The British Council Refugee (BCR), a discreet organization that helps political refugees in the United Kingdom, has received more than two million pounds (2,334,000 euros) in donation from a fund owned by the historian and former banker Joaquín Romero Maura, who died in 2022. in a nursing home in Zaragoza. The money comes from the JMR 2004 Trust, an opaque financial instrument linked to Juan Carlos I and created on the island of Jersey, a tax haven in the English Channel.
The 2.3 million correspond to the first payment of Romero Maura's legacy, which the
trust
administrators have sent to the managers of the
British Council Refugee
, whose headquarters are built in a simple three-story glass building in Stratford, east of London. . A spokesperson for the London NGO confirms to EL PAÍS the receipt of the first 2.3 million: “We received more than 2 million pounds, between the trust (trust funds
)
and the legacy. We are not sure of the amount we will receive in 2024 as we cannot estimate it until the assets have been assessed. “There is currently no guaranteed annual contribution, but we expect future payments at the discretion of the trustees who oversee the funds.”
The BCR directors took more than six months to decide whether to accept the donation of 16 million since the origin of this fortune closely linked to the former head of state is a mystery that has not been clarified. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office investigated this trust to determine if the money belonged to the emeritus king. Until 2004 and for almost a decade, the then King Juan Carlos I was the owner of the funds.
The organization will use these funds for general charitable purposes “including running services for refugees and asylum seekers so they can rebuild their lives safely, as well as campaigning for and improving a refugee protection system in the UK,” says the organization's spokesperson.
Secrets and reluctance
Romero Maura, who was 81 years old when he died, was a professor of History at Oxford University and had no children. In his will he left the 10 million from the trust and all of his assets. This was made up of an account in Switzerland and two houses in the United Kingdom (London) and in France (Périgord) with their parking spaces, valued at another five million pounds (5,844,000 euros), as recognized by the organization and confirmed by a donor's family member.
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The last bank in which the money from this enigmatic
trust
ended up is the Investec Bank, in Guernsey, another tiny island of 78 square kilometers, in the English Channel. There are the administrators who each year will send an amount to the NGO as stipulated in the will of the former trusted man of the emeritus king. But previously the fortune passed through ten other banks, all in tax havens, and their compliance departments carried out internal investigations without being able to determine the origin of the money, according to documents to which EL PAÍS has had access. Almost all companies were reluctant, and one felt so uncomfortable with asset management that it increased its fees because of the reputational risk it posed. This is the case of Zedra Trustees in Jersey.
The NGO's funds each year come from the liquidation of two other
trusts
created in 1995 and 1997 by Manuel Prado and Colón de Carvajal, a close friend of the king. In both financial instruments, the then head of state was the sole beneficiary of the money. And this fortune came from a company based in the British Virgin Islands, according to bank documentation. In this account and, always according to the testimony of the managers of that time, donations went from unidentified people who supported Juan Carlos I between the fifties and seventies. The most important contribution occurred in 1999 by Simeón de Bulgaria. He transferred nine million dollars (8,384,572 euros).
The Supreme Court prosecutors closed the investigation into these funds after finding no evidence linking The JRM 2004 Trust to Juan Carlos I, "neither in its management nor in the ability to dispose of the funds." And they highlighted that since its constitution in 2004, the king emeritus was not its beneficiary, nor is there evidence that he has received any amount from its accounts.
Since 2005 and through different letters sent to the different administrators, the former banker and historian communicated his wish that after he and his wife died, all the money would be allocated to social care and especially to children. After his wife died, the man who received the fortune from the then head of state sold his house in Switzerland and retired to a town in Périgord, southwest of France. An illness forced him to enter the Ballesol residence in Zaragoza where he died after receiving the care and company of his two brothers who lived in that city. Until his death, Romero Maura kept one of the most compromised secrets of the previous head of state: the creation in 2004 in a law office at 50 La Colombière Street, in the capital of Jersey, of a
trust
with his initials and 14,923,604 euros whose origin remains unclear.
Investigation@thecountry
.
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