Five people have died as a result; the three perpetrators were arrested by the Lebanese Internal Security Forces and sentenced to death but escaped from prison before they could face execution, and have vanished without trace.
On 28 March 1985, an armed robbery took place in the "Middle East Diamond Company" head office located in the Bourj Hammoud quarter of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
In 1987, before the three brothers could be sentenced, Panos, Raffi and Hratch Nahabedian contrived under mysterious circumstances to escape the prison of Roumieh, where they had been detained by the police since 1985.
On 10 December 1994, after 9 years of trial, the Lebanese court sentenced Panos, Raffi and Hratch Nahabedain in absentia to death, commuted by the law of 84/91 to life imprisonment with hard labour.
The three escapees had rebuilt their lives under false identities in Vienna (Austria) where they ran a jewelry shop in Führichgasse street and obtained Austrian nationality.
The shop deals with famous clients like Albert II, Prince of Monaco, Beyoncé, Melanie Griffith, Ekaterina, wife of the billionaire Michael Mucha, German model Angelina Kirsch, Austrian violinist Lidia Baich, Somali writer Waris Dirie, Georgian dancer Katevan Papava and a good part of the cast of the Vienna State Ballet and Vienna State Opera.
It appears that the Viennese police had known the true identity of at least one of the three brothers since 2016 but had not acted on it, due to the lack of extradition agreements between Austria and Lebanon.
[11][12][13] In 2020, the Austrian weekly magazine Profil, interviewed one of the brothers, who agreed being present in the jewelry store on the day of the crime, but denied being the murderer of the 5 persons.