Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The World's Craziest Diamond Heist - The Leonardo Notarbartolo Story

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Leonardo Notarbartolo was the mastermind behind the 2003 Antwerp Diamond Heist, one of the most ingenious burglaries ever pulled off. Working with a crew of elite Italian thieves, he spent over a year posing as a diamond trader to gain access to the Antwerp Diamond Center, a building considered nearly impenetrable thanks to its multilayered security

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There's no going back. Our directive is clear. Hang on! Tron Aries, now streaming on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. So this guy is about to pull off what is known as the greatest diamond heist of all time. Now the guy's name is Leonardo, and Leonardo is 49 years old, and he's working in Belgium, and Leonardo, he's a professional thief and a con man.

And currently he's got this scam where he's like pretending to be a legitimate diamond dealer. He's rented out a small office inside the Antwerp Diamond Center building in Belgium. I guess he's trying to con people that way. But one day, around 2001, he gets the biggest opportunity he's, ever gotten in his life. So he's chilling at this coffee shop in Antwerp, and he gets approached by a shady associate of his. And this associate pitches this crazy idea to him. He wants to pay Leonardo 100,000 euros just for him to investigate and find out if the vault in the Antwerp Diamond Center can be robbed. I guess he just wants to know if it's possible to pull off a

heist, that they apparently want to steal a bunch of diamonds and stuff out of this vault. So Leonardo's like, all right, I'll check it out. So he takes a pin with a hidden miniature camera in the cap, and he puts it in his breast pocket so that no one notices. Then he goes to the Antwerp Diamond Center, which is like a central business hub for the diamond trade, and he goes inside and he takes an elevator down a few floors where the vault is. And there he's low-key taking as many pictures of his surroundings as he can

with the hidden pin camera that he has, trying to assess how much security this place really has. Later, he meets up with the Shady Business Associate again, and he hands over all those photographs he took. And he's like, look, man, this heist would be impossible. There are too many layers of security. So I guess the Shady Associate pays him, and then that's the end of it. And five months pass.

And suddenly, the Shady Business Associate hits him up again. And he asks him to meet at this aband. warehouse. So Leonardo's like, all right, and he goes to meet him. And there, Leonardo sees that Shady Associate and his goons have built an exact replica of the Antwerp Diamond Center's vault, using the photographs that Leonardo had taken with his pen five months before. Plus, they've been continuously practicing the heist that they're about to pull on this replica they built. So at some point, they officially ask Leonardo to get involved. And he does. So now he's about to help them pull off this robbery. So they spend the next two years planning all this out, every detail,

how to bypass each layer of security. So now it's 2003, and the day has finally come. They are ready to pull this thing off. So Leonardo drives himself in four goons to the Antwerp Diamond Center. So they get there and he stays in the car as the lookout while the four goons leave the car carrying multiple duffel bags and they break into a building right behind the diamond center. Then they exit out the back door and they use a ladder to break into the actual diamond center and they use all kinds of tricks and devices to bypass all the cameras and security alarms in that place and eventually they're able to get into the actual vault. And this vault is filled with tons of safe deposit boxes, 109 actually. So they break into all 109 boxes and they start stuffing their duffel bags with

all the loot in them. Diamonds, gold, all kinds of foreign currency. Hours later, they're done. Their bags are full and they won't be able to carry anymore with them, so they leave. And they slowly make their way out of the building. And in total, they've stolen about the equivalent of a hundred million US dollars worth of stuff from this place. This is a huge score. And so they all go back to Leonardo's apartment. And there, they're celebrating. They're like pouring wine and eating sandwiches.

They're having a great time. Because they were essentially able to pull off this huge heist that was previously considered impossible. Plus, you know, they're all going to be so rich. And after they're done celebrating and eating and whatnot, they start cleaning up after themselves. and they start tossing random stuff that they don't need into a garbage bag. And they're thrown out not just leftover food, but also receipts and tools and any other incriminating evidence

that may tie them to the crime that they just committed. The next day, the team starts to go their separate ways. And Leonardo takes his rental car and he and one of the goons are still in Belgium, but they're currently driving to Italy. And the goon that he's with is this guy, speedy. So Leonardo and Speedy, they're driving along, and in the car they have the garbage bag that they were throwing all that trash in the day before. And at some point during this trip, Speedy starts getting all paranoid and he starts having anxiety attacks and freaking out. And I guess he's known to be kind of a paranoid guy.

So he's freaking out because he doesn't like that this bag of trash is in the car with them because it has evidence of the heist in it. So he's worried that if they get pulled over, that they'll get busted. it. So Speedy's flipping out. He's like, pull over now. So Leonardo exits onto some random backwoods dirt road and he pulls over into the woods because he's thinking they're going to burn this trash and therefore all the evidence along with it. But Speedy's anxious ass just grabs the bag and dumps the garbage all over the ground. And I guess Leonardo doesn't want to stop and clean it all up just to burn it. So he tells Speedy to calm the hell down and they get in the car and they leave. And they drive from Bellarm.

Belgium all the way to Italy and they meet up with the other goons and they split the loot. A few days later, a local farmer is out on his land and he sees all this trash that some asshole dumped there and he gets super pissed off and he calls the police and he's like, some kids have been dumping trash on my property and police ask him to describe the trash. So he starts listing these items that he sees, tape and gloves and tools for a heist and an envelope that says, and an envelope that says Antwerp Diamond Center on it. And to police, this sounds really suspicious. So then they take all this trash and they start analyzing it and they find a half-discarded salami sandwich in it. A salami sandwich that Leonardo had been eating in his apartment after the heist. So they take it and they test it

and they find DNA on it. This DNA is a match to Leonardo. A few days later, Leonardo drives back to Belgium because he has to return the rental car that he still has. And while he's there, he stops by the Antwerp Diamond Center building, that place that he robbed, to collect some mail there. And a security guard sees him, and this guard knows that police are looking for this guy. So he calls them immediately. And so, police show up and bam, they arrest Leonardo. Here's a picture of him in real life.

Here's the crazy thing, though. I guess Leonardo is a really loyal guy. because police press him and he refuses to snitch on any of the other goons who helped him with the heist. So the other guys involved, they don't get indicted, they don't get arrested, except for Speedy. Speedy does get arrested and he does serve a little time. But not that much time because Leonardo doesn't flip on him. So anyway, because Leonardo doesn't flip, police don't recover the vast majority of the loot, which means that most of that $100 million worth of diamonds and stuff that they stole is still out there somewhere.

Regardless, Leonardo gets convicted and he's sentenced to 10 years in prison.