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Princess Maria Immaculate of Bourbon-Two Sicilies Lubomirska , second-degree aunt of King Juan Carlos, has died in Mallorca at 83 . Although the aristocrat never had an excessively intimate relationship with the Spanish Royal Family, she was present at some of the great events, such as the weddings of the Infantas Elena and Cristina or that of the then Prince Felipe with Doña Letizia. It must be said that the Bourbons and the Bourbon-Two Sicilies are two dynasties closely linked for almost two centuries, which have continued to mix maritally with each other.

The deceased came to light in 2013 in a corruption scandal , since both she and her sister, Princess Margarita de Borbón Dos Sicilias Lubomirska - who died in 2014 - were charged in the operation Emperor, a network in which they were involved numerous businessmen and aristocrats in our country and who, through the Chinese Gao Ping, opaquely introduced money into Spain.

Princess María Inmaculada, with recognized treatment by the Royal Highness, was the first sister of Doña María, mother of King Juan Carlos, since her father, Gabriel María de Borbón and that of the Countess of Barcelona, ​​Don Carlos, were brothers.

The aforementioned Gabriel (1897-1975) was the twelfth son of Alfonso de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, count of Caserta and head of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies, who reigned in Naples before the Italian reunification under the Savoy dynasty. The Spanish Bourbons in the mid-nineteenth century had a hard time recognizing the sovereignty of the latter, since they were on the side of their dethroned relatives; do not forget that Elizabeth II was the daughter of María Cristina de Borbón-Dos Sicilias.

The mother of Mary Immaculate was the Polish countess Cecilia Lubomirska, who died almost a hundred years ago in 2001. That is why Maria Immaculate and her two brothers were born in Warsaw, where they lived until the 1960s, when the whole family had to escape the communist regime and moved to Spain, settling in Andalusia.

María Inmaculada married Miguel García de Sáez in 1970. And they had two children: José Luis and Ilia Sáez and Borbón Dos Sicilias. As we were saying, the great family scandal started in 2013. The now deceased and her sister Margarita were two of those accused in the Emperor operation.

The network worked as follows: those involved had funds in Switzerland and wanted to illegally enjoy the money in Spain , without paying the corresponding taxes. They then contacted a member of Gao Ping's network who provided them with the desired amount. Later, they sent that same sum plus a percentage of their accounts in Switzerland to others in China that the organization controlled.

Due to their advanced age, Fernando Andreu, the judge of the National Court who investigated the case exempted the two octogenarian princesses from having to go to court to testify. But the daughter of María Inmaculada, Ilia, recognized the facts before the magistrate . He admitted that his mother had received two cash deliveries, one of them of 20,000 euros, from the Gao Ping money laundering network and that he had taken advantage of the approved tax amnesty with the Government of Mariano Rajoy to regularize his funds in Switzerland.

We said that there were always links between the Royal Family and these princesses of the Two Sicilies. In fact, when Princess Margarita -the sister of the deceased yesterday- died in 2014, then-Prince Felipe was the first to go to the Madrid funeral home in La Paz to offer condolences to his relatives, just as the Queen did hours later Sofía and Infanta Elena, who stayed until the funeral mass ended. And two days after the funeral, a solemn funeral was held in the Almudena Cathedral, attended by Queen Sofía and Don Felipe. The coronavirus pandemic and the state of alarm will now prevent our Kings, both Felipe VI and Doña Letizia, and the Emeritus, from bidding farewell to their aunt in public.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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