The Fanjul family receives Juan Carlos I in the Dominican Republic

August 5, 2020

The emeritus king Juan Carlos of Spain, who announced his intention to leave the country last Monday due to the numerous judicial scandals in which he has been involved for alleged corruption, would currently be in the Dominican Republic with the Fanjul brothers, of Cuban origin, according to Spanish press reports. Via a flight through Porto and the Dominican Republic, emeritus king Juan Carlos I has been hosted by the Fanjul family. Meanwhile, Queen Sofía, with whom Juan Carlos remains married despite maintaining a very distant relationship, will remain in Spain. She is currently at the Marivent Palace in Palma de Mallorca, but is expected to later return to the Zarzuela Palace to continue focusing on work related to the Queen Sofía Foundation.

Specifically, the final destination of the King's father is a residence in the Casa de Campo resort complex, in the Dominican city of La Romana, about 100 kilometers from the country's capital. On these almost three thousand hectares of luxury, owned by the Fanjuls, a well-known Cuban family that made their fortune thanks to sugar plantations, is what will be for a few weeks the new home of the former head of state of Spain for forty years. His fortune is valued at 8.2 billion dollars, according to Bloomberg's billionaire index.

It is not the first time that Juan Carlos I has stayed at the home of the Fanjul brothers. With Pepe Fanjul (1944), the second of the four brothers, and his wife Emilia he has maintained a friendship for decades, but it was not until his abdication, in June 2014, that he began to visit the Caribbean island more regularly, an ideal setting for his retirement, away from public scrutiny.

The grandmother of the sugar businessmen's sister was Edelmira Sampedro, a Cuban woman who married Prince Alfonso, the eldest son of Alfonso XIII, grandfather of Don Juan Carlos.

In the grand villas of Casa de Campo have stayed personalities from the highest spheres. Former U.S. presidents Bush Sr. and Jr. or the Clinton couple have spent some vacations in the compound, which houses golf courses, beachfront mansions, beaches, spa or a dozen swimming pools, among other services.

Of Spanish descent, the four Fanjul brothers – Alfonso (Alfy), Pepe, Alexander and Andrés– left Cuba when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. The sons promised the patriarch, Alfonso Fanjul, to rebuild the empire that the family had built over more than a century and a half and that the Revolution had expropriated from them.

They kept their promise by acquiring plantations in central Florida and in the Dominican Republic, where they have expanded their business into the real estate and tourism sectors, becoming one of the great fortunes of the United States, a country where the sugar industry is protected. And where the brothers enjoy great influence with presidents and congressmen because they are major contributors to both Democratic and Republican campaigns.

The dazzling but discreet mantle of power of the Fanjul clan hides some shadows. The New York Times recalled in 2003 that the approximately 73,000 hectares of crops they have in southern Florida send contaminated water to the swampy Everglades reserve, one of the wildest areas in the United States. And that their business was catapulted by the Cuban sugar embargo.