1930 FIFA World Cup French entered at the personal intervention of Rimet, but neither France's star defender Manuel Anatol nor the team's regular coach Gaston Barreau could be persuaded to make the trip. The Belgians participated at the instigation of German-Belgian FIFA vice-president Rodolphe Seeldrayers. The Romanians boarded the SS "Conte Verde" at Genoa, the French were picked up at Villefranche-sur-Mer on 21 June 1930; and the Belgians embarked at Barcelona. The "Conte Verde" carried Rimet, the trophy and the three designated European referees: the Belgians Jean Langenus and Henri Christophe, along with Thomas Balway, a Parisian who may have been English. The Brazilian
Theft of the Jules Rimet Trophy in the upper-class Rio neighborhood of Humaitá shortly after the theft, fled to France and was arrested in 1998 at a bus station in São Paulo for drug trafficking (coincidentally, he had also served jail time in France for the same offence). He was freed from jail in 2005, having never served the penalty for receiving stolen goods that he would incur for the trophy. The mastermind, Sérgio Peralta, was freed from jail in 1998. He died of a heart attack in 2003. The trophy has never been recovered. Instead, a replica of the Jules Rimet Trophy was presented to