Spanish Billionaire Sentenced For Smuggling Picasso on His Superyacht

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I suppose if you plan on smuggling a painting by Picasso worth close to $29 million, using a superyacht might be a stylish choice. For Spanish billionaire Jaime Botin, however, it didn’t work out too well. Forbes reports:

Despite a 2015 high court ruling that Head of a Young Woman was a “national treasure” and could not be removed from the country, Botin kept the painting on-board Adix, his 213-foot sailing yacht, as he sailed from Spain to the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. Botin then hired a private jet to take the painting from Corsica to Switzerland where he had intended to sell it.

However, Spanish authorities were tipped off and raided in the superyacht while it was anchored off the Corsican town of Calvi. Head of a Young Woman was seized and transferred to the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, where it remains.

For the attempted smuggling Botin was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and fined $58 million.

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Spanish Billionaire Sentenced For Smuggling Picasso on His Superyacht — 5 Comments

  1. Read the last paragraph again. He is also out the over $28 million he paid for the painting.

    “However, Spanish authorities were tipped off and raided in the superyacht while it was anchored off the Corsican town of Calvi. Head of a Young Woman was seized and transferred to the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, where it remains.”