Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell Read Free Book Online

it at all. Turin has a somewhat hazy, but nevertheless enduring, reputation as a haven for magic. As the rumor goes, it is an intersection between the forces of white and black magic, of good and evil. Pagans attribute it to a so-called triangle of white magic formed by Turin with the cities of Lyon, France, and Prague, Czech Republic. It is said to overlap with a triangle of black magic Turin forms with San Francisco and London. Though these days the whole matter is considered by most to be an absurd superstition or an invention of the tourist industry, it wasn’t long ago when Turin’s supposedly mystical nature was accepted with less skepticism. After all, where else in the world can as miraculous an unsolved mystery as the Shroud of Turin share equal billing with the gates of hell, which are supposedly located beneath the Piazza Statuto? Even though cops look for hard clues when trying to explain the unexplainable, more than once “magic” seemed as plausible an explanation as any when trying to figure out how millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds and jewels seemed to vanish into thin air.

    Considering that the main industry in Turin was an incubator for some of the most famous names in sports cars—including Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Pirelli, and Pininfarina—it was perhaps appropriate that a young Leonardo Notarbartolo first ran afoul of the law by stealing an Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider, a limited edition convertible hot rod manufactured between 1958 and 1961. He was nineteen when he was caught in Paris in 1971, sitting in its bordeaux leather interior listening to the AutoVox Melody stereo.
    Arrested and sent back to Italy, Notarbartolo officially launched his criminal career. Over the course of the following decade, he generated a lot of paper in police stations from Genoa on the Mediterranean coast to Macerata on the Adriatic coast, on charges from speeding to auto theft. According to newspaper reports, he even had a record in Switzerland. Short stints in jail had little effect on his determination to find himself behind the wheel of yet another sports car, and even the temporary revocation of his driver’s license in 1976 didn’t deter his need for speed. He seemed intent on living up to his boyhood nickname, Testa di Legno , or Wooden Head. He earned it due to his tendency to head-butt people during arguments as a child, but it could just as well have applied to the stubbornness he displayed by continually breaking the law.
    Notarbartolo carved out a racket for himself as a small-time hustler, a chronic and unrepentant thief who was immune to any potential rehabilitative influence of incarceration. The time he spent in jail, a few months here and there, instead provided an ideal education, as there is no better place to learn the skills of theft and burglary than in jail surrounded by thieves and burglars. As Notarbartolo’s knowledge grew, so did his confidence as a criminal.
    One of the many police officers who took his mug shot back in those days caught his arrogance on film perfectly: in the picture, Notarbartolo looks like a candidate for student-body president at the local university, a cocky and handsome fellow who knows the election is already in the bag. He has a thick shock of wavy jet-black hair and his expression seems both amused and irritated at the inconvenience of being sent to jail. His left eyebrow is arched almost imperceptibly, and his lips are curled into what could either be a sneer or a smile.
    While his love of fast cars never waned, in the late seventies Notarbartolo graduated into the more sophisticated realm of jewelry, specifically diamonds. More than just an intelligent career move (as jewelry is much easier to steal and sell than automobiles), it was a shift that landed him in a field in which he had a genuine interest. In particular, he had an aptitude for designing his own pieces. He was good at sketching and considered himself something of an artist; when he was bored,