:28.769 --> 00:17:30.609 vault door. We talked about how you can't cut 00:17:30.609 --> 00:17:32.490 the circuit, so how in the world do you open 00:17:32.490 --> 00:17:34.410 a door that is magnetically sealed to its own 00:17:34.410 --> 00:17:37.210 frame? This, to me, is the most brilliant part 00:17:37.210 --> 00:17:40.490 of the entire heist. The genius realized that 00:17:40.490 --> 00:17:43.869 the sensor isn't smart. It only detects the distance 00:17:43.869 --> 00:17:46.450 between the two plates. It doesn't actually know 00:17:46.450 --> 00:17:48.829 where those plates are in space, only that they're 00:17:48.829 --> 00:17:52.150 touching. Okay, I think I follow. So in the days 00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:55.150 leading up to the heist, again, using Notar Bartolo's 00:17:55.150 --> 00:17:57.930 legitimate access, they went in and tampered 00:17:57.930 --> 00:18:00.579 with the mounting bolts. They just slightly unscrew 00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:02.619 the bolts holding the magnetic plates to the 00:18:02.619 --> 00:18:05.420 door and the frame just enough so they were loose. 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:08.759 Wouldn't unscrewing a bolt on a vault door trigger 00:18:08.759 --> 00:18:11.480 a seismic sensor or some kind of tamper switch? 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:13.980 Normally, yes. But they did this during normal 00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:16.180 business hours when the seismic sensors are either 00:18:16.180 --> 00:18:19.059 turned off or set to a very low sensitivity because 00:18:19.059 --> 00:18:21.059 people are walking around all the time. Of course, 00:18:21.180 --> 00:18:23.940 hiding in the noise. Hiding in plain sight. So 00:18:23.940 --> 00:18:26.519 the bolts are loose. On the night of the heist, 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:28.980 they attach this custom -made aluminum brace 00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:31.519 to the two plates. They use heavy -duty double 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:34.119 -sided tape to stick the plates firmly to this 00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:37.420 brace. Then they fully unscrew the bolts. Ah, 00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:40.839 I think I see it now. The plates are now stuck 00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:43.039 to each other through the brace, but they are 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:45.640 no longer physically attached to the door. Correct. 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:48.730 They... essentially unplugged the sensor from 00:18:48.730 --> 00:18:51.569 the door but kept the circuit itself perfectly 00:18:51.569 --> 00:18:54.130 intact they just swung the plates still stuck 00:18:54.130 --> 00:18:56.269 together out of the way taped them to the wall 00:18:56.269 --> 00:18:59.069 and the alarm system was still reading door closed 00:18:59.069 --> 00:19:01.950 all secure because the two magnetic plates were 00:19:01.950 --> 00:19:03.890 still touching each other in that little aluminum 00:19:03.890 --> 00:19:07.710 embrace that is it's so simple it's terrifyingly 00:19:07.710 --> 00:19:09.549 simple they didn't hack the software they just 00:19:09.549 --> 00:19:11.730 physically moved the sensor so it couldn't know 00:19:11.730 --> 00:19:13.980 the door had moved they hacked the hardware It's 00:19:13.980 --> 00:19:16.660 a physical hack, not a digital one. So the magnetic 00:19:16.660 --> 00:19:19.539 seal is bypassed. They use the forged key from 00:19:19.539 --> 00:19:21.859 the King of Keys and the combination from the 00:19:21.859 --> 00:19:24.420 spy camera to unlock the door. They swing that 00:19:24.420 --> 00:19:27.220 massive steel slab open, but now they have to 00:19:27.220 --> 00:19:30.319 actually step inside. And inside, the air is 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:32.619 just buzzing with Doppler waves, and the room 00:19:32.619 --> 00:19:35.099 is being watched by infrared eyes. This is where 00:19:35.099 --> 00:19:37.500 the polystyrene comes into play. The styrofoam 00:19:37.500 --> 00:19:41.609 shield. Yes. Try to picture this. A grown man, 00:19:41.769 --> 00:19:44.269 probably the monster of the genius, is holding 00:19:44.269 --> 00:19:46.910 a large, rigid sheet of styrofoam in front of 00:19:46.910 --> 00:19:49.210 his body, and he starts walking into the pitch 00:19:49.210 --> 00:19:52.529 black vault. Why styrofoam specifically? Why 00:19:52.529 --> 00:19:55.630 not a piece of wood or plastic? It's about thermal 00:19:55.630 --> 00:19:58.130 emissivity. Styrofoam is an incredibly efficient 00:19:58.130 --> 00:20:01.210 insulator. It traps heat. So by holding that 00:20:01.210 --> 00:20:03.670 shield in front of him, the thief was effectively 00:20:03.670 --> 00:20:06.430 blocking his own body heat from radiating outward. 