Juan Carlos’ former mistress, Corinna Larsen, also known as Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, spoke of “a number of incidents” at a Shropshire property she bought three years after receiving receiving a €65million (£58million) gift from the former monarch. Ms Larsen bought Chyknell Hall Estate, worth £6million, in 2015.
According to El Pais newspaper, Ms Larsen spent a further £6million on refurbishing the mansion.
A The Times report claimed that local residents said: “It was already such a nice estate.
“It felt like ripping out a perfectly nice kitchen just for the sake of it.”
Ms Larsen has rebutted claims of money laundering, despite having been placed under investigation regarding some audio tapes of a meeting between herself and retired Spanish police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo at her home in 2015.
In the tapes, she allegedly spoke of Juan Carlos being the beneficiary of a secret commission after he helped secure a £5.5 billion Saudi rail deal.
Local residents claimed Ms Larsen had been the “talk of the hamlet” since she acquired the property but “does not get involved much in the community”.
One local source told the Times that “when she moved in there was a lot of work carried out and people wondered why, it was already such a nice estate.”
The estate’s security systems were ramped up after Ms Larse moved in, but a burglar reportedly managed to invade the property three years ago.
READ MORE: Prince Harry’s tax returns ‘will likely come out’
She has been investigated for suspected money laundering, but lawyers claim the allegations are “baseless”.
Spanish newspaper El Pais claimed she had told Swiss prosecutors she acquired the estate through a trust fund registered in Panama that named her son, who was 13 at the time, as its beneficiary.
Swiss prosecutors are said to have been interested in the purchase of the mansion because it came after Juan Carlos gifted Ms Larsen millions of euros.
It has also come to their attention that she set up the estate’s “opaque structure” in order to buy it.
Ms Larsen last week claimed that the former monarch gave her the “enormously generous gift” out of “gratitude for looking after him” and because he appreciated her son.
