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Antwerp, Belgium, 2001. A 49-year-old Italian man sips espresso by the window of a small cafe. He smiles and watches as billions of dollars move up and down the street.
Hasidic Jewish men tote leather bags full of priceless gems. Traders from India move cash and stones into armored trucks. Africans in bright blue suits watch their bank accounts roll up and up and up. The bell rings. A Jewish diamond dealer enters the cafe. He sits across from our Italian man. "I want to talk to you about something a little unusual," the dealer says. The Italian's ears perk back.
the dealer has his full attention. Leonardo Notar Bartolo is a world-class thief. His weapons of choice, charm and detail. He lived in a world of corruption and backdoor deals. It's a small square mile block in Antwerp, Belgium, known as the Diamond District. 85% of the world's uncut diamonds move through this tiny district. In one year, over $50 billion will flow through the area,
We're talking pure cash and precious stones. The diamond district overflows with legal profits, but diamonds have a way of corrupting even the purest of hearts. According to the New York Times, Antwerp diamond traders have been caught laundering money, committing tax fraud, and cheating on customs when trading. Ironically, the diamond business is extremely murky. It's estimated that 75% of trade is conducted under the table.
That means customers pay cash, and dealers don't report their earnings. If someone sells $25 million worth of legitimate goods, they likely moved another $75 million on the hush-hush. Leonardo lived in a den of greed. Some moral compasses were simply more skewed than others. With Leonardo's interest piqued, the diamond dealer suggested they walk and talk outside. Once they cleared any wandering ears, the dealer said,
I'd like to hire you for a robbery. A big robbery." The target was a vault in the Antwerp Diamond Center, one of the largest allocations of wealth on Earth. Its door was impregnable. Its security was top-notch. The diamond dealer asked, "Can it be robbed?" Leonardo grinned and said, "I'll find out." Part 1: Man and the Mafia The Notar Bartolo name is intrinsically tied to the Sicilian Mafia.
Their crest dates back to the 10th century, when Bartolo of Andernach was governor of Pisa, Italy, and secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I. Upon his death, his son Lucino took his place. He was known as Lucin de Notar Bartolo, or Lucino, son of Notarius Bartolo.
The Notarbartolos intermarried with other Italian aristocrats. They were among Italy's upper echelon for centuries. Then, everything changed in the late 1800s. The Sicilian Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, came to power. Mafia historians believe their first victim was Emanuele Notarbartolo, a wealthy banker and the mayor of Palermo.
He was a proud man who refused to let the mafia bully him. His pride cost him his life. On February 1st, 1893, Emmanuel was stabbed 27 times on a train through Palermo. His killers were Matteo Filibello and Giuseppe Fontana, two known Cosa Nostra affiliates.
you could say they were the mafia's first hitmen. It's unclear if Leonardo Nottar Bartolo has direct ties to the aristocratic family. He was born and raised in Palermo, Sicily, where his potential ancestors would have served as bankers, politicians, and traders. But Leonardo's life took a drastically different path. He claims he was born to steal. It was 1958. Leonardo was six years old. His mother had sent him for milk.
But when Leonardo found the milkman asleep, he robbed him blind. He returned with 5,000 Italian lira, equal to about $8. His mother beat him, but there wasn't a punishment in this world that could steer Leonardo away from this path. In school, he fleeced money from his teachers. As a teenager in the 1970s, he stole cars and learned to pick locks.
He got in trouble with the law in 1971, when 19-year-old Leonardo was arrested for stealing an Alfa Romeo. It's unclear if he served any jail time or if they just let him off with a warning. Sicilian police had bigger problems on their hands than a teenage car thief. Leonardo graduated from cars to diamonds in his 20s. He learned how to study people. First, he'd track a jewelry salesman around Italy for weeks.
He'd learn their habits, he learned their schedules, and then he'd strike when they least expect it. According to the History Channel, Leonardo discovered an intrinsic ability to design his own jewelry. He opened a small store in Turin, the capital city of Piedmont in Northern Italy. But when the mafia robbed his store, Leonardo decided to embrace the thief's life. As the saying goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
He built a rolodex of experts, each with unique skills necessary to pull off larger heists. One man was good with alarms, another could pick a lock in his sleep. He knew climbers, divers, safecrackers, and guys who could tunnel through mountains. Each job required a different mix of thieves. His band was known as the "Scaola di Torino" or "The School of Turin."
