This story, fit for a detective novel, unfolded in Ourense, Spain. A 35-year-old man recently won a legal battle to claim his inheritance from his deceased millionaire father.

36 years ago, his father, a Mexican businessman, vacationed in Ourense, Galicia, where he met the man's mother through mutual friends. A relationship blossomed, but upon learning of the pregnancy, the father vanished.

The mother claimed she was rejected by the paternal family, while the father denied paternity, threatening to take the child to Mexico if the baby was his. Consequently, the mother went into hiding and raised her son alone.

The son remained unaware of his father's identity until adulthood. He then hired a private investigator, who discovered his father had built a vast real estate empire but had died in 2011 at age 65.

To claim his rightful inheritance, the son filed a lawsuit seeking paternity confirmation through DNA testing. The Ourense court summoned the paternal grandfather three times for DNA testing, but he never appeared, citing health issues and refusing to provide samples. He explicitly denied acknowledging his grandson.

Undeterred, the son's investigator obtained a saliva sample from the grandfather after he spat on the street. The DNA analysis confirmed a blood relationship.

Despite another court summons and subsequent refusal from the grandfather, the Ourense court ruled on 18/9 that the 35-year-old is the rightful heir to the real estate fortune, based on a 2017 Supreme Court precedent allowing rulings based on sufficient evidence, even without acknowledgment from the involved party. The division of the inheritance will be determined in a separate case.

Hai Thu (El Pais, La Razon)