Prison-art galleries and catwalks-prison. This is the unusual itinerary of one man, Jean-Claude Pautot. The JDD reveals his arrest in Spain at the end of December following a spectacular seizure of more than a ton of cocaine between the Iberian Peninsula and France. The investigation, which began in February 2022 and which sparked widespread collaboration between French police officers from Ofast (anti-narcotics office) on the one hand and their Spanish counterparts from the Guardia Civil on the other, revealed a network of drug trafficking between Venezuela and Europe via the West Indies. On December 27, a sailboat from Martinique carrying 740 kg of cocaine was boarded off the Azores. In France, nearly 400 kilos were seized. A dozen arrests took place in the two countries, including that of Jean-Claude Pautot. Requested by the JDD, Ofast did not wish to comment on the case before an official communication from the Spanish authorities which should take place next week.
The sexagenarian, whose criminal career began in adolescence, has twenty-five years in prison and fifteen years on the run. Sentenced for various robberies, he had managed an old-fashioned escape, by sawing the bars of his cell. Arrested in 2009 in Germany where he found refuge for a few years and sentenced to ten years in prison, his new prison episode is marked by the discovery of a passion, painting, during a drawing workshop at the Saint -Maur (Indre) in 2012.
His raw style intrigues, his bright colors challenge, and lead him to exhibit in renowned galleries including the Revel gallery, on the Champs-Elysées. The TV sets invite him and the media praise this beautiful storytelling of reintegration through art. Peak of this artistic renaissance, Louis Garrel offers Jean-Claude Pautot a role in his film l’Innocent, thus sealing, in addition to the recognition of the prestigious circles of the plastic arts, that of the world of the cinema. Everything to make the pride of the 66-year-old man who welcomed his new notoriety as an artist supposed to erase that of a mobster.
The outcome of this investigation will tell us if an artistic redemption can stand up to a criminal past that continues to catch up with its actors.