The Prosecutor's Office closes the investigations into Juan Carlos I alleging that the crimes prescribed

The Public Ministry has decreed the file of the proceedings opened more than two years ago with three aspects on the patrimony of the emeritus king: the millionaire commissions that he received for his intervention in the award of the works from the AVE to Meccathe use of opaque cards revealed by elDiario.es and, finally, his relationship with several million hidden on the island of Jersey.

In a note made public this afternoon, the Prosecutor's Office indicates that "fraud quotas have been detected by the king emeritus between 2008 and 2012, all prescribed except those of 2012, when he was also protected by inviolability." In any case, the Prosecutor's Office validates the regularizations before the Ministry of Finance despite the king emeritus having made them once he was notified.

In its decrees, the Prosecutor's Office recognizes that the king emeritus could incur tax crimes between 2008 and 2012 for the funds received by the Lucum Foundation, from Juan Carlos I himself, in an account in Geneva, but that remain unpunished: most would be prescribed and the last one, the one from 2011, would also go unpunished due to the inviolability that protected Juan Carlos de Bornbón before his abdication in 2014. That account was in which Juan Carlos de Borbón received 100 million dollars from Saudi Arabia with the concept "Amount sent by King ABDALLAH of Saudi Arabia as a gift according to Saudi tradition for other monarchies."

The Prosecutor's Office explains that the possible tax crimes would be prescribed and that, in addition, the theory prevails that it was a gift and not a commission for its intervention in the award of the construction of the AVE to Mecca to a consortium of Spanish companies. "The investigation has not been able to establish, even in an indicative way, any link between the aforementioned income of 64,884,405 euros and the award of the project for the construction of the high-speed railway line in Saudi Arabia, nor, therefore, that said amount is related to the payment of any commission", says the Prosecutor's Office. He acknowledges that it could therefore be a bribery crime, but that "this possible crime would be clearly prescribed."

For the Prosecutor's Office, there is not enough evidence to show that it was not a gift. "The indications are extraordinarily weak, in such a way that the facts that could be attributed to him do not go beyond the condition of merely suspicious," he explains in the file decree of him. It is also clear about how the inviolability that the Constitution recognizes to the king during his mandate is total and does not only affect public or private acts: "The interpretation of article 56.3, according to the above, is clear and leaves no room for doubt about of the constitutional mandate that prevents directing any criminal reproach to SMD Juan Carlos de Borbón for any conduct carried out prior to June 19, 2014", says the Prosecutor's Office.

The Prosecutor's Office also approves the tax regularizations made by the defense of the king emeritus on two occasions for a total value greater than five million euros. The investigators understand that the notices that the Prosecutor's Office was giving to his lawyer about the opening of proceedings cannot be considered as a formal notice and that, therefore, the regularization is worth it to avoid an accusation of tax fraud: "The notifications of initiation of Investigative proceedings could not have, at the time they were carried out, the character of transferring the formal knowledge of the initiation of proceedings that would activate the temporary block to regularization, "says the letter.

As for the money detected by the anti-money laundering authorities in a trust on the island of Jersey, the Prosecutor's Office relates that fortune to Joaquín Romero Maura and not, finally, to the monarch. "There is no evidence to link The JRM 2004 Trust with SMD Juan Carlos de Borbón, neither in its management nor in its ability to dispose of the funds; at no time has it been a beneficiary of the trust nor is there evidence that it has received an amount any of their accounts", says the decree of the Prosecutor's Office.

The Jersey Trust

Prosecutors rule out that the millionaire funds that were initially attributed to the monarch emeritus in a Jersey 'trust' could be related to him. They agree to file these proceedings 44/2020 "without there being any indication that this organization may cover up, as a cover, other interests or beneficiaries and there is also no direct or indirect connection with SMD Juan Carlos de Borbón," says the decree .

