Today, Thursday, October 19, the last session of the trial was held in which Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and her ex-husband, Josep Santacana, were put on trial, both of whom were accused of a crime of confiscation of assets and for which the accusations requested four years. of prison. The tennis player reached an agreement based on the recognition of the facts, collaboration with the investigation and having satisfied 1.8 million of her debt with the Bank of Luxembourg (BDL), committing to satisfy it in its entirety. The reward for this agreement is to avoid a custodial sentence: both the prosecution and the private prosecution reduced the initial request for a sentence from four years to two, with which the head of the Investigative Court No. 25 of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat ( Barcelona), will foreseeably determine the suspension of imprisonment.
The same did not happen with Josep Santacana, who has defended his innocence even at the risk of a lot. In their final conclusions, both accusations agreed that he devised a plot to decapitalize Arantxa's real estate assets – whose cash translation has never appeared – in order to avoid the obligation to pay the entity that guaranteed it to the Treasury for a tax crime confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2009. Also in that if the tennis player did not pay it was at the direction of her husband.
In a very long session, Josep Santacana's lawyer pulled out an ace he had up his sleeve. Maintaining that his client always executed orders, since he did not have any power to administer, Juan Segarra asked the judge that if he accepts that Arantxa did not know anything about what was done with his assets, there is no fraud (intention) to defraud. and therefore the subjective element of the type disappears. Can Josep Santacana then be convicted as the author? “It is legally impossible to condemn him, especially for a debt that was not even his. Furthermore, there is no proof that he was the de facto administrator of Arantxa's assets,” Segarra said.
“On the other hand, if we don't believe it, Arantxa knew and managed her assets, so her husband could only be a necessary collaborator. And in that case, given that his intervention in the events was not essential, since he did not design a divestment plan that was executed by third parties [four front men also accused], we find that 'his great intervention' was to collect an exclusive in the that he and his children were leaving, contact a real estate agency in Formentera – which did not finally close the sale of the property – and deposit a check into his wife's account.
There remains a mystery that has not been resolved throughout this judicial procedure. Even accepting such unfortunate investments as the Madoff funds, paying mortgages, maintaining many expensive properties and salaries of the staff in charge, emoluments for lawyers and advisors and maintaining a high standard of living, there is still a lack of money. Where are the crumbs of what was a fortune of around 15 million euros according to the least fanciful calculations? In the final company, the one to which just over four million went after the sale of all her assets, the owner was Arantxa until 2014, when she transferred it to her husband. He claims that by then there was nothing left but the embers of a medium-sized bonfire. Its business name is Global Golden but it could well be called the Lost Ark.
