In this world, there are wealthy individuals, extremely rich ones, and billionaires living in another galaxy. Among the latter is Camila Capriles Mileo, who at just 18 years old travels in her private jet, a Gulf Stream G-450, where a Japanese chef prepares sushi and sashimi for her. She flies from New York, where she resides, to Miami, her second home, or to Paris to shop for a Chanel bag, or to Madrid, a city she frequently visits. There, her parents own a fabulous penthouse—a duplex decorated by Pascua Ortega in a historic building facing the Retiro park. In Europe, Camila has top-tier friends, including Tatiana Santo Domingo, the wife of Andrea Casiraghi, and Russian model Natalia Vodianova, married to Antoine Arnault, heir to the luxury multinational LVMH.
In Spain, she also mingles with the offspring of the Ibex and the aristocracy, such as the Medina Sidonia, Del Pino, Abelló, and the children of Nati Abascal, who is close to her parents, Armando Capriles Capriles and Corina Mileo. This couple is also part of the close circle of King Juan Carlos, to such an extent that for his 83rd birthday in 2021, they traveled to Abu Dhabi with a small group of close friends, including the Marquis of La Sauceda, Corina Mileo’s uncle and a great friend of the Emeritus King. Infanta Elena was one of the passengers on the Capriles jet on the return flight to Madrid.
Camila Capriles on the cover of LOC
Camila works with her father in their New York office, where the family resides in the heart of the exclusive Upper East Side. They also own mansions around the world, from Paris (on Avenue Foch) to Comporta in Portugal, where Naty Abascal quarantined during the pandemic. Additional residences include London, Gstaad, Caracas, Los Roques, and the Bahamas, where Camila enjoys her favorite sport, kitesurfing, although she is also an accomplished skier.
She is the eldest of three sisters and the apple of her father’s eye, who is determined to elevate her to Spanish high aristocracy—a recurring dream for many wealthy Ibero-Americans. In this case, she is backed by her pedigree as sources close to the family reveal she has filed a lawsuit to claim the marquisate of Irache with grandeur from Luis Alexis Villanova-Ratazzi Ferrán, its current holder and a descendant of Napoleon.
Capriles relies on the noble origins of his wife, Corina Mileo Trotta, (51), niece of the Marquis of La Sauceda and a descendant of Christopher Columbus and the aristocratic González de Aguilar family from Écija (Sevilla). Evidence of his fascination with Spanish history and genealogy is that, according to this source, Armando Capriles purchased in 2012 at Sotheby’s the famous diamond and pink pearl bracelet that Alfonso XIII bought in 1928 at Cartier for Queen Victoria Eugenia. It was previously unknown who the buyer was. The Venezuelan, according to his relatives, “paid around three million dollars (2.8 million euros) at the auction for the bracelet.”
Born in August 1962 and colloquially known as “El Pelón,” Capriles is estimated by Venezuelan press to have a fortune close to 2 billion dollars. He is a first cousin of Opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski, an enemy of Maduro, who has disqualified him as a presidential candidate.
Discussing the Capriles clan, many of whose members brought their businesses to Spain due to Chavismo, is to talk about one of the families with the greatest fortune and power in Venezuela for decades. The patriarch was Miguel Ángel Capriles Ayala, a media magnate who passed away in 1996 and owned the Capriles Chain, which published newspapers like Últimas Noticias and El Mundo. Of Jewish descent, it is said his power was such that he could remove and install presidents and expanded his businesses into industry, finance, and services. Miguel Ángel was married twice, his first wife being Perla López Lugo, with whom he had seven children.
One of his daughters, Mayra, married her cousin Armando Capriles Schlemmer, who died in 2020. He was a car racer known for his iconic tiger, a Porsche painted with yellow and black stripes. They were the parents of Armando, who merged the fortunes of both branches and, after graduating in administrative sciences, dedicated himself to managing the family businesses.
They later had another son, Miguel Ángel, married to Andreina Villasmil. Their eldest was executive vice president of the Capriles Chain, headed the SACA real estate fund, and now manages Terminales Maracaibo, a giant that provides maritime cargo services and manages shops in ports and shipyards. Like his cousin Henrique, he was tempted by politics and served as a deputy in the Venezuelan Congress from 1989 to 1998 for the centrist party COPE. His detractors claim he multiplied his fortune due to structured products created by Chávez to inject money into Venezuelan coffers, taking advantage of the exchange differential between the regulated and parallel dollar—something questioned by his circle.
Currently, with Maduro in power, both Armando and his uncle Miguel Ángel, the younger brother of his mother, Axel, and other members of the Capriles clan have directed their investments to Spain, although they remain largely unknown to the general public as they operate with complete discretion. Miguel Ángel has become one of the kings of real estate in Spain, where the family owns around twenty real estate companies, thanks to the purchase of unique buildings that they refurbish and sell for a significant profit.
In Madrid, their projects are located in trendy districts like Justicia, Salesas, or Salamanca. They also own healthy restaurants, stores, and even gyms, like Roots Lamarca, which serves meals and is set in a historic carriage factory on Fernando VII street. Miguel Ángel Capriles López (63) is also the owner of the historic Serreta palace in Cuéllar, Segovia, dating back to 1464, which he purchased for 19 million euros. In 2018, one of his three daughters, Mayra, was married there to Eduardo Otaola.
His nephew, Armando Capriles, just a year younger than he, has several companies in Spain, such as Sunny Selirpac, dedicated to fund management with a share capital of 19 million euros, or the real estate company Monina. He married on April 18, 1999, at his estate Los Ranchos de Chana in the Los Roques National Park to Corina Mileo Trotta (50), a Venezuelan whose ancestors belonged to the Spanish high nobility. His great-grandmother was Elia Barrera González de Aguilar-Ponce de León and Fernández-Golfín, a descendant of Christopher Columbus and related to the families of Alba, Medinaceli, and Alburquerque, in addition to being a cousin of the Marquis of La Sauceda, Aguilar, and Villa Alegre.
Born in Écija, where they owned numerous palaces and farms, she was the first-born of Admiral José María Barrera and Luyando, master of the Giralda, the yacht of Alfonso XIII, and Francisca de Paula González de Aguilar, a close friend of Victoria Eugenia. Elia first married Fernando de Castro, and her daughter, also named Elia, married Mirco Trotta, an Italian who emigrated to Venezuela, and they are the grandparents of Corina Mileo.
It was Corina’s great-aunt Pilar, married to a Vilanova Ratazzi, who reinstated the marquisate of Irache with grandeur of Spain in 1981, an ancient title belonging to her family. It was granted in the 15th century by King Alfonso V of Aragón to Giovanni de Ventimiglia, conqueror of Sicily, and subsequently passed to Luciano Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, who ceded it to his granddaughter, Laetitia, married to Urbano Ratazzi.
Currently, by cession from her father in 2023, it is held by Luis Alexis Villanova Rattazi Ferrán, an agent of Conren Tramway Tres, a company dedicated to real estate transactions. According to the aforementioned family source, “although the title was restored by her younger sister, Pilar, the firstborn was Camila’s great-great-grandmother, Elia, with whom, by the way, she bears a striking physical resemblance. Therefore, the descendants of Elia have a stronger claim, which is the basis for Armando Capriles’ request.”