The World’s Biggest Diamond Heist

In 2003, Leonardo Notarbartolo and his associates broke through ten layers of security and helped themselves to a stash of diamonds in a vault below the Antwerp Diamond Center. The estimated value of the diamonds taken ranges from 12 million to over 100 million dollars. The loot has never been found, but Notarbartolo served a prison sentence in Belgium. He tells how he pulled off the heist, in an exclusive article that reads like a Hollywood film.

The guys took turns yanking the contents out. Since they had memorized the layout of the vault in the replica, they worked in the dark, turning on their flashlights only for split seconds—enough to position the drill over the next box.

But in those muffled flashes, they could glimpse their duffel bags overflowing with gold bars, millions in Israeli, Swiss, American, European, and British currencies, and leather satchels that contained the mother lode: rough and polished diamonds. They resisted the urge to examine their haul; they were running out of time.

Read the rest of the story at Wired. Link