old casino in Sintra, and then at the Centro Cultural de Belém cultural center, in Lisbon. By agreement with the Portuguese Government, a foundation (Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea—Colecção Berardo) was created to support the housing of his art collection of roughly 1,800 works at the Centro Cultural de Belém. Much as the Spanish state did with the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the government agreed to house part of his collection and took a 10-year option to buy 862 paintings and sculptures for 316 million euros, based on a Christie's valuation in 2006. The Museu Colecção Berardo was inaugurated on 25 June 2007. Berardo's 35-hectare sculpture park in Quinta dos Loridos, north of Lisbon, opened in phases since 2006. When he read about the Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan's enormous stone Buddhas in Bamiyan in 2001, he bought a massive range of Buddhist statues, and created the Buddha Eden Gardens (about 45 minutes outside of Lisbon). In 2011, Berardo set up the Aliança Underground Museum, a paid (5€ minimum) exhibition of tiles, ethnographic art, ceramics, minerals and fossils in an unused tunnel on a winemaker's property in Sangalhos. In 2012, an exhibition of works from Berardo's Modern and contemporary collection, including pieces by Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, was on show at the Gary Nader Art Centre in Miami, Florida. Controversies and legal issues Throughout his life, Berardo has been related to several controversial situations that have reached the media: In 1990, Berardo was summoned to the Commission of Inquiry van Zyl for the illegal export of cycads, diverting them from the Transvaal to Madeira, and declared the value of the plants for less than one tenth of the value their purchase. The same Commission points to a close relationship between Berardo and Apartheid leader and Foreign Minister Pik Botha as facilitator of these operations. In 2007, he increased his stake in BCP using a € 1 billion loan in the context of a "war" for power with the other shareholders. Suspicious links have been reported with the funding banks - BCP, of which it is the chairman of the Compensation and Welfare Board, CGD and BES - which have done so against a guarantee of only 75% of the Berardo Collection (valued at 316 million euros in 2007) In 2008, Berardo appeared in the press related to the real estate speculation that he would have made in