Arantxa Sánchez Vicario and Josep Santacana will sit in the dock before the head of the Criminal Court No. 25 of Barcelona next Tuesday, September 12. The oral trial against both of them and the people identified as their front men will most likely last until October: as this newspaper has learned, around ten non-consecutive sessions are planned. Both face a request for four years in prison and more than six million euros in civil liability for a crime of asset seizure or punishable insolvency due to a criminal complaint filed by Banque de Luxembourg.
The origin of everything goes back to a debt contracted by the tennis player in the distant year 2009: the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling of the National Court according to which she had to face a fine of 3.5 million euros plus interest for tax evasion, in total, 5.2 million. The Treasury collected from a guarantee signed in Banc de Sabadell that the Catalan entity recovered by executing a counterguarantee signed with Banque de Luxembourg. Arantxa's new creditor approached her in May 2010. She received no response. After several unsuccessful attempts, he sued Arantxa and Santacana in March 2011 through civil proceedings.
Two years later, he obtained a favorable ruling that condemned Arantxa Sánchez Vicario to pay the bank those 5.2 million euros plus late payment interest from the filing of the lawsuit. He neither paid nor presented the mandatory list of assets to be seized and to cover a debt that amounted to 7.5 million euros. Thus, and after an exhaustive investigation, the bank decided to take criminal action and filed a complaint in 2015. The European entity has only recovered 1.8 million euros of the total amount and is asking for four years in prison for both. For both: the bank believes that they acted in concert to decapitalize the tennis player's assets in order to evade her responsibility.
In October 2021, Arantxa presented her defense brief admitting to having hidden assets but hiding behind the fact that she had been manipulated by Santacana, who would have squandered her fortune. She showed regret, stated that she had advanced 1.8 million to the bank and requested a sentence of seven months with suspension of imprisonment. Arantxa's chances of avoiding a prison sentence inevitably depend on reaching an agreement with the prosecution and the Banque de Luxembourg, advancing a sum of money such that it shows a true willingness to pay off the debt in full. It does not seem that she has the more than six million that is required of her.
For his part, Santacana presented himself in his respective defense brief as a businessman with interests in marketing, public relations and the real estate sector, disassociating himself from any management power over his ex's fortune: between 2010 and 2016, he claims, he limited himself to collecting a few checks, showing his house in Formentera to a real estate agency, collecting a heart exclusive through one of his companies and that if anything remains of Arantxa's fortune, it is in Switzerland.
