The inspection carried out by the Tax Agency on Juan Carlos I for indications of an alleged tax crime investigated by the Office of the Supreme Court Prosecutor has taken its first steps.
The Treasury has sent two requests to the La Zarzuela palace to facilitate all the payments that the Casa del Rey has made to Juan Carlos I from his abdication in June 2014 to 2018, as confirmed by sources of the investigation to EL PAÍS.
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Spanish tax agency audits Royal Household payments to ex-king Juan Carlos
The Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court investigates the account of the king emeritus in which the House of the King paid him his annual allocation of 198,845 euros, to check if those payments established by the General State Budgets coincide with the income and withdrawals of money made in his account by Juan Carlos I during the aforementioned period.
Auditors and officials of the Casa del Rey have already provided the required information and answered the questions of the Treasury inspectors assigned to the investigation, as confirmed to this newspaper by authorized sources from La Zarzuela.
These sources indicated that the requirements of the Treasury to the House of the King are in its condition of paying entity of the allocation that the emeritus monarch received until it was withdrawn by his son Felipe VI in March 2020.
The Treasury also investigates other minor income that officials of the House of the King made into the account of the king emeritus and at the request of the latter.
According to sources close to Juan Carlos I, these are "small amounts to pay for purchases in stores" that the former head of state requested to be liquidated.
The inspectors try to trace the origin of the money with which those income were made.
Marlaska, at a press conference this Friday.
In video, statements about the emeritus king.EUROPA PRESS (ALBERTO ORTEGA)
The inspection of the Tax Agency began after Juan Carlos I presented two voluntary regularizations to the Treasury. In the first, he paid 678,393 euros to the treasury for the cash gifts received from the Mexican businessman Allen Sangines-Krause during the 2016-2019 fiscal years. In the second, he paid 4.4 million for the hundreds of private flights paid for by the Zagatka Foundation of Álvaro de Orleans. A payment in kind required to pay personal income tax. Juan Carlos I paid for this regularization with donations from friendly businessmen. The Treasury has required those businessmen who are friends of the King Emeritus to prove the origin of the money they have contributed, according to a source close to the case.
The prosecutor of the Supreme Court Juan Ignacio Campos investigates this second regularization in depth by verifying that the Zagatka accounts resulted in relevant payments in cash. Thus, as this newspaper announced, on February 24 he sent a rogatory commission to the Swiss prosecutor Yves Bertossa in which he requested the movements of the bank accounts linked to said foundation. In the rogatory, Campos argued that his request was part of the investigation proceedings initiated in 2018 by the Prosecutor's Office for indications of alleged crimes of bribery, prevarication, influence peddling and tax crime of the king emeritus for the payments received by the Mexican businessman Allen Sanginés-Krause."There are indicative elements that these funds and others that are also the object of investigation come from commissions and other benefits of a similar nature obtained by Juan Carlos de Borbón by virtue of his intermediation in international business affairs," said the prosecutor's rogatory commission. This referred to the alleged collection of illegal commissions for the works of the AVE to Mecca built by a consortium of Spanish companies for which the emeritus king is being investigated, since 2018, by the Anticorruption Prosecutor directed by Alejandro Luzón.This referred to the alleged collection of illegal commissions for the works of the AVE to Mecca built by a consortium of Spanish companies for which the emeritus king is being investigated, since 2018, by the Anticorruption Prosecutor directed by Alejandro Luzón.This referred to the alleged collection of illegal commissions for the works of the AVE to Mecca built by a consortium of Spanish companies for which the emeritus king is being investigated, since 2018, by the Anticorruption Prosecutor directed by Alejandro Luzón.
Given the interpretation that some media have now made of this explanation, required in any request for international aid, the Office of the Supreme Court Prosecutor has published a note this Friday in which it highlights that "it had previously reported" on the three investigation procedures that they continue against the king emeritus and that this body is not "before an opinion, request for prosecution or conclusions of the prosecutor, but simply details the possible illicit actions that are the object of investigation" previously already known. "It is obvious that it will be precisely the content of the response that the requested authority gives to the corresponding rogatory commission that in turn will allow the prosecutor to confirm or discard these indications or even open other avenues of investigation," says the note.
The Swiss prosecutor Yves Bertossa, who is investigating the 65 million euros received by Juan Carlos I at the Swiss bank Mirabaud & Cie in a different case, has already sent his Spanish colleagues the account movements of this Liechtenstein foundation, since 2016 as of 2019, at Credit Suisse and Lombard Odier banks. Orleans was questioned by prosecutors Campos and Luzón; According to his version, those money outflows were for his personal use. Prosecutors are investigating whether they were for the king emeritus and have not been declared.
The Prosecutor's Office is also investigating a house in London, in the central Belgravia neighborhood, supposedly given by the Sultan of Oman to the King Emeritus.
The works of this London house finished in August 2015 and the apartment was finally sold for around 50 million to a young Arab.
Juan Carlos I did not occupy it, but it is being investigated if he received any amount for its sale.
Supposedly, the emeritus king claimed to have this house in his name.
"Serious statements" that violate the presumption of innocence
The lawyer of the king emeritus, Javier Sánchez-Junco, has denounced this Friday through a statement that the presumption of innocence of Juan Carlos I has been violated due to the “serious affirmations” that the Prosecutor's Office would have made in that request for information to Switzerland on the origin of the fortune of the former head of state, and in which - according to the interpretation made this Friday by some media - the public prosecutor would point out that the king emeritus would have illegally charged international commissions and thus could have incurred crimes against public finance, money laundering, bribery and influence peddling. "This communication to the Swiss authorities contains serious statements and allegations of conduct that is carried out, in our opinion, without any support and lacks the slightest justification,being contradicted by other facts of which nothing is said ”, argues the lawyer.