The Swiss justice filed, this Monday (13), a criminal investigation involving the patrimony of the former king of Spain Juan Carlos.
According to prosecutor Yves Bertossa, Juan Carlos, who has the title of king emeritus, received, in August 2008, US$ 100 million (R$ 566 million) from the Ministry of Finance of Saudi Arabia. The deposit would have been made in an account opened a month earlier at the Mirabaud bank, which is based in Geneva, in the name of a Panamanian foundation whose beneficiary was the then Spanish king.
The prosecution, however, could not find sufficient evidence that the payment would have been a kind of “illegal commission” for a contract awarded three years later to Spanish companies for a high-speed train between Medina and Mecca.
The case came to light in 2018, when Corinna Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a former lover of Juan Carlos, leaked recordings showing that the former king had taken a bribe for the award of the tender for the trains to a consortium of Spanish companies. She is a Danish businesswoman divorced from a German prince, from whom she kept her last name, but is also known by her maiden name, Corinna Larsen.
Despite the filing, Geneva’s chief prosecutor, Yves Bertossa, said the use of the foundation and offshore accounts by several protagonists in the case showed a “willingness to dissemble”.
Investigations also found that additional payments of nearly $9 million (BRL 51 million) from Kuwait and Bahrain were received in accounts held by Juan Carlos and his ex-lover.
The Panamanian foundation’s Mirabaud bank account was closed in June 2012 and the funds were transferred to an account opened in the Bahamas and linked to a company in Corinna.
“My innocence was evident early on and this episode served to further harm me as part of the ongoing abuse campaign against me by certain Spanish interests,” Corinna said in a statement sent to Reuters.
“The main offenders, in turn, were not investigated and had time to hide their activities. They remain unaccountable,” he added.
Juan Carlos, despite being linked to the case, was not a defendant in the process.
Although the case has been closed, the costs of the judicial process, valued at 200,000 Swiss francs (R$ 1.23 million), will be covered by the defendants.
Mirabaud was fined 50,000 Swiss francs (BRL 307,600) for not reporting Corinna’s account. The way the bank handled the suspicious transitions also weighed against the institution.
By way of note, the bank welcomed the conclusion of the criminal proceedings and said that its alleged breach of a duty to report did not concern the account linked to the former Spanish king and that it has since developed and strengthened its internal procedures.
The Spanish royal family declined to comment on the decision. Through his lawyer, the former king had already refused to comment on the various allegations of wrongdoing against him.
Juan Carlos, 83, abdicated the throne in 2014 in favor of his son Felipe 6th, amid a series of scandals that began in 2012.
Heavily pressured by press revelations about the origins of much of his wealth, he went into exile in August 2020 in the UAE.
Currently, the emeritus king is the target of three investigations in Spain, including one that investigates illegal acts in negotiations between the Saudis and Spanish companies. Earlier this month, the country’s prosecutor extended the investigations against him for another six months.
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