‘Pandora’s Papers’: Julio Iglesias’ millionaire network: from the Virgin Islands to the’ rich man’s bunker ‘| Pandora Papers

The singer Julio Iglesias (Madrid, 78 years old) has used five companies located in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands to acquire properties in Indian Creek, the coveted island of Miami known as the bunker of the rich. The current value of the homes is $ 112 million, according to data from the official Miami-Dade County registry. The singer is linked to fifteen other companies, all managed by Trident Trust, one of the offices in the center of the Pandora Papers, a journalistic work coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

More than 600 journalists from 117 countries have analyzed the 11.9 million files of 14 law firms specialized in creating companies for two years. offshore in tax havens. These types of companies, located in countries other than the tax domicile of their administrators, are legal as long as the owner declares them where he resides. The problem begins, in the eyes of the authorities, when what is sought in these countries is anonymity and zero taxation. In Spain, EL PAÍS and La Sexta have analyzed the leak in search of people of public interest who have taken advantage of the most opaque jurisdictions in the world. The result is more than 700 companies linked to this country, among which dozens of relevant personalities stand out.

In addition to the five properties on the island, Iglesias has used six other partnerships to acquire six more modest properties in the Surfside neighborhood, all near the entrance to Indian Creek, for a total value of nearly $ 4 million. With one of them, G-450 Holding Limited, he owns a private plane. Eight other companies that appear do not have a clear function. In total, he is the beneficiary of 20 companies: in 16, together with his wife, the Dutch Miranda Rijnsburger; another 4 are only in his name. All are controlled by a trust, the most opaque instrument for controlling assets abroad, the Julio Iglesias de la Cueva Revocable Trust. It was created in 1995 in the British Virgin Islands in order to manage the assets of Churches “for succession purposes.”

The Spanish singer made the island of Indian Creek fashionable among the wealthiest, a corner north of Miami Beach with access to the Atlantic and Biscayne Bay, views of the downtown skyline and the most absolute security: a private police force that control the passage by land and sea of ​​any curious. An area of ​​little more than a square kilometer, crowned by a golf club dating from the 1930s, where there are currently 31 mansions built overlooking the sea, flanked by huge palm trees that prevent the world’s richest from being seen behind them while they cool off in luxurious pools or artificial beaches with pink sand brought from the Bahamas. Private docks and luxury yachts at your doorstep. The place, which has no stores, hotels, supermarkets or anything else other than these exclusive houses, has been included among the most expensive in the United States.

Iglesias was the pioneer of a batch of Spanish artists who moved their residence to Miami, such as Alejandro Sanz or Rosalía

Iglesias, whose fortune Forbes estimates at 800 million euros, is one of the few millionaires with such a number of companies offshore, some of them founded since the end of the 90s. The interpreter of La vida continues equal or Me va, me va, considered the Spanish-speaking musician who has sold the most records in all history, about 350 million copies, does not have a tax residence in Spain since 1978, according to his representative Juan Velasco, in an interview with this newspaper. At least until 2018 he resided in the Dominican Republic and his lawyers, who have not wanted to comment on this information, have not confirmed his current residence. He became the pioneer of a batch of Spanish artists who decided to move their residence to Miami, like Alejandro Sanz in the 2000s or now Rosalía. “I have never stopped paying a damn tax anywhere in the world, where I sing, I pay my taxes,” Iglesias snapped at the journalist Jordi Évole in an interview in 2015.

The dynamics for the purchase of the lands in Indian Creek is usually always similar: a limited company is founded in a tax haven and through it the purchase of the lands is made, valued at up to 25 million dollars the pure unbuilt lot of about 7,400 square meters.

The island monopolized all the spotlight in December 2020. When Donald Trump clung to the post of president and gave up admitting his defeat at the polls and half the world was dying for almost a year without truce of a pandemic, his daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner , they reorganized their patrimony. One of Iglesias’ vacant lots was being sold to the famous couple for the price of $ 32,179,000 – an official amount registered by Miami-Dade County – according to the US press, although property records have not yet published the name. of the last owner of that land.

The land coincides with the four unbuilt parcels owned by Iglesias in the most privileged area of ​​the island, which enjoys the most exclusive view of downtown Miami. In 2008, he bought the mansion at number 30 and, in 2017, he asked for 150 million dollars for the lot of four empty plots near his property, which together gave access to almost 250 meters of exit to the sea. One of those lands is the one that local media, such as the South Florida Business Journal, assure that the former president’s daughter has bought.

“This is the most exclusive and private corner of Miami,” says Kevin Kavanaugh, an expert real estate agent in the luxury market from his Miami Beach office. “While the luxury market for new buildings fluctuates every year, depending on the fashion of living in one or the other penthouse, the one of the mansions is a stable business, that grows every year. A safe asset, ”adds Kavanaugh.

On Wednesday of last week a construction truck waited at the entrance of the bridge for its access to the island. Neighbors speculate that Ivanka lives nearby, in a building in Surfside, while her mansion is being built across the sea. Although in 2020 another well-known face also acquired a similar terrain: the supermodel Gisele Bündchen and her husband, the American football star Tom Brady, took the number 26, which contains a mansion that they wanted to demolish to build another ecological and sustainable house, as announced by several US media last December. This piece of land was sold in October for $ 17 million.