The singer owns eleven properties in Miami worth more than $100 million, all of them belonging to companies based in the British Virgin Islands.
Taken from EL PAÍS
Singer Julio Iglesias (Madrid, 78 years old) has used five companies located in the British Virgin Islands tax haven to acquire properties in Indian Creek, the coveted Miami island known as the bunker of the rich. The current value of the homes amounts to $112 million (€96 million), according to data from the Miami-Dade County registry. The singer is linked to 15 other companies, all managed by Trident Trust, one of the firms at the center of the Pandora Papers, a journalistic investigation coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
For two years, over 600 journalists from 117 countries analyzed 11.9 million files from 14 law firms specializing in creating offshore in tax havens. These types of companies, based in countries other than the tax domicile of their directors, are legal as long as the owner declares them in their country of residence. The problem, in the eyes of the authorities, arises when the goal in these countries is anonymity and zero taxation. In Spain, EL PAÍS and La Sexta analyzed the leak in search of public figures who have benefited from the world's most opaque jurisdictions. The result is more than 700 companies linked to Spain, including dozens of prominent personalities.
In addition to the five properties on the island, Iglesias has used six other companies to acquire six more modest properties in the Surfside neighborhood, all near the entrance to Indian Creek, for a total value of nearly four million dollars. Through one of these companies, G-450 Holding Limited, he owns a private plane. Eight other companies listed have no clear function. In total, he is the beneficiary of 20 companies: 16 are jointly owned with his wife, the Dutch national Miranda Rijnsburger; the other four are solely in his name. All are controlled by a trust, the most opaque instrument for managing assets abroad, the Julio Iglesias de la Cueva Revocable Trust. It was created in 1995 in the British Virgin Islands to manage Iglesias's assets "for succession purposes.".
The singer owns eleven properties in Miami worth more than $100 million, all of them belonging to companies based in the British Virgin Islands.
The Spanish singer popularized Indian Creek Island among the wealthiest, a corner of Miami Beach with access to the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, panoramic views of the city center, and absolute security: a private police force that controls the passage of any curious onlooker by land and sea. A plot of land just over one square kilometer, crowned by a golf club dating back to the 1930s, where 31 mansions face the sea, flanked by enormous palm trees that obscure the view of the world's richest people as they cool off in luxurious pools or on artificial beaches with pink sand imported from the Bahamas. Private docks and luxury yachts are moored right outside their homes. The place, which has no shops, hotels, supermarkets, or anything else besides these exclusive residences, has been ranked among the most expensive in the United States.
Iglesias, whose fortune estimates Forbes at 800 million euros, is one of the few millionaires with such a large number of offshore, some of them founded in the late 1990s. The singer of " La vida sigue igual" and "Me va, me va," considered the best-selling Spanish-language musician of all time, with some 350 million records sold, has not had 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 declined to comment on this information, have not confirmed his current residence. He became the pioneer of a wave of Spanish artists who decided to move their residence to Miami, like Alejandro Sanz in the 2000s and now Rosalía. "I've never failed to pay a single damn tax anywhere in the world; wherever I sing, I pay my taxes," Iglesias told journalist Jordi Évole in a 2015 interview.
The process for buying land in Indian Creek is usually similar: a limited company is established in a tax haven and the land is purchased through it, valued at up to $25 million (€21.5 million) for the undeveloped lot of about 7,400 square meters.
The island captured all the attention in December 2020. While Donald Trump clung to the presidency and refused to concede defeat at the polls, and half the world suffered through nearly a year of relentless pandemic, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner were reorganizing their assets. One of Iglesias's vacant lots was sold to the famous couple for $32,179,000—the official price recorded by Miami-Dade County—according to the American press, although property records still do not list the name of the last owner of that land.
The land in question corresponds to the four undeveloped lots owned by Iglesias in the most exclusive area of the island, the one with the most prestigious views of downtown Miami. In 2008, he purchased the mansion at number 30, and in 2017, he asked $150 million (€129 million) for the four vacant lots near his property, which together provided access to almost 250 meters of ocean frontage. One of these lots is the one that local media outlets, such as the South Florida Business Journal, claim the former president's daughter has purchased.
Luxury real estate expert Kevin Kavanaugh, speaking from his Miami Beach office, notes that "this is the most exclusive and private corner of Miami." "While the luxury market for new buildings fluctuates each year, depending on the trend of living in one penthouse , the mansion market is a stable business that grows every year. A safe bet," Kavanaugh adds.
A few days ago, a construction truck was waiting at the entrance to the bridge, ready to access the island. Locals speculate that Ivanka lives nearby, in a building in Surfside, while her mansion is being built on the other side of the sea. However, in 2020, another well-known figure also acquired a similar plot of land: supermodel Gisele Bündchen and her husband, NFL star Tom Brady, purchased number 26, which has a mansion they intended to demolish to build a new, eco-friendly, and sustainable home, as reported by several US media outlets last December. This piece of land was sold last October for $17 million (€15 million).
