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

the Diamond Center was home to approximately 250 offices where diamond companies—and, to a lesser extent, gold and jewelry companies—did business. It was by far the largest office building in the Diamond District. From an aerial view, its footprint formed a backward L that hugged the Lens Building next door and the Andimo Building, outside of which the police substation was located, on the corner of Schupstraat and Lange Herentalsestraat.
    If one could ignore the fact that the Diamond Center was completely tone-deaf to the architectural standards of Antwerp’s historical buildings showcased within just a few blocks, it was easy to be impressed with the building—not because of its looks, but because of its sheer size and, of course, by the volume of diamonds that coursed through its threadbare hallways.

    Notarbartolo didn’t pay much attention to the building’s aesthetic deficiencies as he approached it that first morning. He wasn’t there to critique the place, but to steal from it. His attention was on more practical matters, such as counting cameras as he approached the main entrance on Schupstraat.
    One camera, on the corner of the awning, looked toward the vehicle barriers. There was a cluster of three across the street from the front doors covering a 180-degree arc. Two more cameras were positioned farther down where Schupstraat intersected with Hoveniersstraat looking toward the Diamond Center. Another was placed to the right of the doors and trained directly on them. Under the crooked address sign was a small fish-eye–lens camera embedded in an after-hours intercom equipped with a keypad for buzzing the concierges. Notarbartolo would have assumed there were more cameras that he couldn’t see.
    Notarbartolo pushed open the plate glass doors and entered the building. Inside the glass-walled booth on the right beyond the foyer, the guard, in civilian clothes, didn’t seem to be paying particular attention to the foot traffic outside his booth. On the right side of the foyer was a bank of mailboxes. Straight ahead were the waist-high turnstiles, each with an electronic card reader for the badges. Tenants had to badge through the turnstiles both coming and going.
    Notarbartolo swiped his badge-card through an electronic reader that unlocked the turnstile arm so he could enter the building. Every time he badged in or out of the building like that, an electronic record was made. As he entered, he noted the security control room on the left. It was fronted with a huge glass window, allowing tenants a glance inside at the monitors displaying images from twenty-four internal cameras watching practically every corner of the building. Notarbartolo counted two more cameras as he walked to the elevators along the broad main hallway. This corridor was the nicest in the building, with dark marbled walls, a tiled floor, and smart cherrywood slats overhead with wide Art Deco circles cut out to accommodate recessed lighting. The hall dead-ended at a bank of elevators. Notarbartolo stepped inside and pressed the button for the fifth floor.
    When the doors slid open on the fifth-floor landing, the view was as lowrent as Notarbartolo’s apartment. The main corridor, badly in need of a fresh coat of paint, was grimy off-white with a dismal gray trim on the door frames. The walls were scuffed and dinged from years of careless movers wrestling tables and desks into the offices.
    Only once he was inside office number 516 did Notarbartolo allow himself to relax. This was his sanctuary; there would be no cameras here unless he installed them himself.
    Notarbartolo’s Diamond Center hideout offered precious few distractions. There was no reason, he figured, to waste time or money furnishing it or decorating it with fake documents on the walls. He never planned to have anyone visit, at least not anyone who would expect to see the regular trappings of a diamond merchant. This was practical, perhaps, but it also created an obstacle