00:20:07.069 --> 00:20:09.269 toward the infrared sensor. To the sensor, the 00:20:09.269 --> 00:20:11.309 styrofoam just looks like the ambient temperature 00:20:11.309 --> 00:20:13.930 of the room. It's a thermal cloak of invisibility. 00:20:14.069 --> 00:20:16.910 OK, but what about the Doppler radar? The styrofoam 00:20:16.910 --> 00:20:19.390 still has mass. If he moves, the radar should 00:20:19.390 --> 00:20:21.769 ping him, right? This is where their deep knowledge 00:20:21.769 --> 00:20:24.829 of the specific sensor model comes in. Most Doppler 00:20:24.829 --> 00:20:27.569 sensors have known blind spots or specific sensitivity 00:20:27.569 --> 00:20:30.849 thresholds. By moving incredibly slowly, I mean... 00:20:31.399 --> 00:20:33.839 agonizingly slowly and probably hugging the walls 00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:36.259 where the wave reflection is less distinct. They 00:20:36.259 --> 00:20:38.400 managed to creep up on the sensors without triggering 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:40.880 them. So he just inches forward, hiding behind 00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:42.940 a piece of packing foam until he gets close enough 00:20:42.940 --> 00:20:45.279 to the sensor. And then what does he do? He just 00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:47.559 reaches up and tapes a piece of cardboard or 00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:49.839 another piece of styrofoam directly over the 00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:52.319 sensor's face. Once it's covered, it's blind. 00:20:52.539 --> 00:20:55.119 And just like that, the multi -million dollar 00:20:55.119 --> 00:20:58.420 high -tech fortress is completely offline. They 00:20:58.420 --> 00:21:01.230 turn on the lights. They were in. Now the fun 00:21:01.230 --> 00:21:03.970 begins, or I guess the hard work begins, because 00:21:03.970 --> 00:21:06.750 now they're standing in a room staring at 189 00:21:06.750 --> 00:21:09.750 locked safe deposit boxes. And they certainly 00:21:09.750 --> 00:21:12.650 didn't have the keys for those. No. And this 00:21:12.650 --> 00:21:15.630 is the part of the heist that is less Ocean's 00:21:15.630 --> 00:21:18.269 Eleven and a lot more construction site. Opening 00:21:18.269 --> 00:21:21.650 a safe deposit box without a key is just brutal 00:21:21.650 --> 00:21:24.400 physical work. They brought a custom -made tool 00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:26.420 with them. It was essentially a hand -cranked 00:21:26.420 --> 00:21:28.059 drill press that they could brace against the 00:21:28.059 --> 00:21:30.059 lockers. Explain how that worked. You attach 00:21:30.059 --> 00:21:31.819 it directly to the lock core. Then you start 00:21:31.819 --> 00:21:34.380 turning the crank. The device applies an immense 00:21:34.380 --> 00:21:36.359 amount of torque to the lock cylinder away, more 00:21:36.359 --> 00:21:39.119 than a human could, enough to physically shear 00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:41.200 the metal pins inside that are holding it shut. 00:21:41.380 --> 00:21:44.940 Pop. The lock breaks. You pull the box out. And 00:21:44.940 --> 00:21:47.019 they had to do this manually for every single 00:21:47.019 --> 00:21:51.029 box. Over and over and over again. Can you imagine 00:21:51.029 --> 00:21:53.170 the physical exertion? Your two floors underground, 00:21:53.650 --> 00:21:56.210 the air is stale, your adrenaline is pumping 00:21:56.210 --> 00:21:58.789 like crazy, but your muscles are burning. They 00:21:58.789 --> 00:22:04.150 managed to open 109 boxes. 109! That is a lot 00:22:04.150 --> 00:22:06.210 of cranking. It's an immense amount of labor. 00:22:06.410 --> 00:22:09.109 It suggests they were in that vault for hours, 00:22:09.269 --> 00:22:11.970 and they were just emptying the boxes onto the 00:22:11.970 --> 00:22:16.180 floor. Loose diamonds, gold, cash. bearer barns. 