Juan Carlos I, last January, went to the hospital to visit his niece Simoneta Gómez Acebo.José Oliva / Europa Press
The King Emeritus, Juan Carlos I, King Felipe VI and his sisters, Cristina and Elena de Borbón have ceased to be beneficiaries of the funds managed by the Zagatka Foundation, investigated by the Chief Prosecutor of the Canton of Geneva Yves Bertossa.
This foundation is owned by Álvaro de Orleans, a distant cousin of Juan Carlos I, to whom he paid with Zagatka funds for numerous flights of the monarch in private companies.
Last March, the foundation treasured around 10 million euros, according to its owner.
This foundation created in Liechtenstein and with an account in a Swiss bank came to hoard 14 million euros.
With Zagatka funds, dozens of flights of the former head of state and his examiner Corinna Larsen were paid over 11 years in a private jet company.
The cost of the flights exceeded, at least, three million euros.
Juan Carlos I's trips were being paid until two years ago.
The Zagatka Foundation modified its regulations last June, as verified and confirmed by EL PAÍS, in which, since October 1, 2003, King Emeritus Juan Carlos I appeared as the third beneficiary and King Felipe VI and his two sisters as fourths and fifths in the event that Álvaro de Orleans, the first beneficiary and one of his four children designated as second, die.
All this list of possible recipients of the funds of the foundation would have "effects after the death of the first beneficiary."
“In the event that the second beneficiary dies before the first or in the case of the simultaneous death of the first and second beneficiary, the fortune of the foundation will be attributed to the third beneficiary.
Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón is designated as the third beneficiary ”, said the old regulation that this newspaper made public last March.
And then Felipe VI and his sisters appeared as beneficiaries in the event of the death of their father.
The new regulation of the foundation establishes that Álvaro de Orleans, 73, is the sole founder of Zagatka and highlights, in its article II, the objectives that it pursued: “[The Foundation] has been created with the sole purpose of guaranteeing assistance financial in favor of the founder's family ”.
Irrevocable
As in the previous regulation, the document establishes “irrevocably” Álvaro de Orleans as the first beneficiary of the funds and his son Andrés as second in the event of the death of his father.
The substantial change lies in the purpose of the foundation, now exclusively to "guarantee financial assistance to the founder's family."
In the previous founding act, the election of King Emeritus Juan Carlos I as third beneficiary, of Felipe VI as fourth and Elena and Cristina, as fifths, if his brother died, was explained in the following way: "The present attribution is made because of his feelings of admiration and appreciation for having opened the path to freedom for Spain and for having, thanks to his perseverance and skill, and also his humanity, reestablished public liberties in a parliamentary regime, led Spain to democratization ”.
Philippe Cottier and Jean Marc Carnicé, lawyers for Álvaro de Orleans, confirmed to this newspaper the modification of the regulation.
And they responded in this way to the questions about the changes reflected: “First of all, our client wants to reaffirm that he is the sole owner of the Foundation's funds.
Its regulations have been modified to correspond to the new situation, particularly after King Felipe VI became aware of the previous regulations and clearly stated his desire not to appear as a beneficiary of the latter ”.
Felipe VI issued a statement on March 15 in which he announced his resignation to the economic inheritance that could correspond to him from his father and withdrew the allocation established in the budgets of the House of the King (194,232 euros).
Thus, La Zarzuela followed the information published by EL PAÍS and by the British newspaper
The Telegraph
which, twenty-four hours earlier, had revealed that the emeritus king was listed as the third beneficiary of the Zagatka foundation and Felipe VI as the second beneficiary of the Lucum foundation.
In this last foundation, Juan Carlos I received in 2008 in a Swiss account the amount of 100 million euros (65 million euros at the then exchange rate) as an alleged gift from the Ministry of Finance of Saudi Arabia.
In its statement, the Casa del Rey indicated that it was “completely unaware today” of its supposed designation “as a beneficiary of the Zagatka Foundation”, although it admitted that King Felipe VI knew a year before, although without any documentary support, the link that linked him to the Lucum Foundation.
And that from that moment on, Felipe VI appeared before a notary to express his separation from it.
The Lucum Foundation was dissolved in 2012, shortly after the king emeritus transferred his $ 64.8 million to Corinna Larsen to a bank branch in the Bahamas.
As a result of the knowledge of this fact and of the conversations held by Corinna Larsen with the commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, Juan Carlos I is being investigated by the prosecutor Bertossa in Switzerland for the alleged collection of a commission for the works of the AVE to Mecca.
These works, budgeted at more than 6,500 million euros, were awarded to a consortium of Spanish companies in tough conflict with the French offer.
The announcement of La Zarzuela last March, related to those foundations, with their composition and the content of their regulations, added that Juan Carlos I asked the Casa del Rey to make public "that at no time did they provide information" to his son about the existence of both foundations and, therefore, that he could in some case be a beneficiary of the funds they kept.
Fairness, integrity and financial structures
A day after Spain suffered almost total confinement to combat the pandemic, the Casa del Rey issued a statement to announce that Felipe VI was renouncing “the inheritance of Don Juan Carlos that may correspond to him personally, as well as any asset, investment or financial structure whose origin, characteristics or purpose may not be in line with the law or with the criteria of rectitude and integrity that govern its institutional and private activity and that must inform the activity of the Crown ”.
In addition, the statement included the punishment that Felipe VI chose for his father: "King Juan Carlos stops receiving the allowance that he has set in the Budgets of the House of HM the King."
Regarding the Zagatka Foundation, where Felipe VI appeared as the third beneficiary in the event of the founder's death, the statement stated: "The King is completely unaware of his supposed designation as a beneficiary of said Foundation to this day."