There was something suave and debonair, on the surface at any rate, about Leonardo Notarbartolo. Although the authors of Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History describe him as “good-looking” and “handsome” with an “open and expressive face” and a “captivating smile”, anyone who could see behind the exterior would have found a man who lived in a shabby furnished apartment devoid of any personal touch, who came to work each day in his office in the Antwerp Diamond Centre just to kill time, the office sparse and chilly, his presence there a mere cover for his real activity.

Notarbartolo was there to rob the place. His charms must have worked their magic on Julie Boost, the building manager, because she rented him an office without carrying out any background check. Had she done so, she’d have found he was indeed the proprietor of a chain of jewellery stores as he claimed, and a moderately successful designer of jewellery. But he was also well- known to the police of Turin as a thief. Renting him an office in the Diamond Centre was precisely like offering a fox the keys to the henhouse.

And what a henhouse it was. Back then, in 2003, security measures were less than they are now, but still designed to be both water-tight and intimidating. In the small city area occupied by the Diamond Centre, police had installed a virtual exclusion zone: traffic in and out was controlled by a series of retractable bollards; video surveillance was complete and constant; the police were in constant attendance, and even had their own station within the diamond triangle. More than 80% of the world’s diamonds pass through Antwerp, and every day there are millions of euros-worth being traded and transported, sometimes in armoured cars, sometimes in a dealer’s pockets. Security is taken very seriously.

Notarbartolo’s job was to infiltrate that security cordon, more like a spy than a robber. In the end, he lived and worked there for more than two years before finally pulling off a robbery that would bring him and his colleagues from the so-called School of Turin – a loosely associated gang of criminals with a commitment to professionalism and a strict no-violence policy – somewhere between €100 million and €400 million.

Most of those involved have been caught and imprisoned. The diamonds were never recovered. Because of the nature of safe deposit boxes, many owners chose not to report their full losses because the contents were undeclared or illegal, making an accurate tally impossible.

The narrative, by Scott Andrew Selby, an academic and expert on diamonds, and Greg Campbell, journalist and author, is thoroughly researched – perhaps even too thoroughly. The writers aren’t afraid to include every detail they find out, as well as some things they couldn’t have, like the interior ruminations of the characters.

That’s the sort of hyped-up enthusiasm we expect from thriller-writers, a breed not known for wearing their research lightly.

On the plus side, the book reads more like a thriller than a documented history of a criminal case. Even for someone who was around in 2003 and wrote about the case in passing, there’s a wealth of material here – including details about Antwerp any potential jewel- thief would be advised to note carefully.

The robbers followed an ingenious plan, robbed the Diamond Centre with disdain- ful ease, and made a tidy getaway practically under the noses of guards and police. Not a shot was fired, nor even a voice raised in anger.

It should have been the perfect crime, but all it took was one mistake: a bag containing household rubbish was dumped by the roadside along with detritus from the robbery itself. In the bag, a half-eaten salami sandwich with Notarbartolo’s DNA. That too, might have gone unnoticed, were it not for one officious character fed-up to the teeth with fly-tippers dumping their trash in his environment.

For August Van Camp, a member of the conservation organisation Jacht en Natuurbeheer (Hunting and Nature Conservancy) and self-appointed caretaker of the Floordambos woods in Vilvoorde, it was just the umpteenth load of illicit garbage to be dumped by passing motorists. When he started sifting through it for evidence of the tippers’ identity, however, he soon realised it was more. The police came, matched the rubbish to the robbery, tested the sandwich for DNA traces, and the game was up.

The Antwerp Diamond Centre robbery ranks among the biggest of all time, even at the lower estimate of the haul. Looking at a list of some of the richest heists, it’s clear why criminals go for diamonds: because they’re pound for pound the most valuable thing around. Here, in no particular order, are a few of the biggest, or most spectacular, diamond robberies from around the world:

Lufthansa: the theft in December 1978 of cash and jewels from a vault at JFK airport in New York only netted about $6 million, but the robbery has become famous because it was featured in the movie Goodfellas. The robbery was also particularly bloody, not during its execution but afterwards, as mobster Jimmy Burke (played in the film by Robert De Niro) set about bumping off a dozen of his associates to prevent any of them from turning on him.

Schiphol: Diamonds again, uncut diamonds, which are impossible to trace, but which brought the robbers of a KLM cargo truck in 2005 an estimated €120 million. The diamonds were on their way to Antwerp. The fact they knew which truck to target, and had KLM uniforms, suggested an inside job.

Knightsbridge Security Deposit: The robbers of the Knightsbridge Security Deposit in central London in July 1987 were hardly the smoothest operators: they pretended to want to rent a box, then pulled guns on the guards. The robbery netted them about €65 million at the time – worth about €75 million in today’s money.

Harry Winston: four armed men, three of them dressed as women, burst into the upscale Paris jeweller’s in December 2008 and cleaned the place out of about €100 million in stock. No shots were fired. No fewer than 25 people have since been arrested in connection with the crime. A robbery the year before had netted thieves €10 million.

Millennium Dome: a diamond robbery which would have been the biggest of all time, were it not for the fact that it was foiled at the last minute. The gang planned to steal stones being exhibited at the Dome in London in 2000, one of which was worth €235 million on its own. Scotland Yard got wind of the plan, and caught the men red-handed as they smashed into the Dome armed with a JCB, sledgehammers, ammonia and tear-gas.

ABN Amro Antwerp: Not one of the richest diamond hauls, but in its preparation similar to the Antwerp Diamond Centre heist. The thief, calling himself Carlos Hector Flomenbaum, had been a cheerful, pleasant customer of the bank for more than a year, and had won trusted keyholder entry to the safe deposit strongroom when, in March 2007, he rifled five boxes and emptied them of about €30 million worth of stones.