00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:19.099 The floor of the vault became this glittering 00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:21.559 sea of wealth. And they couldn't take it all. 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:23.839 No way. They physically couldn't carry it. They 00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:25.519 had to start cherry picking. They apparently 00:22:25.519 --> 00:22:28.559 left behind solid gold bars because they were 00:22:28.559 --> 00:22:30.799 just too heavy. They left silver. They were just 00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:33.119 sweeping loose diamonds into satchels. It must 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:35.369 have been a complete frenzy. So they pack up. 00:22:35.430 --> 00:22:37.549 They have what they believe is hundreds of millions 00:22:37.549 --> 00:22:40.309 of dollars in loose, untraceable stones. They 00:22:40.309 --> 00:22:42.450 clean up their gear for the most part. They grab 00:22:42.450 --> 00:22:44.549 the tapes from the building surveillance system 00:22:44.549 --> 00:22:46.690 so there's no video evidence of them coming or 00:22:46.690 --> 00:22:48.509 going. Which was smart. They took the actual 00:22:48.509 --> 00:22:51.349 VCR tapes. And they leave. They exit the building, 00:22:51.529 --> 00:22:55.490 get into their car, and drive back to Notar Bartolo's 00:22:55.490 --> 00:22:58.470 apartment in Antwerp. At this point, it's early 00:22:58.470 --> 00:23:02.069 Sunday morning. The crime is done. They're rich 00:23:02.069 --> 00:23:04.549 beyond their wildest dreams. They're free. They 00:23:04.549 --> 00:23:06.309 are. All they have to do now is drive back to 00:23:06.309 --> 00:23:09.569 Italy. Simple. And this, this is where the entire 00:23:09.569 --> 00:23:12.710 story just pivots on a dime. Because up until 00:23:12.710 --> 00:23:15.390 this very moment, they are criminal geniuses. 00:23:15.390 --> 00:23:18.730 They're legends. And then Speedy gets in the 00:23:18.730 --> 00:23:20.829 car. You know, the psychology of the getaway 00:23:20.829 --> 00:23:22.930 is a fascinating thing. You've just committed 00:23:22.930 --> 00:23:24.769 a crime that you know is going to be global news. 00:23:25.009 --> 00:23:27.690 Your heart rate is probably 140 beats per minute, 00:23:27.789 --> 00:23:30.549 and it just will not go down. The paranoia starts 00:23:30.549 --> 00:23:33.289 to set in. And speedy Pietro Tavano is just losing 00:23:33.289 --> 00:23:35.569 his mind. He is. He's holding this garbage bag. 00:23:35.670 --> 00:23:38.329 And inside that bag is all the evidence they 00:23:38.329 --> 00:23:40.849 couldn't leave behind. The used hairspray cans, 00:23:41.089 --> 00:23:43.329 the empty rolls of tape, sandwich wrappers from 00:23:43.329 --> 00:23:45.549 their break, the surveillance tapes they stole. 00:23:45.789 --> 00:23:47.750 The plan was to burn it. Right. Dispose of it 00:23:47.750 --> 00:23:50.640 properly. Or... weigh it down, and dump it in 00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:53.680 a deep river somewhere in France. Anywhere but 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.440 Belgium. But Speedy is looking at that bag and 00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:59.059 all he's thinking is, this is a beacon. If the 00:23:59.059 --> 00:24:01.259 cops pull us over for a broken taillight and 00:24:01.259 --> 00:24:04.119 find this bag, we are done. He starts begging 00:24:04.119 --> 00:24:05.819 Nodro Bartolo to get rid of it. Just get rid 00:24:05.819 --> 00:24:08.240 of it now. Pull over, dump it, right now. And 00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:10.640 Nodro Bartolo, maybe he's exhausted, maybe he's 00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:12.980 just trying to calm Speedy down. He makes the 00:24:12.980 --> 00:24:15.339 single worst decision of the entire operation. 