The theft weekend is two dates. The legal story runs through Belgian courts and later interviews.
Figures in dollars are 2003-scale press estimates unless a court paper is named.
Timeline
- Vault emptied
Over the weekend, safe-deposit boxes in the Antwerp Diamond Centre are emptied of stones, jewellery, gold and cash belonging to multiple tenants.
- Loss discovered
Tenants and building staff find the boxes empty when business resumes. Belgian police open the investigation.
- Brussels-woods find
Discarded Diamond Centre-related papers and tape near the Forêt de Soignes give investigators a path to a building tenant.
- Notarbartolo arrested
Leonardo Notarbartolo, who rented an office in the centre, is arrested in Antwerp and becomes the public face of the case.
- Antwerp convictions
Belgian court proceedings convict Notarbartolo and associates. Some sentences are in absentia. Prison terms begin for those in custody.
- English magazine file
Wired and related English features fix the School of Turin nickname and the $100 million shorthand for a global audience.
- Flawless published
Selby and Campbell's book becomes the main English narrative. It is journalism, not an official Belgian report.
- Later interviews
Notarbartolo and others speak to the press, disputing scale or roles. The stones remain largely unrecovered.
- District security review
The diamond quarter and building operators tighten tenant and vault practice. No single named statute defines the afterlife.
- Mixed and still missing
English anniversary pieces repeat the same two facts: convictions on the record, most of the haul off it.
After the Antwerp sentences, the timeline is culture and non-recovery, not restitution.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.