SWISS PROSECUTORS OPEN PROBE ON EX-KING OF SPAIN

Swiss prosecutors are investigating the purchase of a mansion in Britain by ex-Spanish king Juan Carlos's former lover in 2015, three years after she received 65 million euros from him, a newspaper reported Monday, Pierre-Philippe Marcou wrote for the Agence France-Presse (AFP) late on August 24, 2020.

Danish-born business consultant Corinna Larsen told prosecutors in Geneva she paid six million pounds (6.7 million euros) for Chyknell Hall Estate in western England and spent a similar amount renovating it, according to her testimony that Spanish daily El Pais says it has seen.

Since 2018, Larsen has been under investigation for suspected money laundering and the chief prosecutor in Geneva is probing the purchase of the home because it took place after she received the gift from Juan Carlos and because of the "opaque structure" she set up to buy it, the newspaper said.

The 200-acre (81-hectare) estate includes a mansion with 11 bedrooms, a library, a swimming pool and cricket field. Larsen told Swiss prosecutors she bought the property through a trust fund registered in Panama that listed her son, who was 13 at the time, as its beneficiary. Larsen, who was the former monarch's lover between 2004 and 2009, has said she received a significant amount of money from Juan Carlos in 2012: 65 million euros ($77 million) according to Swiss daily La Tribune.