00:24:15.940 --> 00:24:19.000 He pulls off the E19 motorway, the main highway 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:21.279 that runs from Antwerp to Brussels. This isn't 00:24:21.279 --> 00:24:24.079 some remote, desolate wilderness. This is a major 00:24:24.079 --> 00:24:26.640 European highway. It's a very densely populated 00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:28.640 corridor. They pull onto a little dirt track 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:30.720 near a small wooded area, and they just throw 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:32.579 the bags into the bushes. They littered. The 00:24:32.579 --> 00:24:35.220 greatest thieves in modern history, and their 00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:37.900 downfall was littering. It's pathetic. It really 00:24:37.900 --> 00:24:40.779 is. But it gets even worse. The patch of land 00:24:40.779 --> 00:24:42.940 they gumped it on belonged to a man named August 00:24:42.940 --> 00:24:45.890 van Kamp. Now, August wasn't a detective. He 00:24:45.890 --> 00:24:49.009 was just a retiree. And he had one major pet 00:24:49.009 --> 00:24:51.789 peeve. Let me guess. People dumping their trash 00:24:51.789 --> 00:24:54.230 on his property. Exactly. He was fighting this 00:24:54.230 --> 00:24:58.069 one -man war against local litterbugs. So he 00:24:58.069 --> 00:25:00.789 sees these trash bags the next morning. He is 00:25:00.789 --> 00:25:03.589 furious. He assumes it's just some local kids 00:25:03.589 --> 00:25:06.309 or a lazy neighbor. He goes out there, not to 00:25:06.309 --> 00:25:08.829 find evidence of a heist, but to find an address 00:25:08.829 --> 00:25:11.130 on an envelope so he can go yell at someone. 00:25:11.500 --> 00:25:13.759 He just wants to send a strongly worded letter. 00:25:13.900 --> 00:25:15.440 He wants to give someone a piece of his mind. 00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:18.660 So he rips open the bag. And he doesn't find 00:25:18.660 --> 00:25:21.500 kitchen scraps or old newspapers. He finds the 00:25:21.500 --> 00:25:24.440 shell of a video surveillance system. He finds 00:25:24.440 --> 00:25:26.740 envelopes stamped with the Antwerp Diamond Center 00:25:26.740 --> 00:25:29.880 logo. He finds spools of stripped videotape. 00:25:29.880 --> 00:25:32.500 Did he even know about the heist yet? No. That's 00:25:32.500 --> 00:25:34.900 the crazy part. The heist hadn't even been discovered 00:25:34.900 --> 00:25:37.549 yet. It was early Monday morning. The bank staff 00:25:37.549 --> 00:25:39.970 hadn't arrived to open the vault. August Van 00:25:39.970 --> 00:25:41.950 Camp calls the local police because he thinks 00:25:41.950 --> 00:25:44.369 maybe some kids stole the video camera from a 00:25:44.369 --> 00:25:46.609 shop. So the police come out to investigate a 00:25:46.609 --> 00:25:49.430 simple littering complaint. They do. And then, 00:25:49.450 --> 00:25:51.470 a little later that morning, the call comes in 00:25:51.470 --> 00:25:54.910 from the Diamond Center. We've been robbed. The 00:25:54.910 --> 00:25:58.009 police connect the dots almost immediately. Wait 00:25:58.009 --> 00:26:00.299 a second. We just found a bag full of Diamond 00:26:00.299 --> 00:26:02.900 Center envelopes out in the woods. That is just 00:26:02.900 --> 00:26:05.240 divine intervention levels of bad luck for the 00:26:05.240 --> 00:26:08.619 thieves. It's pure chaos theory. So the police 00:26:08.619 --> 00:26:11.180 recover all the trash. And for them, it's an 00:26:11.180 --> 00:26:13.259 absolute goldmine. It wasn't just equipment. 00:26:13.319 --> 00:26:15.799 It was a receipt for the surveillance system 00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:18.339 they'd bought. A receipt. You're kidding. A receipt. 00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:22.140 And while it wasn't in Noto Bartolo's name, it 00:26:22.140 --> 00:26:24.769 linked back to his immediate circle. But the 00:26:24.769 --> 00:26:27.109 real smoking gun, and I still can't believe we're 00:26:27.109 --> 00:26:30.190 saying this, was a sandwich. The infamous salami 00:26:30.190 --> 00:26:32.609 sandwich. A half -eaten salami sandwich found 00:26:32.609 --> 00:26:35.430 right there in the trash bag. Why? I mean, why 00:26:35.430 --> 00:26:37.069 would you put your half -eaten lunch in the evidence 00:26:37.069 --> 00:26:39.130 bag? Well, think about it. You're stuck in a 00:26:39.130 --> 00:26:41.730 vault for eight, maybe ten hours. You get hungry. 00:26:41.910 --> 00:26:44.490 You eat. You put the wrapper and the crust back 00:26:44.490 --> 00:26:47.150 in the bag to keep the vault clean. You're meticulous. 