Spanish billionaire, Jaime Botin was sentenced to jail on Thursday for using his superyacht to smuggle a Picasso painting out of the country.
Botin is worth $1.7 billion due to his shareholding in the Spanish banking group, Bankinter. However, his sentence will see him pay €52.4 million ($60.1 million) of his wealth as well as serve 18 months in jail for breaking a court order prohibiting the removal of Picasso’s Head of a Young Woman from Spain.
However, , the Spanish high court said the painting was of “exceptional importance” to the country as it was created in the Catalan village of Gosol when Picasso was still experimenting with cubism.
The painting has also been confiscated by the Spanish state, parting Botin from a further €26 million ($28.8 million), which is the estimated value of the artwork.
Source: Forbes
