Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History Read Online Free PDF Page A

featuring a grand old clock that was more impressive, and just as useful for those waiting for the train, than any digital display could be.
    In the 1800s, the city’s diamond industry initially located itself outside the train station, on Pelikaanstraat. Now the street was strewn with strip clubs alongside quaint cafés, and the only reminders of that former time were a slew of retail storefronts advertising their diamond jewelry with glaring neon signs. Though many tourists fell prey to the siren song, savvy visitors avoided the trap, knowing that these retailers were as much about the Diamond District as the strip clubs were about finding true love.
    The Diamond Center was itself the result of old abutting new. In 1931, two buildings, numbers 9 and 11 Schupstraat, were combined into one. This structure was destroyed in 1969 by its new owner, diamond dealer Marcel Grünberger, to accommodate the Diamond Center, which became the largest office building in the district.
    The new structure was more than just the storefronts facing Schupstraat. The complex comprised three interconnected buildings: blocks A, B, and C. A Block, a nine-story edifice facing Schupstraat, might have looked impressive when it was completed in 1972, but in 2000, when Notarbartolo first walked through its doors, it seemed dated and old fashioned. It was a narrow building barely forty paces wide, recognizable by its long, heavy-looking concrete awning that jutted onto Schupstraat over the front doors.
    The rest of the building loomed into the sky, its face a reflection of the opposing structures in its plate glass windows. The address, 9–11 Diamond Center, was fixed to the front granite-work with plastic Helvetica letters, slightly askew and just below a large CCTV camera that recorded people coming and going through the front entrance.
    B Block, the largest of the three, was situated directly behind A Block. This building was a staggered wedding-cake design, with thirteen floors above ground and two below. It was connected to A Block by a broad marble-walled corridor that ran from the elevators to the front doors which opened onto Schupstraat. Most tenants had their offices in B Block; some companies rented entire floors.
    The least impressive building in the complex was C Block, a broad but low four-story structure accessible by taking a sharp right turn in the marble corridor just before the elevators for B Block. One could also enter C Block from the street that ran perpendicular to Schupstraat, Lange Herentalsestraat, through the garage doors. C Block might have been the ugly stepchild of the already less-than-stunning Diamond Center complex—several offices that faced Lange Herentalsestraat had cracked and smudged windows—but it served an important purpose for the tenants: it bypassed the vehicle barriers just a few yards away on Schupstraat, allowing tenants to park in the Diamond Center’s underground parking lot without having to hassle with retractable cylinders and police officers.
    During business hours and for a few hours during the weekends, three large corrugated garage doors facing Lange Herentalsestraat were rolled up and opened. The first, the closest to the police substation on Schupstraat, opened to give security guards in a glass-walled control room a view of the street. It also allowed pedestrian traffic to enter the Diamond Center. As with the main entrance, tenants needed to badge in for the inner doors to open; visitors would have to check in with the guard if they had an appointment with a tenant. The other two garage doors were for vehicles: the middle door accessed the main parking level on the ground floor under B Block, and the third door accessed the underground lot on the -1 level below B Block. Both of the vehicle entrances had striped yellow-and-white metal arms that rose when a button was pushed by a guard in the booth. Only tenants who’d paid to rent a parking spot would have the bars raised for them.
    In all,