00:26:47.210 --> 00:26:50.529 You take the bag with you. And by 2003, DNA forensics 00:26:50.529 --> 00:26:53.190 were becoming pretty mainstream. They were. The 00:26:53.190 --> 00:26:55.569 Belgian police swabbed the sandwich. They got 00:26:55.569 --> 00:26:58.589 a clear DNA profile. They ran it through the 00:26:58.589 --> 00:27:01.049 European databases. And because Noto Bertolo 00:27:01.049 --> 00:27:03.130 had a minor criminal record from years before, 00:27:03.369 --> 00:27:06.269 they got a hit. Boom. Leonardo Noto Bertolo. 00:27:06.410 --> 00:27:08.950 The sandwich placed him right at the scene. Or 00:27:08.950 --> 00:27:11.049 at the very least, it placed his lunch in the 00:27:11.049 --> 00:27:13.529 getaway car. So the police know who he is. They 00:27:13.529 --> 00:27:16.170 have his name. But surely he's long gone. He's 00:27:16.170 --> 00:27:18.450 in Rio. He's in some non -extradition country 00:27:18.450 --> 00:27:21.740 living it up. You'd absolutely think so. But 00:27:21.740 --> 00:27:23.839 this is where the arrogance, that same arrogance 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:26.039 that built the vault, comes back to bite the 00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:28.700 thief. The heist was the weekend of the 15th. 00:27:29.259 --> 00:27:33.579 The trash is found on the 17th. On February 21st, 00:27:33.579 --> 00:27:36.920 just five days after the heist, Leonardo Noto 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:38.960 Bartolo shows up at the Antwerp Diamond Center. 00:27:39.140 --> 00:27:41.019 He goes back. He walks right up to the front 00:27:41.019 --> 00:27:43.740 desk. Why on God's green earth would he do that? 00:27:43.819 --> 00:27:45.789 We can only speculate. But remember the long 00:27:45.789 --> 00:27:48.369 con. He spent two and a half years meticulously 00:27:48.369 --> 00:27:50.809 building the persona of a legitimate diamond 00:27:50.809 --> 00:27:53.890 merchant. If he just vanishes the day after a 00:27:53.890 --> 00:27:55.990 massive heist, he's basically admitting guilt. 00:27:56.130 --> 00:27:59.470 He probably thought, if I show up, act shocked 00:27:59.470 --> 00:28:02.210 and outraged, ask about my own safe deposit box, 00:28:02.450 --> 00:28:04.650 I'll look like just another victim. He's trying 00:28:04.650 --> 00:28:06.569 to brazen it out. Oh my God, I've been robbed 00:28:06.569 --> 00:28:09.490 too. How could this happen? Precisely. He had 00:28:09.490 --> 00:28:11.430 no idea about the sandwich. He didn't know they'd 00:28:11.430 --> 00:28:13.890 found the trash. In his mind, he was completely 00:28:13.890 --> 00:28:16.619 clean. I would love to have seen the detectives' 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:20.200 faces. Can you imagine? Diamond Detective Squad 00:28:20.200 --> 00:28:22.440 is there, crawling all over the crime scene. 00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:25.500 And then the one man whose DNA was on a key piece 00:28:25.500 --> 00:28:28.660 of evidence just strolls into the lobby. It must 00:28:28.660 --> 00:28:30.619 have been the easiest arrest of their entire 00:28:30.619 --> 00:28:33.819 careers. Excuse me, sir. Is this your salami? 00:28:34.380 --> 00:28:36.740 Essentially, yes. They arrested him on the spot. 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:39.099 So the ringleader is caught. What about the rest 00:28:39.099 --> 00:28:41.460 of the school of Turin? The evidence from those 00:28:41.460 --> 00:28:43.759 trash bags helped drag them down. They found 00:28:43.759 --> 00:28:45.920 phone records, travel documents, all connected 00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:48.799 to Noto Bartolo. Eventually, they managed to 00:28:48.799 --> 00:28:52.160 catch Speedy, the monster, and the genius. The 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:55.180 King of Keys, however, remained a ghost. He just 00:28:55.180 --> 00:28:57.740 vanished. He was never conclusively identified 00:28:57.740 --> 00:29:00.339 or arrested. The old master, the analog man, 00:29:00.500 --> 00:29:04.299 he just slipped away. That feels... Right, somehow. 00:29:04.880 --> 00:29:08.779 The analog man escapes the digital dragnet. So 00:29:08.779 --> 00:29:10.779 they all go to trial. We're talking about a $100 00:29:10.779 --> 00:29:13.799 million heist. This is one of the biggest thefts 00:29:13.799 --> 00:29:15.759 in history. They must have gotten life sentences. 00:29:16.099 --> 00:29:18.359 You'd think so, wouldn't you? But this is Europe, 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:19.920 and at the end of the day, this was a property 00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:22.880 crime. There was no violence. No guns were used. 00:29:22.980 --> 00:29:25.059 No one was held hostage. So what's the damage 00:29:25.059 --> 00:29:28.220 from the court? Notar Bartolo got 10 years. 