In any case, the Prosecutor's Office does recognize that the origin of the trust was two other similar ones, called 'Tartessos' and 'Hereu', founded in the mid-1990s, of which the then King of Spain was a beneficiary. But neither can any type of accusation be directed against him for lack of documentation: "There is currently no supporting documentation available, the origin of the funds with which they were created will probably never be known with total certainty," laments the Prosecutor's Office.

The funds of the trust created in 2004 belonged to the late Joaquín Romero Maura, whose initials gave the name to the 'trust' that set off the alarms in SEPBLAC. "The JRM 2004 Trust, established on March 9, 2004 in Jersey by Mr. Joaquín Romero Maura, of Spanish nationality, with an approximate amount of 8.5 million pounds (10.2 million euros)", reports the Prosecutor's Office . And Romero Maura was, according to the investigators, its true owner and not the monarch: "According to the analyzed documentation, Mr. Joaquín Romero Maura is projected as the true dominus of the trust funds," he explains.

There is no evidence, says the Prosecutor's Office, linking the monarch and the hidden fortune in Jersey. "From 2004 to 2021 there is no indication whatsoever that allows linking The JRM 2004 Trust with SMD Juan Carlos de Borbón, neither in its management nor in the ability to dispose of the funds; at no time has he had the status of beneficiary of the trust or It is clear that he has received any amount from his accounts," says the letter.

triple investigation

The investigation into Juan Carlos I and his fortune began in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in the framework of the Tandem operation, when the magnifying glass was on the recorded audios in which Corinna Larsen, former lover of the monarch, referred to the alleged collection and concealment of tens of millions of euros by the king emeritus. Already in 2020 it was the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office that took the reins of the investigation and began to analyze the money it charged for supposedly getting the works of the AVE to Mecca awarded to a consortium of Spanish companies. Tens of millions of euros that, in addition, the monarch would have hidden abroad behind the back of the Treasury.

From the outset, the Prosecutor's Office made it clear that it was not going to question the inviolability that protected Juan Carlos de Borbón until June 2014, the date of his abdication. "This investigation focuses precisely on delimiting or ruling out the criminal relevance of the events that occurred after the month of June 2014, when the King Emeritus ceased to be protected by the inviolability" recognized by the Constitution, he said. the Supreme Prosecutor's Office in the first statement of the case.

The proceedings were expanded over the months. First, as revealed exclusively by elDiario.es in November 2020, when Anticorruption discovered that both the king emeritus and several relatives had used credit cards for years behind the back of the treasury with money, allegedly from the Mexican businessman Allen Sanginés-Krause. Later when the anti-money laundering authorities detected a fund in Jersey with several million euros that, at that time, linked the monarch emeritus.

Payments and notices

The opening of new proceedings ran parallel to a maneuver of the defense of the king, exercised by the lawyer and former prosecutor Javier Sanchez-Junco, to try to make peace with the Treasury and avoid criminal charges for tax fraud. The first payment arrived in December 2020when his defense assured that on Wednesday the 9th of that month he had paid 678,393.72 euros to regularize the money that he did not pay to the Treasury while he used the opaque cards between 2016 and 2018. More than a month after this newspaper revealed the existence of the investigations and later, as revealed The country newspaperthat the Prosecutor informed him that he was being investigated.

These communications reached the defense of the king emeritus after the opening of the three lines of investigation, and in the case of the cards it was accompanied by a regularization shortly after before the Treasury. It is the vault key of the matter: the axis of the investigation has always been possible tax offense and the Penal Code allows avoiding a criminal case for fraud if the regularization has arrived before the proceedings of the Prosecutor's Office. The question was whether the notices from the Public Ministry, prior to payments to the Treasury, were sufficient to interrupt these deadlines and avoid impunity.

A second payment came in February 2021, when his defense paid 4.4 million euros to deal with a series of undeclared expenses for the flights that the Zagatka Foundation, of his cousin Álvaro de Orleans, paid for years. A money that supposed a new line of investigation and that, according to El Paíscame from a series of businessmen close to the monarch who, in addition, sought the most beneficial way to do it before the Treasury: they used loan contracts and not donations to avoid paying around 40% in taxes.