Leonardo was proficient in charm. He'd play the role of the jolly jeweler, looking to buy thousands of dollars worth of priceless gems. He'd con his way into workshops, offices, and vault rooms. Once inside, he'd case the joint for any weakness. Then, he'd return a month later and clean the place out in the middle of the night. Stealing cash is one thing. Stealing property, in this case, jewelry, is another.
A jewel thief is as rich as his fence is risky. Selling hot jewels in Turin was a dangerous business, especially with the mafia skulking around. Lucky for Leonardo, he had a solution. He'd go to the one place where diamonds were plenty and questions were frowned upon. Where a jewel thief could cut his teeth as sharp as a jeweler cuts his stones. Antwerp, Belgium, the diamond capital of the world.
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Transcription by CastingWords
Part 2. Diamonds are forever. Antwerp, Belgium, has been a diamond powerhouse since the mid-15th century.
It all began in 1476, when Lodewijk van Berken invented the scaife, a polishing wheel infused with diamond dust and olive oil. It revolutionized the diamond cutting industry. It gave Lodewijk's diamonds that stereotypical look we know and love today. His diamonds were perfectly symmetrical. They glistened in the light. The European aristocracy had to have them.
In 1477, Archduke Maximilian of Austria presented a diamond ring to his fiancée, Mary of Burgundy. It established the tradition of diamond engagement rings we still follow today. With royalty on their side, nothing stood in the way of Antwerp's diamond trade. Their geographical location was equally critical.
The city sits on the Scheldt River, a 220-mile waterway running from France to Brussels and Antwerp into the North Sea. Diamond miners from Portugal discovered how easy it was to sail into Antwerp. Word spread, and soon, miners from around the globe were flooding the port. Rough stones from India and Africa would arrive in Lisbon, Portugal,
From there, they travel north around France and into the North Sea before arriving for cutting in Antwerp. During this time, the city welcomed groups of Jewish immigrants who were fleeing persecution on the Iberian Peninsula. The community grew, with many Jews getting involved with the city's booming diamond industry. On the eve of World War II, about 50,000 Jews were living in Antwerp. We all know what happened next.
When Belgium was finally liberated from the Nazis, there were only 800 Jews left. But the community rebounded post-World War II. As of the 21st century, there are between 20,000 and 25,000 Jews thriving in Antwerp. About 40% of that population identifies as "ascidic."
Today, 85% of the world's rough diamonds, 50% of polished diamonds, and 40% of industrial diamonds move through a single square mile district in Antwerp. This area is commonly known as the Diamond District or the Diamond Quarter. It's home to 380 workshops servicing 1,500 diamond companies. Millions of dollars worth of diamonds and cash flow through its streets at any given time.
The beating heart of the Diamond Quarter is a three-block strip of concrete buildings known as the Secure Antwerp Diamond Area. It benefits from two police stations, armed guards, 24/7 video surveillance, and barriers preventing random vehicles from getting near it. It was as well defended as Fort Knox. It had to be. About 80% of the world's diamonds change hands in these buildings. The most secure building within the area is the Antwerp Diamond Center.
Leonardo wanted to know if he could break in. The Diamond Center was built much like a prison. It is divided into three blocks: A block, B block, and C block. Two stories below B block is the Diamond Center's vault. And this just isn't any old vault. It begins with a three-ton steel door,
On that door is a combination lock numbered 1 through 99. The code is four digits long, meaning there are over 100 million possible combinations. The door was built to withstand 12 hours of constant drilling. You wouldn't make it far anyway, as the seismic alarm would feel the vibration and alert the police. Next are a pair of side-by-side metal plates. One is on the door, the other is on the wall to the right.
Between them is a magnetic field. If broken, trips another alarm. Even if you could guess the combination, bypass the magnetic alarm, and prevent the seismic sensors from tripping, you'd still need a foot-long key that was allegedly impossible to duplicate. And that's all only to open the door.
Once inside the vault, you'd find heat, motion, and light detectors. Cameras recorded every second of every day. The safe deposit boxes were made of copper and steel. They also featured combination locks with 17,000 possible combinations. Not to mention the key, necessary to open the box anyway. Think of it like two-factor authentication.
put it this way. The Antwerp Diamond Center vault was so secure that it was the only place Leonardo trusted. Now, he was going to test it. Part 3: The Fox in the Hen House The Jewish diamond trader offered him 100,000 euros to see if the job could be done. Leonardo knew it was impossible. This would be the easiest 100,000 he'd ever make.
