Former Spanish PM Zapatero seeks appraiser to value his jewels below €100,000

Zapatero seeks appraiser to value his jewels below €100,000

Former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has started the process of getting his jewels appraised at a value below €100,000, according to The Objective. The move, aimed at avoiding a declaration of unexplained wealth, has triggered a wave of irony and scepticism.

The anecdote that has circulated for years about a failed visit to a Madrid jeweller takes on new meaning: the appraiser might not just value the pieces, but certify a price low enough to dodge the tax radar. Yet the absence of invoices or documents proving legitimate origin – a point noted in the atmosphere – turns any later sale into a risk of being charged with receiving stolen goods or money laundering.

Some point out that even if the appraisal comes in at €80,000, it is still undeclared wealth. And the historical jab is never far away: the same Zapatero who ordered the sale of 5.2 tonnes of gold from the Banco de España's reserves in 2011 – when gold prices were at rock bottom – now faces the opposite problem with his own jewels. Gold has soared since then, making the manoeuvre all the more jarring.

The likely scenario is that the appraisal is obtained, but that Hacienda (Spain's tax agency) – against which some are calling for resignations – looks the other way. Or not. The hypothesis that the appraiser ends up charged with perjury cannot be ruled out. In the end, the whole affair may come to nothing: a jewel with no clear owner, a former prime minister and an appraiser at the centre of a vicious circle nobody wants to close.