{"id":2267941,"date":"2026-02-05T13:32:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2267941"},"modified":"2026-02-05T13:32:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:32:29","slug":"kings-cousin-arrested-amid-new-royal-drug-scandal-royal-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kings-cousin-arrested-amid-new-royal-drug-scandal-royal-news\/","title":{"rendered":"King\u2019s cousin arrested amid new royal drug scandal | Royal | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Spanish Royal Family<\/a> has been engulfed in a new drug scandal after one of its extended members was arrested for allegedly laundering a cartel\u2019s money. Francisco de Borb\u00f3n von Hardenberg, a distant cousin of King Felipe and his father, Juan Carlos<\/a>, was one of the four people arrested this week for their alleged involvement with one of Spain\u2019s biggest narcotic cartels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Borb\u00f3n, 47, who is linked to the Spanish royalty through his father, Francisco de Borb\u00f3n von Escasany, the 5th Duke of Seville, allegedly laundered the cartel\u2019s cash through cryptocurrency. He has been released on bail. The cartel was led by Spanish police chief \u00d3scar S\u00e1nchez Gil, who was head of the fraud and anti-money laundering division before his arrest in 2024 and Ignacio Tor\u00e1n, a suspected drug kingpin based in Spain, the Times<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police found more than \u00a317million (\u20ac20million) in cash, suspected to be the proceeds of drug trafficking, when searching his homes two years ago, in what has been described as the country\u2019s biggest cocaine bust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The newspaper claimed that Borb\u00f3n\u2019s name appeared in Ireland\u2019s official registry as one of the founders of ET Finetch Europe, a cryptocurrency firm cited in the case being investigated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Spanish newspaper, El Pa\u00eds, reported that it had seen documents showing that the Dublin-registered company listed Borb\u00f3n alongside two other suspects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These were Juan \u00c1ngel Cervera, known as \u201cJuan the financier\u201d, who allegedly designed part of the financial architecture used to move drug money, and \u00c1ngel Luis Cano, who has denied any involvement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Times said the aristocrat\u2019s arrest has made \u201cheadlines news in Spain\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Borb\u00f3n is based in Madrid and Marbella and has been married to Austrian communications expert Sophie Elizabeth Karoly since 2021.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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His mother was German noblewoman, Countess Beatrice von Hardenberg-F\u00fcrstenberg, who died in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He was last pictured in public last May, when he attended the funeral of his father.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spanish Royal Family has been engulfed in a new drug scandal after one of its extended members was arrested for allegedly laundering a cartel\u2019s money. Francisco de Borb\u00f3n von Hardenberg, a distant cousin of King Felipe and his father, Juan Carlos, was one of the four people arrested this week for their alleged involvement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2267942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[439178,439181,439182,439179,439180,22769,22089,342424,439183,407994,359610,439177],"class_list":["post-2267941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-drug-scandal","tag-francisco-de-borbon","tag-francisco-de-borbon-arrest","tag-francisco-de-borbu00f3n","tag-francisco-de-borbu00f3n-arrest","tag-royal-family","tag-royal-news","tag-royal-scandals","tag-spanish-cartel","tag-spanish-royal-family","tag-spanish-royals","tag-spanish-royals-drugs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Kings-cousin-arrested-amid-new-royal-drug-scandal-Royal.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2267941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2267943,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267941\/revisions\/2267943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2267942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2267941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2267941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2267941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}