The Antwerp Diamond Center doesn't just house diamonds. It features many offices that jewel traders can rent. Those offices were Leonardo's ticket in. He creates a shell company and poses as an Italian trader looking to rent. He smooth talks the manager, who rents him an office for $700 a month. Now, Leonardo could come and go as he pleased. He made sure everybody saw his face and knew his name. Leonardo may have been a famous actor in a past life,
He played the role of the friendly diamond trader perfectly. He spoke broken French with a slight Italian accent. He played dumb when it worked in his favor. He asked questions he already knew the answers to. After months of blending in, Leonardo hid a pen camera in his breast pocket and strolled down to the diamond center vault. As you can imagine, photography is limited in the diamond area. It's forbidden anywhere near the vault.
Nobody noticed Leonardo's pen cam, which could take and store 100 high-resolution photos. He used all 100 to learn everything he could about the area. He began at the police surveillance booth outside the Diamond Center. It had bulletproof glass and two officers who monitored the area. A, B, and C block had constant video surveillance.
Every inch of the area had a camera on it. Every inch, except a private garden behind the main building. Next, Leonardo strolled into the Diamond Center. He had to scan his pass to make it through the steel turnstiles. Then, he had to flash the same ID to the guards nearby. Normally, they'd question people coming and going, but the guards knew Leonardo. He was the harmless Italian man who spoke bad French.
He took an elevator to the vault, though he could have taken the stairs just as easily. Then, he arrived in the vault antechamber, the claustrophobic room between the vault door and the lute. Guards left the door open during business hours. The only thing standing between Leonardo and all those diamonds was a steel grate and an armed guard. But he had no intention of shooting his way in or out. He knew the vault was left unguarded after closing,
Antwerp trusted technology more than human guards. If he was going to break it, it'd have to be in the dead of night, when nobody patrolled the interior or exterior of the building. A guard buzzed him in, and Leonardo made it look like he was there to check his safe deposit box. In reality, he was taking pictures of the vault's interior. Then, he left. He returned to his apartment and sent all the images to the diamond trader.
It's important to note that Belgian police still don't know, or won't release, all the details regarding the Antwerp diamond heist. The story you've heard so far, and the story we'll continue to tell, comes from Leonardo himself. In the words of a lifelong con artist, "I may be a thief and a liar, but I'm going to tell you the truth." You should still take it with a grain of salt.
Leonardo told the Jewish diamond trader that robbing the vault was impossible. He took his 100,000 euros and never thought about it again. Then, the dealer called about five months later and asked Leonardo to meet him in Antwerp. They met in front of an abandoned warehouse. Inside, the diamond trader had built an exact replica of the diamond center vault. Inside were three Italian men having a quiet conversation.
They were the Genius, the Monster, and the King of Keys. The Genius was, well, a genius. He specialized in alarm systems and security cameras. If anybody could hack and bypass the Vault's security systems, it was him. The Monster was a tall and burly man. But that's not why they called him the Monster. He earned the nickname because he was monstrously good at everything he did.
He was a masterful lockpicker and electrician. He was also pretty handy behind the wheel. The King of Keys stood out because of his age. He could have been Leonardo's father. The King was among the best key forgers in the world. His sole job was to duplicate the unduplicated vault key. "Just get me a clear video of it," the old man told Leonardo. "I'll do the rest." Leonardo was happy with his team but still needed one more man.
So we called his old friend Pietro Tavano, aka Speedy. Speedy was an anxious man and a lifelong friend of Leonardo's. He had a long rap sheet, but Leonardo trusted him more than anybody. The team was set. Now, they just had to practice. Thanks to the diamond trader's replica, the team learned every inch of the vault. They'd have to perform the heist in the dark to avoid the cameras and light sensors.
The first major hurdle was the vault door's combination lock. This is where the genius came in. Posing as a maintenance worker, he used Leonardo's ID card to scan himself in. Then, he scanned himself out. But he never left the building. Under the cover of night, he installed a tiny, fingernail-sized camera in the vault antechamber. It had a clear view of the vault door and the combination lock.