10 00:29:28.220 --> 00:29:32.019 years. For $100 million. The others, Speedy, 00:29:32.140 --> 00:29:34.319 the monster, and the genius, they each got five 00:29:34.319 --> 00:29:37.859 years. Five years for $100 million. That math 00:29:37.859 --> 00:29:40.180 is really disturbing. It is. It forces you to 00:29:40.180 --> 00:29:42.480 ask a very dangerous question. Is it worth it? 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:45.119 I mean, if you steal $100 million and serve five 00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:47.440 years, you're effectively earning $20 million 00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:50.460 a year to sit in a jail cell. That is a better 00:29:50.460 --> 00:29:53.640 salary than any CEO on the planet. That's the 00:29:53.640 --> 00:29:55.819 calculation they must have made. And that brings 00:29:55.819 --> 00:29:57.880 us to the biggest mystery of all in this case. 00:29:58.490 --> 00:30:00.869 The loot. The police have the trash. They have 00:30:00.869 --> 00:30:03.769 the thieves. Do they have the diamonds? Not a 00:30:03.769 --> 00:30:06.349 chance. They found some small amounts of cash 00:30:06.349 --> 00:30:09.589 and a few pieces of evidence. But the vast, vast 00:30:09.589 --> 00:30:12.849 majority of that haul, tens and tens of millions 00:30:12.849 --> 00:30:16.809 of dollars in uncut diamonds, has never, ever 00:30:16.809 --> 00:30:19.450 been recovered. So the money is still out there 00:30:19.450 --> 00:30:22.529 somewhere. It is. And this is what leads to all 00:30:22.529 --> 00:30:25.069 the theories. Notar Bartolo, after he was in 00:30:25.069 --> 00:30:27.569 prison, came out with this wild story. He gave 00:30:27.569 --> 00:30:30.190 a big interview to Wired magazine. He claimed 00:30:30.190 --> 00:30:33.150 the entire thing was a setup. A setup? By who? 00:30:33.349 --> 00:30:35.670 He claimed a Jewish diamond merchant hired him 00:30:35.670 --> 00:30:38.109 to rob the vault. He said the whole thing was 00:30:38.109 --> 00:30:40.730 a massive insurance fraud scheme. Rob us so we 00:30:40.730 --> 00:30:43.289 can claim the insurance money. That was his story. 00:30:43.470 --> 00:30:46.309 Oh. Notabartolo claimed that when they got into 00:30:46.309 --> 00:30:48.349 the vault and started opening the boxes, many 00:30:48.349 --> 00:30:50.319 of them were already empty. He said they only 00:30:50.319 --> 00:30:52.640 actually stole about $20 million worth of stuff 00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:55.200 and that the other $80 million was already stolen 00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:58.000 by the merchants themselves before the heist 00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:00.339 ever happened. That is a very convenient story 00:31:00.339 --> 00:31:03.019 for a convicted thief. I'm not the bad guy here. 00:31:03.160 --> 00:31:06.140 I was the patsy. It is. And frankly, it doesn't 00:31:06.140 --> 00:31:08.819 really hold up to scrutiny. Why not? On the surface, 00:31:08.940 --> 00:31:10.960 it sounds plausible. Insurance fraud happens 00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:13.680 all the time. It fails on the basic economics. 00:31:14.039 --> 00:31:17.079 I dug into this a bit. The Antwerp Diamond Center 00:31:17.079 --> 00:31:19.960 vault was not fully insured. In fact, it was 00:31:19.960 --> 00:31:23.480 barely insured at all. Wait, what? You put a 00:31:23.480 --> 00:31:25.220 billion dollars worth of goods in a basement 00:31:25.220 --> 00:31:27.400 and you don't insure it? Insurance companies 00:31:27.400 --> 00:31:30.059 are businesses, right? They assess risk. And 00:31:30.059 --> 00:31:32.779 insuring loose, untraceable stones in a vault 00:31:32.779 --> 00:31:36.160 that, despite all its fancy security, is a massive 00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:39.759 target. It's incredibly expensive. The premiums 00:31:39.759 --> 00:31:41.680 would completely wipe out the merchants' profits. 00:31:42.410 --> 00:31:44.829 Most of these diamond dealers are self -insured. 00:31:44.869 --> 00:31:47.490 They rely on the vault's security, not on an 00:31:47.490 --> 00:31:49.369 insurance policy. So if there's no big insurance 00:31:49.369 --> 00:31:51.609 policy, there's no motive for insurance fraud. 