Borja Thyssen-Bornemisza and his wife, Blanca Cuesta, are in luck. After a long judicial process and many headaches, a Madrid court has acquitted them of having defrauded the Treasury in 2010 because it is not considered sufficiently proven that they simulated a business to defraud. Because of this, the ”malicious concealment” requirement is not met.
The sentence of the Criminal Court number 15 of Madrid, which was advanced by the newspaper Periódico de España and to which EFE also had access, records the resolution by which the magistrate acquits the two defendants of a crime against the Public Treasury . It should be noted that the Prosecutor’s Office initially requested three years in prison for the lovers, in addition to a million euro fine and compensation to the Treasury for the 336,417 that they supposedly did not declare.
The trial was held on October 3 under great discretion. At this hearing, the Prosecutor’s Office reduced the initial request to one year in prison and 337,000 euros due to “highly qualified undue delays in the case.” The State Attorney’s Office supported the request.
Now, the knowing Court has acquitted the couple because “the elements of the criminal offense are not proven (…) and especially the necessary subjective element of malicious concealment of the tax bases.” After investigating the case, no evidence has been found that said legal transaction “was simulated, lacking cause, carried out with the sole purpose of defrauding the Treasury,” as the accusation defended.
The only thing that is included in the legal resolution as proven is that on February 26, 2010, the sale of the shares of Cas Capetó S.L. did take place. by Borja Thyssen (50% owner), Blanca Cuesta (40%) and the company Caribean Breeze S.L. (10%). The partners sold their business to Dutch companies Princess Four BV, Martínez Invesments B.V. and Hermosa Beach Holding BV.
The point is that the accused couple jointly certified in the income tax return corresponding to the 2010 financial year that the sale gave them a capital gain of 2,206,527 euros, something that the prosecution believed to be uncertain. After studying the case, no evidence has been found to move forward with the case and “it is not duly proven that the actual capital gain obtained by the accused was 3,792,564 euros and that they knowingly and with the intention of defrauding to the Public Treasury a profit of 1,586,037 euros.” This is not the first case from which the baroness’ son has been freed, since in 2019 he was acquitted of a crime of tax fraud.
