Antwerp diamond heist (2003): Notarbartolo arrested

Belgian police arrested Leonardo Notarbartolo, an Italian who rented an office in the building, after rubbish discarded near Brussels yielded Diamond Centre paper and video stills. He and several associates, later nicknamed the School of Turin in English-language magazines, were tried in Antwerp. Notarbartolo received a multi-year sentence; others were convicted in absentia or later. Appeals and later interviews did not return the stones.

The status is mixed because a court named people and a building, while the goods themselves mostly never reappeared. This page records what was taken, who was convicted and what investigators did afterward. It does not describe how a vault is opened. A convicted crew and a missing inventory

Antwerp 2003 is the type case of a diamond-district theft that produced prison time without producing the diamonds. The Diamond Centre vault served many small firms, not a single De Beers stockpile. Boxes held loose stones, mounted jewellery, gold and cash belonging to different tenants. That is why published totals vary: there was no one company inventory to audit against a single ledger.