MADRID: In the ongoing legal case against Spanish billionaire Jaime Botín, who’s accused of smuggling a Picasso out of Spain, the prosecutor has requested a four-year prison sentence and a €100 million fine against the heir and collector, a member of Spain’s most successful banking family.
Botín is the owner of an early painting by Pablo Picasso, Head of a Young Woman (1906), which was seized by French authorities in the summer of 2015 from a yacht docked in Corsica and registered to a company of which Botín is the major shareholder.
The €26 million painting was declared a cultural treasure by the Spanish National Court in May 2015 and had been refused an export permit prior to the seizure.