00:31:51.809 --> 00:31:54.009 Exactly. If the merchants stole their own diamonds, 00:31:54.089 --> 00:31:55.509 they would just be stealing from themselves. 00:31:55.829 --> 00:31:57.690 There was no big payout waiting for them. So 00:31:57.690 --> 00:32:00.740 Notre Bartolo was lying. Most likely he was trying 00:32:00.740 --> 00:32:03.039 to confuse the narrative. Or maybe he was trying 00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:04.920 to send a signal to his buyers, letting them 00:32:04.920 --> 00:32:06.859 know he hadn't ratted them out. So where are 00:32:06.859 --> 00:32:10.039 the diamonds? And that is the absolute genius 00:32:10.039 --> 00:32:12.799 of stealing diamonds. If you steal cash, it has 00:32:12.799 --> 00:32:15.119 serial numbers. If you steal a famous painting, 00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:16.900 everyone knows what the Mona Lisa looks like. 00:32:17.140 --> 00:32:20.640 But a raw, uncut diamond is just a rock. Until 00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:23.339 you cut it. Exactly. The professionals, and these 00:32:23.339 --> 00:32:25.180 guys were professionals, they would have had 00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:28.799 a fence. A buyer lined up long before the heist. 00:32:28.900 --> 00:32:30.839 They hand off the bags of stones immediately. 00:32:31.220 --> 00:32:34.259 The fence takes them to a cutting house. A five 00:32:34.259 --> 00:32:37.599 -carat rough diamond gets cut into two -carat 00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:40.200 polished diamonds. The shape changes. The weight 00:32:40.200 --> 00:32:42.720 changes. The entire identity of the stone is 00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:44.779 erased. So within a week of the heist, those 00:32:44.779 --> 00:32:46.640 diamonds could have been sitting in engagement 00:32:46.640 --> 00:32:50.140 rings in New York, Hong Kong, or Dubai, and nobody 00:32:50.140 --> 00:32:52.140 would ever know their origin. Precisely. The 00:32:52.140 --> 00:32:54.460 school of Turin likely handed off the goods to 00:32:54.460 --> 00:32:57.329 a... Russian or Israeli mob connection almost 00:32:57.329 --> 00:32:59.309 immediately. The money was wired to offshore 00:32:59.309 --> 00:33:01.869 accounts. By the time the police were swabbing 00:33:01.869 --> 00:33:04.250 that salami sandwich, the diamonds were already 00:33:04.250 --> 00:33:06.410 laundered and back in the global market. It's 00:33:06.410 --> 00:33:09.049 terrifyingly efficient. It really is. You know, 00:33:09.069 --> 00:33:11.369 when we look at a story like this, we see the 00:33:11.369 --> 00:33:14.289 movies, we think of Ocean's Eleven, we see the 00:33:14.289 --> 00:33:17.089 glamour. But when you really strip it all down, 00:33:17.210 --> 00:33:19.769 it's a story about the collision of two completely 00:33:19.769 --> 00:33:24.269 different worlds. You've got the cold, unfeeling, 00:33:24.269 --> 00:33:27.930 supposed perfection of the machine, the radar, 00:33:28.089 --> 00:33:31.230 the magnets, the steel. And then you have the 00:33:31.230 --> 00:33:34.369 messy, sweaty, anxious reality of the human being. 00:33:34.430 --> 00:33:36.349 That's the core of it right there. Yeah. The 00:33:36.349 --> 00:33:38.450 machine actually worked perfectly. The magnets 00:33:38.450 --> 00:33:41.190 did their job. The radar did its job. But the 00:33:41.190 --> 00:33:43.890 humans found a way to trick the machine. They 00:33:43.890 --> 00:33:47.849 use tape and hairspray. But then those very human 00:33:47.849 --> 00:33:51.369 flaws, hunger, anxiety, arrogance, that's what 00:33:51.369 --> 00:33:53.130 undid the humans. The machine didn't catch them. 00:33:53.150 --> 00:33:55.230 The sandwich got them. The human element is always, 00:33:55.289 --> 00:33:57.390 always the weakest link in any security chain. 00:33:57.529 --> 00:33:59.210 You can build the most perfect fortress in the 00:33:59.210 --> 00:34:01.069 world, but if the guy inside wants to eat some 00:34:01.069 --> 00:34:03.269 salami or he's too lazy to drive an extra hour 00:34:03.269 --> 00:34:05.329 to burn the trash, the whole fortress falls. 00:34:05.470 --> 00:34:08.090 It's a lesson for anyone in security, really. 