That video was fed to a storage room near the vault, where the genius had installed a secret compartment on an ordinary fire extinguisher. 24 hours later, the team knew the combination and had a clear picture of the vault key. Fast forward to Thursday, February 13th, 2003, two days before the heist. Venus Williams is set to play in the Proximus Diamond Games tennis tournament. The weekend match would distract the entire city.
It was the perfect opportunity to hit the vault. The next day, Leonardo arrived at the vault to crack one last code. They hadn't figured out how to disable the heat and motion sensors inside long enough for the monster to bypass the signal. Leonardo had an idea. He snuck a can of women's hairspray into the vault. In one quick and undetectable motion, he sprayed the sensor with a thin coat of oily mist.
The oil prevented the sensor from detecting changes in the room's temperature. And, since it required motion and temperature to trigger, the team could move freely to disable the alarm. Leonardo left the vault with a grin. Everything had fallen into place. The only thing he left behind was the faint scent of women's hairspray. That night, they celebrated over a platter of cheese and salami the monster had picked up.
Tomorrow, their lives would change forever. Part Four: The Heist of the Century. The date is February 15th, 2003. All of Antwerp is watching Venus Williams defend her title against Daniela Hentikova. Meanwhile, Leonardo and the gang are getting into position. The Diamond District was deserted.
The team arrived in a rented sedan. They parked along a curb near the Diamond Center, but far enough away to avoid suspicion. The Genius, the Monster, the King, and Speedy got out, all carrying massive black duffel bags. Leonardo waited behind. He wouldn't actually partake in the heist. The King picked the lock on a rundown office building near the Diamond Center. The team entered and vanished from Leonardo's sight.
The office building brought the team to the garden behind the Diamond Center. The genius had cleverly planted a ladder there the night before. He scaled to a small terrace on the second floor, where he came face to face with a heat sensing alarm. Luckily, he was prepared. Using a homemade polyester shield, the genius blocked his body heat from the sensor. He walked up to it and placed the shield over the sensor, allowing the rest of the team to join.
One by one, they slipped through a window after the genius disabled another alarm. They were now inside the stairwell leading to the vault antechamber. They used black trash bags to cover the security cameras and then flipped on the lights. The building was dead quiet. They'd made it inside without tripping any alarms. All that stood before them was the imposing vault door. First, the genius had to disable the magnetic alarm.
Using a custom-made aluminum slab, he stuck it to the metal plates with heavy-duty double-sided tape. Then he unscrewed the plates and moved them out of the way. He basically moved the magnetic field without tripping it. Now, it was the King of Keys' turn. This part of the story has never been confirmed. According to Leonardo, the King noticed that every time the guards opened the door, they went to and from a security closet.
Sure enough, the king found the vault key upon searching the room. He figured using the actual key was better than letting anybody know he'd successfully made a fake one. To this day, the police still don't know if he ever made the fake key. Their entire operation may have come down to a hunch. The king put the key in. The genius dialed the combination. The monster turned off the lights.
Meanwhile, Speedy remained in constant communication with Leonardo via cell phone. He ran up the stairwell and dialed his friend. "We're in," he said. It was the monster's turn to disable the remaining alarms. First, he coated the heat sensor in hairspray, buying him about five minutes. Then, he walked 11 paces into the darkness and pushed out a ceiling panel. Behind it were the security system's inbound and outbound wires.
All he had to do was strip the plastic coating and reroute the wire, all the while keeping his heart rate down and working as fast as he could. One slip could break the circuit and trigger the alarm. Talk about tense. But the monster was monsterfully good. He rigged a new piece of wire between the circuits, effectively creating a new loop that wouldn't trigger the alarm. The vault was theirs. Caution was still their top priority.
They worked in darkness as they ripped open the safe deposit boxes with a homemade crank. Think of it like a powerful wine opener. Boxes ripped open, and their contents were loaded into the duffel bags. Our thieves had no time to inspect the loot, nor could they in the darkness. The only time they ever used their flashlights was to position the crank over the keyholes. It was close to 5:30 AM.
Their bags overflowed with loot. They had millions in foreign currency and leather pouches filled with diamonds. They'd opened 109 of the 189 boxes. Time was up. The streets would be teeming with people soon. The gang grabbed their bags and ran back toward Leonardo's car. They loaded everything in and sped away as the sun rose over Antwerp. Part 5. The Setup The next part of this story is highly controversial.
