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Spain’s King Juan Carlos faces Swiss corruption probe

Swiss prosecutors are investigating the purchase of a mansion in Britain by ex-Spanish king Juan Carlos's former lover in 2015, three years after she received 65 million euros from him, a newspaper reported Monday.

Published: 24 August 2020 12:48 CEST
Spain's King Juan Carlos faces Swiss corruption probe
King Juan Carlos is being investigated by Geneva's judicial authorities. Photo by AFP

Danish-born business consultant Corinna Larsen told prosecutors in Geneva she paid six million pounds (6.7 million euros) for Chyknell Hall Estate in western England and spent a similar amount renovating it, according to her testimony that Spanish daily El Pais says it has seen.

Since 2018, Larsen has been under investigation for suspected money laundering and the chief prosecutor in Geneva is probing the purchase of the home because it took place after she received the gift from Juan Carlos and because of the “opaque structure” she set up to buy it, the newspaper said.

The 200-acre (81-hectare) estate includes a mansion with 11 bedrooms, a library, a swimming pool and cricket field.

Larsen told Swiss prosecutors she bought the property through a trust fund registered in Panama that listed her son, who was 13 at the time, as its beneficiary.

Larsen, who was the former monarch's lover between 2004 and 2009, has said she received a significant amount of money from Juan Carlos in 2012: 65 million euros ($77 million) according to Swiss daily La Tribune.

 In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Thursday, she said he made this “enormously generous gift” out of “gratitude for looking after him” and because he valued her son.

Larsen is one of three people under investigation in Switzerland over $100 million which Juan Carlos received in 2008 from late Saudi king Abdullah in a Swiss bank account.

Swiss prosecutors suspect the 65-million-euro gift she received from Juan Carlos served to hide what was left of the money he received from the Saudi royal.

 Both Larsen and Juan Carlos have denied that she held money in the former king's name.

While Juan Carlos is not under formal investigation, the revelations made by Larsen have raised legal questions about the former king's financial affairs which officials are looking into in Spain and Switzerland, and pushed him to move to the United Arab Emirates on August 3.

Despite his self-imposed exile Juan Carlos, who abdicated in 2014, has said 
he remains available to prosecutors.

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ROYAL FAMILY

‘Alone and bored’: A year after exile, legal woes haunt Spain’s ex-king

A year after Spain's former King Juan Carlos went into self-imposed exile in the face of mounting questions over his finances, he remains under a cloud of suspicion that complicates his return home.

Published: 3 August 2021 09:27 CEST
'Alone and bored': A year after exile, legal woes haunt Spain's ex-king
Juan Carlos I's close ties with Gulf leaders have allowed him to live in opulent exile in Abu Dhabi for a year. Photo: KARIM SAHIB / AFP

He announced on August 3, 2020 he was moving abroad to prevent his personal affairs from undermining his son King Felipe VI’s reign and sullying the monarchy.

But his choice of new home — the United Arab Emirates, where some of his business affairs triggered the scandals that tainted his reputation in the first place — only raised Spaniards’ eyebrows further.

Juan Carlos has told his son that he would like to return to Spain “but he won’t come back without the approval” of the royal household, said Jose Apezarena, the author of several books on Felipe.

And the position of the royals is that “until his legal problems end, he should not return”, Apezarena told AFP.

The 83-year-old former king is the target of three separate investigations over his financial dealings, including those linked to a high-speed rail contract in Saudi Arabia that was awarded to a Spanish consortium.

Prosecutors in Spain and Switzerland are looking into suspicions he received kickbacks for facilitating the deal.

The suspicions centre on $100 million (€85 million) that Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah allegedly deposited in 2008 into a Swiss bank account to which Juan Carlos had access.

The other two investigations concern the alleged existence of a trust fund in Jersey linked to Juan Carlos and the undeclared use of credit cards linked to accounts not registered in his name, a possible money-laundering offence.

‘Very bored’

Spanish monarchs have immunity during their reign but Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014 following a series of health problems and embarrassing revelations about his personal life, leaving himself vulnerable to prosecution.

While he has not been charged with any crime, the probes have tainted his reputation as a leader of Spain’s democratic transition following the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

Outside of the Royal Palace in central Madrid, opinions were divided.

“He is being judged without any evidence, he should be able to come home if that’s what he wants,” said Pura Fernandez, 46, a bank worker.

But delivery rider Angel Galan, 27, was less sympathetic.

“He may have done some great things for Spain but if he committed irregularities I am not sad that he is gone,” he said.

While in exile, Juan Carlos has twice settled tax debts with Spanish authorities for a total of more than €5 million.

But he has otherwise kept a low profile at the villa on the island of Nurai off the coast of Abu Dhabi where he now lives.

“He is alone and very bored,” said Apezarena.

Photo: KARIM SAHIB / AFP

‘Not normal’

When reports emerged in February that Juan Carlos was in poor heath, the former monarch told online Spanish daily OKDiario he was “well, exercising two hours daily” in his only comments to the media since moving abroad.

Abel Hernández, a journalist and expert on the monarchy, said he believes Juan Carlos will return to Spain by the end of the year.

“He has not been charged with anything and has regularised his situation with the tax office. It does not seem normal that he remains outside of the country,” Hernández told AFP.

The scandals swirling around Juan Carlos have provided ammunition for those wanting to abolish the monarchy.

The far-left party Podemos, which is the junior partner in Spain’s coalition government, has called for a parliamentary investigation into Juan Carlos’s wealth.

Felipe, meanwhile, has sought to distance himself from his father.

Last year the king renounced his inheritance from Juan Carlos, and stripped the ex-monarch of his palace allowance after new details of his allegedly shady dealings emerged.

Polls show support for the monarchy has inched up since Juan Carlos moved abroad although a survey published Sunday in conservative daily La Razon found 42.9 percent of Spaniards feel Juan Carlos’s legal woes were hurting Felipe’s reign.

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