After more than two years on the run from justice, cultural promoter Natalio Gruiso was arrested on Thursday in southern Portugal, his lawyer Francisco Miranda confirmed to EFE. Grueso, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement during his time at the head of the Niemeyer Center in Aviles (Asturias), was arrested in the city of Évora in execution of a European arrest warrant. On Friday, he was placed at the disposal of the court, which agreed to hand him over to the Spanish authorities. The lawyer said that once this procedure is completed, Grosso will be transferred to Spain “within a few days” to be admitted to prison.
Justice sentenced Grueso in June 2020 in the Oviedo court to eight years in prison for continued crimes of embezzlement of public funds and forgery of documents and companies during his administration at the head of the Niemeyer Center in Aviles. The Supreme Court ratified the ruling in April 2023. Sources from the Supreme Court of Justice of Asturias (TSJA) confirmed that the Oviedo court had already been informed of the arrest through the European Police Cooperation System.
The Civil Guard began searching for Grueso more than two years ago when it became clear that his whereabouts were unknown after the Oviedo court ordered his imprisonment, once the Supreme Court ratified the sentence issued against him. In February 2024, this same court issued an international arrest warrant for the man who was the general director of the Niemeyer de Avilés Foundation between 2006 and 2011.
The ruling confirmed as established facts that the cultural promoter had incurred expenses unrelated to the purposes of the cultural institution throughout the continuation of his business relationship, and “disposed of his money for the benefit of himself, his family, his friends and third parties in his environment, as if they were his property, at the expense of the Niemeyer Foundation.”
Aside from the sentence imposed on Grueso, the Supreme Court ratified the two-year prison sentence imposed on the former secretary of the aforementioned institution, José Luis Rebollo, for continued corporate crimes. The sentence imposed on the third defendant in the case, José María Vigil, a former agent of Viajes El Corte Inglés, was reduced from seven years and six months to six years in prison on charges of embezzlement, forgery and fraud. According to the court ruling, Natalio Grueso, with the support of Vigil, with whom he had a friendship, concealed travel and hotel accommodation expenses from family members and friends with forged or altered invoices in the name of employees of the establishment or fictitious concepts.
The Asturias Attorney General’s Office opposed granting the pardon requested by Grueso because it did not appreciate “the reasons of justice, fairness or public benefit that could justify it.” After a six-month trial in 2019, the regional court acquitted Grueso’s ex-wife, Judith Pereiro, and the Niemeyer Center’s former head of production, Marc Marti, of the continuing crime of embezzlement as an accomplice and the crime of embezzlement, respectively.
Friend of Woody Allen and Kevin Spacey
Gruiso’s fate was almost predictable in his first novel, Unity. The book was published in 2014, when his life as a cultural director fell into a hole. In the space of a few years, he went from associating with friends like Woody Allen or Kevin Spacey, from being able to brag that Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and bestseller Paulo Coelho praised him in his book trailer, to seeing how his career and personal life were destroyed. The reason was unjustified invoices, according to the ruling, when he managed Niemeyer in the amount of 78,819 euros, money that he returned. “No one knows more about loneliness than me,” he wrote in the first sentence of this, according to its author, the only autobiography.
Grueso (Oviedo, 1970) graduated in law, but focused his career on cultural management and international relations, which led him to lead various projects and institutions. Hence, he was Director of External Interregional Cooperation Projects (Director-General XVI) within the framework of the Economic Cooperation and Introduction Programs of the European Commission. Signed by the Prince of Asturias Foundation in the early 2000s; In 2005, 25 years after the prestigious awards bestowed by this institution, he was commissioned to travel around the world to visit distinguished figures so that they could collaborate in the celebration.
In Rio de Janeiro, he came into contact with one of the great architects of the 20th century, the Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, winner of the Prince of Asturias Arts Prize in 1989, who told him that his goal was not words, but buildings, which is why he decided to give away the project for what would be his only work in Spain, the Niemeyer Center, for free. That year he was appointed director, a position he held until 2011.
Grueso immediately reappears in Madrid, as the signing star of the PP City Council, with Ana Botella as mayor, to manage the programming of municipal theaters (from Teatro Español to Teatro Circo Price). He left his position on June 1, 2014 and then argued for his departure because he wanted to focus on other projects and start a new career phase.