Belgium

On August 8, 2025, Netflix releases 'Stolen: Heist of the Century,' a documentary examining the February 2003 Antwerp Diamond Heist—a $100+ million theft that remains partially unsolved. Directed by Mark Lewis, the film traces how Italian mastermind Leonardo Notarbartolo infiltrated the vault beneath the Antwerp Diamond Centre and walked away with loose diamonds, gold, and jewelry that still haven't been fully recovered.

In August 1996, Belgian police arrested Marc Dutroux, an electrician who had spent months abducting, torturing, and sexually abusing young girls in a concealed basement dungeon. What emerged was a conspiracy involving multiple accomplices and at least six confirmed victims—some who survived, others who did not.

In the mid-1990s, Belgian serial killer Marc Dutroux constructed a concealed dungeon beneath his home in Marcinelle to imprison kidnapped girls as sex slaves. Despite multiple police visits to the property while victims remained captive, the case became a landmark example of systemic investigative failure.

Antonio Ferrara, the French-Italian criminal infamous for two audacious prison escapes, was arrested on February 27, 2025, during an armed police operation in Eupen, Belgium. The 51-year-old was apprehended alongside multiple co-conspirators in a joint French-Belgian raid targeting an alleged plot to rob a German bank vault.

Bandeland is a Danish true-crime podcast produced by the newspaper Ekstra Bladet that investigates organized crime across Denmark. Hosted by journalist Tine Røgind, the series combines investigative reporting with insider access to reveal gang wars, criminal networks, and the intersection of crime with established society.