According to Leonardo, the whole robbery was a setup. The gang returned to Leonardo's apartment to count their loot. But all the leather pouches were empty. They should have been filled with diamonds. Instead, there was nothing but air. It was one empty pouch after another. What was supposed to be a $100 million haul was only about $20 million. Leonardo thought about the diamond dealer. What if the whole thing was an insurance scam?
What if the dealer told all his buddies about the heist? They withdrew their diamonds and locked them somewhere safe for the night. Leonardo's team hits the vault, and the dealers can claim their stash was stolen. They cash in on the insurance money without losing a single jewel. It was the perfect scam. Leonardo takes all the risk. The diamond dealers reap the rewards. This insurance scam theory comes solely from Leonardo.
According to Antwerp Police, the team did, in fact, make off with $100 million in diamonds. According to Scott Shelby, author of Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, there was very little insurance money involved with the Diamond Center vault. In fact, the vault itself was uninsured because the companies recognized too many glaring security risks.
All of these facts cast doubt on Leonardo's insurance fraud theory. Many believe the story is a cover for his cousin Benedetto Capizzi, the soon-to-be godfather of the Sicilian mafia. Since Emmanuel Notarbartolo's murder, the family name has always been tied to the mob. Instead of working against them, they were now working with them. Some believe there was no Jewish diamond dealer. They say the whole job was a mafia-backed plan.
Leonardo handpicked his team from his old school of Turin friends. Leonardo claims the mafia and his cousin had nothing to do with it, though his Jewish diamond dealer story sounds something like out of Mission Impossible. The gang didn't have time to see if Leonardo's theory was true. They had to vanish before the break-in was discovered and Antwerp went into full lockdown. Part 6: Catch Me If You Can
Pietro Tavano, aka Speedy, was a nervous and paranoid man. He was the worst person to take on a job as big as the Antwerp diamond heist. But he was Leonardo's friend. Leo trusted him to keep his cool. Unfortunately, Speedy got them all caught. The plan was to drive 12 hours from Antwerp to Italy. In between, Leonardo and Speedy would stop somewhere in France to burn all the evidence.
They were driving down the E19 between Antwerp and Brussels when Speedy bugged out. He kept checking the mirrors of their Peugeot 307. He had a feeling someone was following them and descended into a full-blown panic attack. He didn't want to keep driving with literal trash bags of evidence in the backseat. He insisted they pull over somewhere and burn the trash right now. An annoyed Leonardo agreed. They pulled onto a dirt path leading into a dense forest.
Nobody could see their car from the main road, even if Leo and Speedy could see approaching headlights. Leonardo told Speedy to wait with the car. He'd go find a spot to burn the evidence. He walked toward an abandoned area that hadn't been touched since World War II. It was perfect. They could burn everything near an old shed. But Leonardo was horrified when he returned.
Speedy was freaking out. He was dumping the trash bags all over the place. Papers and wrappers and receipts were everywhere. Film from the security tapes they'd stolen were strewn over branches like lights on a Christmas tree. Tiny diamonds littered the ground. A half-eaten salami sandwich was covered in mud. There was no time to gather it all, so Leonardo helped Speedy spread it out. They assumed it would all decompose before anybody found it.
Little did they know, an elderly Belgian man walked these trails almost every day. August Van Camp hates the local kids. In 1998, he bought the narrow strip of forest along the E19. He enjoyed walking along the scenic 12 acres, but the local teenagers would always sneak in, party, and leave his walking trail in shambles. Hours after Leonardo and Speedy left, August came through on his morning walk.
He saw all the trash and grumbled, "Damn kids." He called the police, complaining about the teenagers making a mess of his land again. August was a regular. The police rolled their eyes and said, "Okay, Mr. Van Camp, we'll send someone over." But then August said something they never expected. Among the trash were envelopes from the Antwerp Diamond Center.
Everybody in Belgium knew the center had been robbed. Everybody, except August Van Camp. Dozens of detectives swarmed his land. They found a pile of torn paper that, when pieced together, formed a forged work order for Leonardo's fake company. It was how the genius could walk around the Diamond Center without question on the day he planted the camera. In the brush, another detective found a business card with the address and phone number of Elio De Honorio,
He was an Italian electronics expert with a history of robberies. Leonardo never identified his accomplices, but it's believed that D'Onoio was the genius. They bagged the half-eaten sandwich and found a crumpled receipt for a salami platter. The receipt had a timestamp, which led police to a small Italian deli in Antwerp. They reviewed the security footage and, lo and behold, there was the monster buying salami.
