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For 15 months, Spain's former King has been under investigation, suspected of hiding a secret fortune in Jersey.
Since the allegations first came to light, Abu Dhabi-based Juan Carlos I has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and says that allegations relating to his finances are preventing him from returning to his home country.
But he might now be on the cusp of a ticket to freedom after a leaked report suggested that the Jersey probe was not going to result in a prosecution.
Express looks into how the investigation into the mysterious €10m Jersey trust came to be, and what it found...
Juan Carlos I was crowned king in 1975.
However, he ceded the throne in 2014 following a reign blighted by scandals, despite his role as Spain’s new head of state as it transitioned to democracy following dictator General Franco’s death.
Two years before stepping down, he came under fire for going on a private elephant-hunting trip in Botswana with his former mistress during which he fell and fractured his hip. It also came when the country was still recovering from the effects of the financial crisis.
The saga intensified existing anger from animal rights activists, who had repeatedly protested his penchant for hunting bears. In 2004, he killed nine bears – one of which was pregnant – in Romania.
Pictured: Juan Carlos I abdicated in June 2014.
When he finally stepped down, he was reported as saying he had done so because, “we don’t want my son to wither waiting like Prince Charles."
In the years that followed, a number of investigations into his finances opened.
Spain’s highest court started looking into a ‘donation’ he received from Saudi Arabia in 2008, ahead of the awarding of a €6.7bn high-speed train contract to the nation.
It was also claimed that the ex-King used secret credit cards to spend money from an offshore account.
Amid these allegations, he moved to the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in August 2020.
Months later, a Jersey strand was added to the investigations list...
In November 2020, it was first reported that a probe related to funds allegedly hidden in a Jersey-based trust believed to hold around €10m.
Led by Spain’s Attorney General Dolores Delgado and Chief Anti-corruption Prosecutor Alejandro Luzón, the investigation was triggered by an apparent attempt to transfer millions of euros from the offshore account, which was picked up by the Spain’s anti-money laundering authority.
The ex-King vigorously denied keeping a hidden fortune in Jersey, however.
According to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the ‘Rey Emeritus’ expressed his “stupefaction” at being drawn into such an investigation.
He said that under no circumstances would he have ordered bank transfers involving funds outside of Spain, and that he is “not responsible for any Jersey trust and never has been, either directly or indirectly.”
The ex-monarch was also reported to have told those close to him that the new Jersey probe had “complicated” his ability to return to Spain.
When Express asked Jersey’s financial regulator at the time whether it was assisting with the investigation, a spokesperson responded: “As the regulator, we will not provide comment on media coverage or enquiries relating to specific allegations of money laundering in Jersey or businesses that we supervise."
Pictured: The JFSC declined to comment on the specific case.
They continued: “Equally, we do not respond to enquiries or allegations in relation to investigations or our involvement in any investigation.
“We do take allegations and suspicions of money laundering very seriously and will investigate in full all credible and substantial allegations. If we conduct an investigation, our conclusions will be published where there is cause to invoke regulatory sanctions.”
The former monarch enjoyed legal immunity while king. However, some of the allegations against him relate to the years after he abdicated in 2014.
In October last year, Spain’s Prime Minister called for Juan Carlos I to be stripped of immunity from prosecution.
That month, it was reported in the Spanish media that authorities may be on the verge of dropping investigations into any alleged crimes because any actions prior to his abdication in 2014 cannot be tried due to Article 56.3 of the Spanish Constitution, which says monarchs are "inviolable and not subject to liability."
Having previously told Spanish TV channel La Sexta that Juan Carlos I should provide a public explanation of the "unpleasant" allegations surrounding him, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for the end of sovereign immunity.
He dubbed it a “product of another age” and said he did not think it right to continue “in an era of consolidated democracy.”
Four months later, it has this week been reported that Spanish prosecutors have closed the file on the investigation.
That’s according to Spain’s answer to Robert Peston, Carlos Herrera - a journalist who runs a daily morning radio show on a channel called COPE blending news, politics and humour with interviews with heavyweight political figures.
On Monday, the ‘Herrera on COPE’ team published what was described as a leaked draft copy of Señor Luzón’s 20-page final report. Click HERE to see an extract.
#NOTICIA COPE ???? La Fiscalía archivará la investigación sobre la supuesta cuenta del Rey Juan Carlos en Jersey https://t.co/CanfGevdpY
— Herrera en COPE (@HerreraenCOPE) February 7, 2022
All that remains is for the copy to be dated and signed by Luzón, and the investigation will officially be over, with no consequences for the former King.
The report finds that there is no evidence linking Juan Carlos I to the Jersey money pot – whether as someone in control of the money or someone ultimately benefiting from it - that would allow a criminal prosecution to be brought.
It goes on to say that, after the date of Juan Carlos I’s abdication, when his immunity from prosecution falls away, some money movement was detected. However, it is clear that these relate to sums that do not meet the threshold for there to be a crime against the Public Treasury.
The trust was set up in 2004 with Joaquín Romero Maura, former Oxford University lecturer and great-grandson of five-time Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Maura and friend of the King, as settlor and Bermuda Trust (Jersey) Limited as trustees.
The trust was a blend of two trusts named Tartessos and Hereu created in 1995 and 1997 respectively by Juan Carlos I’s former close aide, Manuel de Prado y Colón de Carvajal, who was later jailed for embezzlement and has since passed away.
Herrera reports that, according to the Chief Anti-corruption Prosecutor, part of the funds in both trusts came from donations made in the 50s and 70s to support the then-Prince Juan Carlos.
It was previously speculated that the €10m Jersey trust at the centre of the investigation was believed to hold cash offered as a “sweetener” for Spain’s support for the coalition against Suddam Hussein in the first Gulf War.
The report leaked this week notes that no documentation from the time is currently available so the exact origin of the funds making up the trusts “will never be known with total certainty.”
In the 1990s, the purpose of the trusts was to provide back-up for King Juan Carlos I “in the event that he was deposed by an unconstitutional coup or a similar situation”.
However, Herrera’s report says that Señor Luzón found that, by 2004, “the political situation in Spain was stable, the heir, today’s King Philip VI, had just got married, the monarchy was enjoying prestige and public knowledge of the existence of the trusts, with the involvement of Manuel de Prado, later convicted by the High Court, would have required embarrassing explanations.” As a result, Juan Carlos I was reported to have decided to liquidate the trusts and transfer control to Señor Maura.
Since then, Señor Maura is reported to have held control of the fund, with his wife and the British Refugee Council – a UK-based organisation founded in 1951 which works with refugees and asylum seekers – named as beneficiaries upon his death.
Señor Maura is now reported to be in his 80s and living in a care home with dementia.
The Jersey trust wasn’t the only financial investigation linked to the former King – and the outcomes of the others are still awaited, which may have a bearing on his decision.
A visit by Herrera to the former King in Abu Dhabi in January provided an insight into his thinking.
“I will return when the appropriate circumstances arise that don’t create any instability in the institution of my son, Felipe VI,” he said.
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