Almost Perfect: The Greatest Heists That Nearly Got Away

the air in the vault is cold still and smells of metal two stories underground behind a three ton steel door the silence is absolute no alarms no sirens just the soft rustle of velvet bags being filled more than 100 safe deposit boxes stand open their contents a river of diamonds gold and uncut jewels now belong to leonardo notar bartolo and his crew they have just defeated 10 separate layers of the most sophisticated security on earth this is not a robbery this is a masterpiece of contempt last week we saw how the bad grandpas of hatton garden nearly pulled off a major score with brute force and a heavy drill this

was something else entirely this was patience the plan began almost three years earlier in the year 2000 noto bartolo a charming italian with the easy confidence of a seasoned jeweler rented a small anonymous office inside the antwerp world diamond center he wasn't just casing the joint he was becoming part of the scenery for years he played the role of a legitimate trader gaining trust observing routines and using a tiny camera hidden in a pen to photograph the vault and its surroundings he and his team a handpicked crew of italian specialists built an exact replica of the vault to practice in they identified every layer of security and for every layer they devised a counter the

doppler radar and thermal sensors inside the vault they'd be blinded with you know a simple can of hairspray the magnetic alarm on the door bypassed with a custom made aluminum shield the lock itself with its 100,000,000 possible combinations they had a key a duplicate which they had filmed months before the sheer painstaking audacity is something to behold they didn't just break the rules they studied the rule book until they found a way to make the rules completely irrelevant on the night of 02/15/2003 they put the plan in motion they walked away with an estimated $100,000,000 not a single alarm was triggered the break in wasn't discovered until monday morning when guards found the vault door

standing wide open by then the thieves were ghosts it was for all intents and purposes the perfect crime and then came the panic after the heist the crew gathered to celebrate and burn the incriminating evidence but one of them a man named ferdinando fanato grew anxious he was supposed to burn his share of the trash but instead he just wanted to get away he threw his bags into the back of his car and drove on a public road outside antwerp he got sloppy he dumped the trash two large bags in a ditch a local landowner annoyed by the illegal dumping called the police inside those bags officers found discarded security passes for the diamond center they found empty video tapes from the heist and on a half eaten salami sandwich they found leonardo

notarbartolo's dna the thread had been pulled the most intricate heist in modern history was unraveled by a piece of garbage and a nervous accomplice notar bardolo was arrested three of his team were caught and sentenced the fifth man the lock picking artist known only as the king of keys was never identified he vanished and the diamonds they vanished too a few were recovered but the vast majority tens of millions of dollars worth were never ever seen again the perfect plan was undone by a moment of human weakness but the legend of the crime and the deep glittering mystery of that missing fortune remains perfectly intact