Peña Nieto lives in an exclusive area of ​​​​millionaires in Spain

Armando G. Tejeda

Correspondent

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, May 30, 2022, p. 4

Madrid. The former president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, currently lives in the most luxurious urbanization in Madrid, called Valdelagua, located about 20 kilometers from the city center and characterized by its strict security measures, such as the total restriction of any citizen outside the premises. , and facilities designed for millionaires, such as golf courses and posh restaurants.

According to the Spanish newspaper The countrythe former Mexican president has lived like this since October 2020, when he got what is known as the golden visa (golden visa), which is granted after any foreign citizen invests at least half a million euros (11 million pesos) in a business or home purchase of more than one million euros (22 million pesos).

The Spanish newspaper published a report on Peña Nieto’s life in Spain, which it confirms as true despite the fact that the former president himself denied a little over two years ago that he had moved his habitual residence to a country other than Mexico. But The country maintains that it is not so, moreover, that he got the call golden visa almost two years ago and that once it expires, in about four months, he could apply for Spanish nationality or the extension of his residence visa, which would now be for five years.

Peña Nieto, president of Mexico from 2012 to 2018, used a formula that millionaires from other countries have regularly used to obtain a long-term residence visa in Spain, which consists of spending large amounts of money either in a business or in your own home.

That formula was created in 2013, when the government of the right-wing Mariano Rajoy tried to attract foreign investment in the face of the serious economic crisis that the country was experiencing after the bankruptcy of the financial system during the government of the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The diary version The countrywhich was not endorsed by any direct or indirect source of the former president, maintains that In 2020, the politician bought a 105-square-meter commercial premises with an interior terrace in a building in the prosperous Madrid neighborhood of Chamberí, according to the property registry.

luxury flat

The premises, deeded on September 18, 2020 and for which there is no mortgage, It has undergone a recent reform and is now a luxury apartment, according to one of the neighbors. The property remains empty, he assures, although on occasion people have gathered for dinner on the terrace and the Mexican accent has ended up sneaking through the windows of the rest of the neighbors. The former president has even participated in at least one neighborhood meeting, according to one of the owners, who has declined to give more details of the meeting..

The business premises would have been, always according to the version of the Spanish newspaper, the way in which the former president obtained his habitual residence visa, valid for two years, but who actually lives in a luxury urbanization in the vicinity of the Sierra de Madrid, near the town of Guadalix de la Sierra.

Peña Nieto, however, does not live in the capital and today has as neighbors the actors Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem and some stars of the gossip press. He lives, as confirmed by two neighbors and a third source, in the exclusive Valdelagua urbanization, in the Madrid municipality of San Agustín de Guadalix, 40 kilometers north of Puerta del Solexplains the report of the Spanish newspaper, which even describes his house.

According to the property registry, it is a villa built on a plot of 2,500 square meters and consists of two floors and a basement, where the garage and a cellar are located. The rest is garden. A hedge of cypresses protects the privacy of the former PRI leader, who maintains a huge Spanish flag waving on the entrance esplanade. In the tree-lined urbanization, in which yellow Ferraris and the latest luxury cars are seen passing by, no one is allowed to enter without being authorized by the residents. That is part of its exclusivity, as well as the presence of private security that makes continuous rounds through the silent alleys that connect almost 300 chalets.says the report.

The same Spanish newspaper warns that the house in which the former president resides is not his property, but that of a construction company that he does not mention and that would be the owner of the property.