A Picasso worth €25m (£17.5m/US$27.4 million) and considered a cultural treasure by Spanish authorities who had barred it from being exported has been seized from a boat docked at Corsica, according to French authorities, reports The Guardian.
An attempt to export the painting, Head of a Young Woman, to Switzerland on Thursday “drew the attention of French officials”, the country’s customs authority said in a statement, with customs agents on the French island boarding the vessel the following day.
The ship’s captain could only present two documents regarding the work of art, the statement said – one of which was a May 2015 Spanish court judgement labelling the painting a work of art and ordering that it not be taken out of the country.
The painting, which French customs said was valued at “more than €25m euros”, is owned by Jaime Botin, a well-known Spanish banker whose family was involved in the Santander banking group.
The 79-year-old, who was formerly the banking giant’s vice-chairman, was not on board the vessel, which was owned by the company and flying a British flag, a customs authority spokesman said.