Star Trek director J.J. Abrams to tell story of world’s biggest diamond heist

Paramount recently nabbed film rights to a Wired Magazine article titled The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist, written by Joshua Davis, and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams will take on the project as a producer and, possibly, as a director, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The as-yet-unpublished article, describes the true story of an unprecedented 2003 diamond heist in Antwerp, Belgium, and the crew that pulled it off. A small group of Italian thieves circumvented 10 layers of security to access a vault beneath the Antwerp Diamond Center and make off with an estimated $100 million in diamonds, gold and jewelry (the actual value is still unknown).

Over a period of six years, Davis conducted a series of interviews with the ringleader, who’s incarcerated in a Belgian prison, who finally admitted just how it was done. The writer acquired the subject’s life rights during the process as well.

Another Davis article, titled Deep Sea Cowboys, is being adapted by David Ayer into a screenplay for a potential DreamWorks project, to be produced by frequent Abrams collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.