George Mathias
TORY peer Zac Goldsmith is facing fresh allegations of tax evasion linked to his vast Costa del Sol estate where Prime Minister Boris Johnson was a guest last autumn.
In a recording, the former London mayoral candidate is allegedly mentioned in a recording of Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, the ex-lover of Spain’s former King Juan Carlos, who can be heard saying his career would be ‘dead’ if details about his financial practices came to light.
It is believed Sayn-Wittgenstein was trying to get help from a disgraced Spanish police officer, Jose Manuel Villarejo, who had been operating clandestine financial services to wealthy Spanish clients.
Goldsmith welcomed none other than the British PM and his wife Carrie to the Andalucian estate for a holiday in October.
Photo: creative commons licence.
Spanish courts recently ruled that companies owned by Goldsmith and his brother Ben were involved in a €24m tax evasion scheme.
Goldsmith, a vocal supporter of the British PM, has consistently refused to comment on his tax dealings which Spanish courts have labelled ‘a serious violation of the law.’
In the recording, Sayn-Wittgenstein says: “What is his worry? Zac is a Conservative MP. If the newspapers discover the case, he’s dead.”
Sayn-Wittgenstein also mentions the Cayman Islands in the conversation, an apparent reference to the wider Goldsmith family’s use of an offshore trust fund which has legal ownership over their property portfolio.
She was named in the Pandora Papers, a mass of documents that revealed how the super-rich can amass wealth and carry out dealings in ways that are not easy for governments, tax agencies or law enforcement to detect.
READ MORE:
- The Pandora Papers: Secret files put big names in Spain in the spotlight for offshore funds
- Boris Johnson reveals recent stay in luxury villa on Spain’s Costa del Sol was freebie from Tory peer