His real name was Ferdinando Finotto. The work order forced Antwerp police to look closely at Leonardo. They had three out of the five robbers identified. Unfortunately, there's nothing they could do. There was no extradition treaty between Belgium and Italy. That means if you commit a crime in Belgium and flee to Italy, you've basically gotten away with it. Roughly 36 hours after the heist, Leonardo and the boys gathered at a bar in Adro, Italy.
They were free men with about $20 million to split between them and the Jewish diamond trader. He was entitled to one third of the loot for putting the job together. The five men would split the remaining two thirds evenly. They were looking at about $3 million each, not bad, but far less than what they expected. But the dealer never showed up, which further solidified the insurance scam theory for Leonardo.
One third of whatever they stole was chump change compared to the insurance payout on all those diamonds. Plus the fact that the dealer got to keep his gems. All Leonardo had to do was stay in Italy. He'd be a free man, and he'd be $3 million richer. There was just one problem. The rental car was due back in Belgium. Leonardo always planned on returning to the diamond center. He assumed the cops would look closely at tenants who had recently skipped town.
If Leonardo made a statement, they wouldn't suspect him of anything. It would give him enough time to clean out his apartment and bring everything back to Italy. Leonardo brought his wife for the ride to move everything as quickly as possible. They drove from Turin to Antwerp, unaware that Italian police were kicking in their door back home. Belgian authorities were already in contact with the Italian police. While the Italians couldn't extradite Leonardo, they could still let Belgium know he was responsible.
Leonardo's oldest son called him, but his phone was on silent. Leonardo returned to the crime scene while his wife cleaned out the apartment. It's unclear how much she knew about the robbery. She was at least complicit in helping Leonardo cover something up. Police swarmed him in the lobby. He tried to play dumb and speak his poor French, but they didn't buy it. They ordered him to lead the police to his apartment.
When they arrived, they found his wife and some friends carrying bags and rolled up carpet out of the building. Inside those bags were prepaid SIM cards linked to the Genius, the Monster, and Speedy. The phones all pinged off a tower near the Diamond Center. All calls led back to Leonardo. And if that wasn't incriminating enough, the rolled up carpet was covered in tiny diamonds. Antwerp police slapped the cuffs on everyone.
Later that day, Italian police raided Leonardo's house and cracked open his safe. Inside, they found 17 polished diamonds with certificates from the diamond center. Leonardo couldn't charm his way out of this one. Belgium showed him no mercy. For his role in orchestrating the diamond heist, Leonardo was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The salami evidence led police to Ferdinando Finotto, aka "The Monster,"
He was arrested in France and sentenced to five years in prison. Italian police questioned Elio D'Onorio, aka the genius. He admitted to installing security cameras in Leonardo's office, but said he knew nothing of any diamond heist. Unfortunately, his DNA was found on some adhesive tape left behind in the vault. He also received five years in prison.
Pietro Tavano, aka Speedy, aka the reason they all got caught, was linked to the crime via the cell phone SIM cards. He was arrested and sentenced to a five-year stint. The only people to get away with the crime are the diamond dealer and the king of keys, and that's assuming they both exist. Leonardo was the only one telling his insurance scam story. Most people believe he or his cousin were the puppet masters behind the heist.
As for the King of Keys, his identity remains a mystery. Sources say that Belgian police know he exists through DNA and cell phone records. They just don't know who he is. Other sources leave him out of the story entirely. According to experts from history's greatest heists with Pierce Brosnan, there was no King of Keys. Leonardo wasn't waiting in the car. He was actually in the vault with the rest of the team.
When your primary source is a world-class diamond thief, you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. For example, Leonardo says they only stole $20 million worth of jewels, and where police say it was closer to $100 million. That's because the diamond business is murky by design. According to special diamond detectives, about 75% of the business happens under the table.
There were roughly $25 million worth of legitimate claims after the heist. Police assume Leonardo's gang stole another $75 million worth of under the table diamonds. That's where the $100 million figure comes from. To this day, it's still unclear what happened to all the money. Although their names have been published, Leonardo has never ratted on any of his accomplices.
In 2016, Leonardo sat down for an interview about the heist and his post-prison life. He was described as a cheerful and cultured man who always wore a boyish smile on his aging face. According to Leonardo, he's put his life of crime behind him. All he wants is a pack of cigarettes full of diamonds.
