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THEFT

‘World’s most expensive vodka’ stolen from Copenhagen collection

A bottle of vodka claimed to be worth over a million euros was stolen from a collection in Copenhagen in the early hours of Tuesday, says the owner of the collection.

'World’s most expensive vodka' stolen from Copenhagen collection
Photo: Brian Ingberg/Polfoto/Ritzau

The expensive spirit was lifted from the collection at the Café 33 bar in the Vesterbro district of the Danish capital, the bar’s owner told TV2 Lorry.

The stolen Russo Baltique vodka is the only one of its kind and is worth eight million kroner (1.1 million euros), Brian Ingberg said to the media.

Its high value is due in part to the three kilograms of gold and three kilograms of silver used to make the bottle.

It is also adorned with leather from a 1912 Monte Carlo rally car, according to the report.

“I had loaned [the bottle] from Russia from something called the Dartz Factory, which makes the world’s most expensive cars and vodka. It has been part of my collection for six months, but not anymore,” Ingberg told TV2 Lorry.

The Dartz Motorz Company is a privately-held company based in Latvia that produces high performance armoured vehicles.

“I am obviously very upset. It was the icing on the cake in my collection. Of the 1,200 bottles I have, this was a very special bottle to have there,” Ingberg added.

The theft has been reported to Copenhagen Police. Security camera footage posted on the vodka collection’s Facebook page shows two masked men wearing baseball caps stealing the vodka, according to Ingberg.

“They apparently have a key or copied a key, and they have rolled up the shutters and unlocked the door, then gone into the bar and broken down the door to the vodka museum in the basement. They then left with only one bottle, even though there are 1,200 bottles they could have taken,” Ingberg told TV2 Lorry.

Copenhagen Police confirmed to TV2 Lorry on Tuesday that it had received a report of the theft and that the case had been referred to its burglary section, the media reports.

READ ALSO: Luxury cars driven from Barcelona to Denmark in fraud and theft case

ART

Spanish banker gets jail term for trying to smuggle Picasso masterpiece out of Spain on yacht

A Spanish court has sentenced a former top banker to 18 months in jail for trying to smuggle a Picasso painting deemed a national treasure out of the country on a sailing yacht.

Spanish banker gets jail term for trying to smuggle Picasso masterpiece out of Spain on yacht
Head of a Young Woman by Pablo Picasso Photo: AFP

The court also fined ex-Bankinter head Jaime Botín €52.4 million ($58.4 million), according to the Madrid court ruling issued on January 14th which was made public on Thursday.   

It awarded ownership of the work, “Head of a Young Girl”, to the Spanish state.

Botin, 83, is unlikely to go to prison as in Spain first offenders for non-violent crimes are usually spared jail time for sentences of less than two years.   

French customs seized the work, which is estimated to be worth €26 million, in July 2015 on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, halting what they said was an attempt by Botin to export it to Switzerland to sell it.

His lawyers argued at the time that he was sending it for storage in a vault in Geneva but the court found him guilty of “smuggling cultural goods” for removing the painting “from national territory without a permit”.

Botin, whose family are one of the founders of the Santander banking group, had been trying since 2012 to obtain authorisation to export the painting.   

However Spain's culture ministry refused the request because there was “no similar work on Spanish territory” from the same period in Picasso's life.    

In 2015, a top Spanish court sided with the authorities and declared the work of art “unexportable” on the grounds that it was of “cultural interest”.    

Picasso painted it during his pre-Cubist phase in Gosol, Catalonia, in 1906. It was bought by Botin in London in 1977.

Botin's lawyers had argued that the work should not be subjected to an export ban since it was acquired in Britain and was on board a British-flagged vessel when it was seized.

When customs officials boarded the yacht, its captain only presented two documents — one of which was the court ruling ordering that the painting be kept in Spain.

The painting is currently stored at the Reina Sofia modern art museum in Madrid, which houses Picasso's large anti-war masterpiece “Guernica”.

READ MORE: Banking family's Picasso seized on Corsica boat

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