The emeritus king Juan Carlos I, in a file image.José Oliva / Europa Press
The lieutenant prosecutor of the Supreme Court Juan Ignacio Campos, who investigates the fortune of the king emeritus abroad, formally notified Juan Carlos I of the opening of each of the three investigations that the Prosecutor's Office has undertaken on his assets. The notifications were produced in June, November and December 2020 through the lawyer of the former head of State, Javier Sánchez-Junco, according to sources familiar with the investigation. In each of the writings, of which an acknowledgment of receipt, he was invited to appear in person at the proceedings, but the king emeritus did not do so in any of the three cases.
The first two notifications occurred before, on December 9, Juan Carlos I's lawyer made public that he had presented “without prior requirement”, a tax regularization “for the amount of 678,393.72 euros, including interest and surcharges. ”; while the third was carried out prior to the second regularization that, worth almost 4.4 million, took place in February of this year.
The fact that the notification occurred before the regularization is very relevant, as it could invalidate the effect that was sought with it: the exoneration of a possible tax offense. Article 305.4 of the Criminal Code states that the regularization neutralizes the criminal action as long as "the full recognition and payment of the tax debt has been carried out before the Tax Administration has notified the initiation of verification or investigation actions" ; or before the Public Prosecutor "files a complaint or complaint" or "performs actions that allow it to have [the alleged fraudster] formal knowledge of the initiation of proceedings."
That is, at the moment in which the investigated has “formal knowledge” that the Prosecutor's Office has opened proceedings, he can no longer regularize his situation with the Treasury and, if he does, this does not have the effect of exonerating him from the alleged crime. As sources of the investigation have confirmed to EL PAÍS, the king emeritus, through his lawyer, was notified of the start of the proceedings before proceeding with the first regularization.
However, the same sources emphasize that they were “very generic” notifications.
In the briefs sent by the prosecutor Campos to the lawyer for Juan Carlos I, he was informed of the initiation of the proceedings, and his number was even provided, but it was only said that they dealt with events that could have “criminal implications” for the king emeritus. , without specifying whether it was an alleged tax offense and, if so, what tax would be the allegedly defrauded, for what amount or what tax period was being investigated.
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In the notifications, the lawyer was invited to appear at the proceedings to defend the rights of his client, but Javier Sánchez-Junco, a good expert on the Public Ministry (he was subordinate to Campos himself as an anti-corruption prosecutor before practicing law) avoided doing so. Had he appeared, he would have accessed the content of the investigation and could not have alleged ignorance. It was, in any case, a formal ignorance because, through the press, it was known what was the object of the proceedings opened by the Prosecutor's Office.
The first notification, of June 2020, referred to the investigation into the origin of the 100 million dollars (65 million euros) that the Saudi king Abdalá bin Abdelaziz delivered to Juan Carlos I and he ended up transferring in 2012 to his then lover Corinna Larsen. The suspicion that this money came from the payment of commissions for the AVE to Mecca flies over the case, although the transfer, in 2008, predates the award of the work to a consortium of Spanish companies, in 2011, and stumbles on the fact that Don Juan Carlos then enjoyed immunity as Head of State. Yves Bertossa, a Swiss prosecutor who has been investigating the events since August 2018, traveled to Madrid and suggested to the Spanish prosecutors the idea that, although the transfer was prior to the award,it could be done in exchange for a significant price savings being guaranteed. The Spanish offer was 30% lower than the bid price (6,300 million euros).
The second notification to Juan Carlos I, in November of the same year, responded to the investigation into the use of opaque cards with funds from the Mexican magnate and friend of the emeritus king Allen Sanginés-Krause;
and the third, from December 2020, on the alleged existence of a financial trust of which Juan Carlos I would be a beneficiary in the Channel Islands, a well-known tax haven.
The first two notifications, the sources consulted insist, were absolutely generic and only the third mentioned a trust in Jersey.
The notification that has the most relevance is the second, since it occurred a month before the king emeritus made his first regularization and the subject of the investigation is the same for which Juan Carlos I tried to settle his debts with the Treasury, although he did not do so. mentioned.
The 678,392.72 euros paid by the king emeritus in his parallel declaration exceeded, although referring to several years, the threshold of the tax offense (120,000 euros) and covered a period, 2016-18, that was not prescribed and in which the previous head of state no longer enjoyed inviolability. The open investigation into the use of the opaque cards with which Don Juan Carlos paid for restaurants, hotels and gifts to members of his family was in the public domain, since the State Attorney General, Dolores Delgado, reported on November 3 that the Supreme Court of the proceedings being carried out by the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, after elDiario.es was informed of its existence. In addition, Air Force Colonel Nicolás Murga, former aide to the King Emeritus and his alleged front man, had already been called to testify,and Sanginés-Krause himself.
The question is whether the notification of November, made just a few days after the State Attorney General publicly reported the transfer of the proceedings to the Supreme Court, allows to conclude that Juan Carlos I had "formal knowledge" of the investigation into the use of the opaque cards before proceeding to the regularization, which would invalidate the objective of this.
Javier Martín Fernández, professor of financial and tax law at the Complutense University and partner-director of Ideo Legal, considers that the prosecutor is not obliged to detail in his notification which crimes he investigates, since the law instructs him to investigate "allegedly criminal acts" and the typification of the same is for a later phase. However, those proceedings, he emphasizes, must refer to a specific and allegedly illegal conduct that, necessarily, will be limited to a certain period of time. "If the notification reveals which specific facts are being investigated, and this becomes known to the taxpayer, he will be vetoed the possibility of benefiting from the provision of article 305.4 of the Penal Code,even though these proceedings do not specify the applicable rate ”. The exoneration of the tax offense, he warns, is the consequence of a “complete, spontaneous and voluntary tax regularization” and not a way of avoiding the consequences of an ongoing investigation.
The second regularization presented by the king emeritus, on February 25 for 4,395,901.96 euros, "without prior requirement of any kind, including late payment interest and surcharges," according to the statement of his lawyer, did not respond to None of the three investigations underway in the Prosecutor's Office but rather the payment of travel for the king emeritus by the Zagatka Foundation, owned by his cousin Álvaro de Orleans, a matter that was already being investigated in Switzerland and about which Campos had requested information.
Even so, this second regularization could also affect your situation in Spain because, for the Treasury to consider the tax debts paid, the declaration must be "complete and truthful", in addition to being presented before the opening of a investigation. In fact, the Tax Agency has not yet reported whether it validates the two parallel statements of Don Juan Carlos and concludes the investigations initiated after the presentation of the same, and neither has the Prosecutor's Office yet closed any of its three investigations with the presentation of a complaint before the Supreme Court or its file. One of the pending fringes was to clarify if the 4,4 million that a group of businessmen lent to the king emeritus to pay his second regularization corresponded to a loan as said or it was actually a donation, in which case it should be taxed as such. However, the fact that the former head of state has been in Abu Dhabi for more than six months this year - he left in August 2020 and it is not known when he will return - means that, for tax purposes, Juan Carlos I is not a resident in Spain and cannot be held accountable for your income in 2021.
Requirements of the law
Article 305.4 of the Penal Code: “The tax situation will be considered regularized when the taxpayer has proceeded to the full recognition and payment of the tax debt, before the Tax Administration has notified the initiation of verification or investigation actions aimed at determining the tax debts subject to regularization or, in the event that such actions had not taken place, before the Public Prosecutor's Office, the State Attorney or the procedural representative of the autonomous, provincial or local Administration of in question, file a complaint or complaint against the person directed, or before the Public Prosecutor's Office or the Investigating Judge carry out actions that allow them to have formal knowledge of the initiation of proceedings ”.