00:34:08.210 --> 00:34:10.429 You aren't defending against robots. You're defending 00:34:10.429 --> 00:34:12.849 against people. And people are weird. People 00:34:12.849 --> 00:34:15.940 are messy. Noto Baratolo served his time. He 00:34:15.940 --> 00:34:18.840 got out. Then he got arrested again for not paying 00:34:18.840 --> 00:34:21.579 restitution to the victims. It's kind of Kafkaesque 00:34:21.579 --> 00:34:23.619 ending, isn't it? You couldn't pay them back 00:34:23.619 --> 00:34:25.039 because he claimed you didn't have the money. 00:34:25.099 --> 00:34:27.239 But if he did pay them back, he'd be admitting 00:34:27.239 --> 00:34:29.199 that he had the loot hidden somewhere. So he 00:34:29.199 --> 00:34:32.440 went back to jail. A catch -22. A total stalemate. 00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:34.840 He's out now, though. Yeah. Living in Italy. 00:34:35.599 --> 00:34:38.079 And, you know, presumably living a quiet life. 00:34:38.199 --> 00:34:40.679 Or digging up a very valuable box in his backyard. 00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:43.800 We can dream. This story has become such a legend. 00:34:43.880 --> 00:34:46.199 There are books, documentaries. I read J .J. 00:34:46.219 --> 00:34:49.179 Abrams wanted to make a movie at one point. Why 00:34:49.179 --> 00:34:51.320 do we love this story so much? Why do we find 00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.239 ourselves rooting for them just a little bit? 00:34:53.500 --> 00:34:55.539 I think it's because it was a victimless crime, 00:34:55.739 --> 00:34:58.139 at least in the violent sense. And it was an 00:34:58.139 --> 00:35:00.860 intellectual triumph. We love seeing the little 00:35:00.860 --> 00:35:03.079 guy, even if the little guy is a criminal, outsmart 00:35:03.079 --> 00:35:06.190 the big, bad, faceless system. The Diamond Center 00:35:06.190 --> 00:35:08.769 represented infinite wealth and infinite security. 00:35:09.409 --> 00:35:13.050 And seeing five guys dismantle it with household 00:35:13.050 --> 00:35:15.750 items, there's something deeply satisfying about 00:35:15.750 --> 00:35:18.730 that. It kind of validates our belief that human 00:35:18.730 --> 00:35:21.869 ingenuity can still beat technology, even if 00:35:21.869 --> 00:35:24.250 that ingenuity is, you know, used for theft. 00:35:24.550 --> 00:35:28.050 And let's be honest, the trash ending adds this 00:35:28.050 --> 00:35:30.710 layer of tragic irony that makes it feel like 00:35:30.710 --> 00:35:33.289 a Greek play or something. It wasn't the police 00:35:33.289 --> 00:35:35.610 who beat them. They beat themselves. So final 00:35:35.610 --> 00:35:38.730 verdict. Did they win? That is the provocative 00:35:38.730 --> 00:35:41.210 question I want to leave everyone with. Imagine 00:35:41.210 --> 00:35:44.469 you're offered a job and the job is this. Go 00:35:44.469 --> 00:35:47.269 to prison for five years. But the day you get 00:35:47.269 --> 00:35:49.429 out, there's a bank account waiting for you with 00:35:49.429 --> 00:35:52.769 $20 million in it, tax -free. Do you take that 00:35:52.769 --> 00:35:55.610 job? That is a very dark question. For a normal 00:35:55.610 --> 00:35:57.849 person, losing five years of your life, of your 00:35:57.849 --> 00:36:00.250 freedom, is a nightmare. But for a career professional 00:36:00.250 --> 00:36:03.070 thief, that might just be the cost of doing business. 00:36:03.309 --> 00:36:05.449 It's an overhead cost. If the money is waiting 00:36:05.449 --> 00:36:08.469 for them, then yeah. In a way, they won. They 00:36:08.469 --> 00:36:10.570 beat the system, they served the time, and they 00:36:10.570 --> 00:36:12.469 still kept the prize. And somewhere out there, 00:36:12.630 --> 00:36:15.219 maybe the king of keys. is sipping an espresso, 00:36:15.480 --> 00:36:18.460 smiling to himself, knowing he opened the unopenable 00:36:18.460 --> 00:36:21.300 door. And somewhere, August Van Cam is just happy 00:36:21.300 --> 00:36:23.780 that his woods are clean. Well, that's it for 00:36:23.780 --> 00:36:26.179 our deep dive into the Antwerp Diamond Heist, 00:36:26.179 --> 00:36:29.920 a story of genius, physics, and a very, very 00:36:29.920 --> 00:36:32.519 expensive lunch. Indeed. Next time you walk past 00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:34.699 a motion sensor or you see a fire extinguisher 00:36:34.699 --> 00:36:36.380 on the wall, maybe give it a second look. You 00:36:36.380 --> 00:36:39.719 never know what or who is inside. Thanks for 00:36:39.719 --> 00:36:42.400 listening. Stay curious and check your trash.