Santander heir gets £44m fine for trying to smuggle Picasso painting out of Spain on his yacht
A billionaire member of the family that runs the Santander banking empire has been sentenced to 18 months in jail and fined €52.4 million (£45m) after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle a protected Picasso painting out of Spanish territory on his luxury yacht.
The verdict by a Madrid court, which Jamie Botín’s lawyers have said he will appeal, comes almost five years after ‘Head of a Young Woman’ was seized on board the former banker’s schooner off the coast of Corsica.
Mr Botín, 83, now a retired banker and uncle of Santander’s executive chairwoman, Ana Botín, denied wishing to sell the Picasso painting abroad, but he broke the law in taking it outside Spanish jurisdiction after it was listed as a national heritage item.
In 2012 Spanish authorities began to monitor Mr Botín’s intentions regarding the early Picasso work valued at around €26 million, when Christie’s asked for an export licence in order to put the painting up for auction.
The Spanish government refused the licence and slapped a national protection order on the painting, banning its owner from taking it outside the country.
When the work was found aboard the ‘Adix’, Mr Botín’s magnificent UK-registered three-masted schooner, the billionaire denied planning to smuggle the painting abroad for sale, instead claiming that he was transporting it to safe storage in Geneva.
“Despite being fully aware of the prohibition, the accused took the painting on board his schooner, the ‘Adix’, moored in Valencia, with the aim of removing it from Spain,” reads the sentence, made public on Thursday.
The court ruled that ownership of the work now reverts to the Spanish state, adding that “anyone with any link to Spain will realise that the work is part of Spanish heritage”.
However, Mr Botín’s defence had argued that the painting was never on Spanish soil, except on very limited occasions such as that of his daughter’s wedding or another time when he brought it ashore to have it framed.
Mr Botín’s floating art collection on board the ‘Adix’ is believed to include paintings by JMW Turner and Camille Corot.
He is reported to have attempted to negotiate a deal with the Spanish government, offering to exhibit the work in Spain in exchange for a lighter sentence.
It is highly unlikely that Mr Botín will serve the jail sentence, even if it were to be upheld on appeal, as Spain’s courts tend to suspend terms of two years or less for first-time criminal offenders.
‘Head of a Young Woman’ is one of few existing paintings from the summer weeks of 1906 that Spanish-born artist Picasso spent in the village of Gósol, in the Catalan Pyrenees, along with his lover, Fernande Olivier.
