The Antwerp Diamond Centre heist
Antwerp, Belgium, 2003
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
Over the weekend of 15 and 16 February 2003, thieves entered the vault of the Antwerp Diamond Centre, two floors below ground level, and broke open 109 of its 189 safe-deposit boxes. They took loose diamonds, gold, jewelry, cash and bonds worth more than 100 million dollars. The vault door had been opened with the key and the combination, with no forced entry.
The head of the group, the Italian Leonardo Notarbartolo, had rented an office in the building, which entitled him to a box in the vault, and spent more than two years preparing the job. The gang used hairspray to blind the heat and motion sensor, tape to cover the light sensor, a polystyrene board against the infrared and an aluminum plate to fool the magnetic lock.
Sources
In the game
The Antwerp Vault
A diamond exchange building in Antwerp, Monday, 7:10 am. The manager opened the basement vault door and found one hundred and twelve safe-deposit boxes broken open and empty.
The mistake came afterward: the robbery's rubbish was dumped in a wood near the E19 motorway, and the landowner called the police the next morning. Remains of a salami sandwich yielded the DNA that tied Notarbartolo to the crime, and he was arrested on 21 February, on returning to the building. He was sentenced to ten years in prison; most of the stones were never found.
