“I have nothing to do with Plus Ultra,” assured former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero last March 2 in the Senate. But this morning the judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has summoned him as a suspect for an alleged crime of influence peddling and other related offenses in the framework of the Plus Ultra case. Zapatero will have to appear before the magistrate next June 2. Meanwhile, the judicial police are raiding the former prime minister’s offices today. The secrecy of the investigation was lifted this morning, but some details of the Plus Ultra case are already known.
Read more Zapatero’s daughters’ company received more than one million euros from the scheme
The rescue of Plus Ultra
Plus Ultra is an airline company founded in 2011 by businessman Julio Martínez Sola. During the coronavirus pandemic, the company suffered from a lack of travelers and requested a bailout from the Government. At that time, Plus Ultra had four leased planes, although only one was operational. However, Pedro Sánchez’s Government considered the company “strategic” and in March 2021 agreed on a rescue amounting to 53 million euros charged to the Fund to Support the Solvency of Strategic Companies managed by the State Industrial Holdings Company (SEPI).
What role did Zapatero play in the rescue of Plus Ultra?
“I have had no relationship with Julio Martínez Sola, president of Plus Ultra, not even a meeting,” Zapatero stated during that appearance in the Senate, which focused on the airline’s bailout. However, former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos declared that Zapatero met with him and his then-advisor, Koldo García, at the ministry to try to speed up the airline’s rescue. An aspect that Zapatero also denies: “Everything that has been said about me is falsehoods, huge falsehoods.”
Why was the investigation started?
In December 2025, within the framework of an investigation for alleged money laundering undertaken by the Madrid Investigative Court number 15, the judicial police arrested Julio Martínez Sola, owner of Plus Ultra. Another businessman, with the same name, Julio Martínez Martínez, who is indeed a friend of Zapatero, was also arrested. There is friendship and also a working relationship. Julio Martínez Martínez owns a company, Análisis Relevante, for which Zapatero has worked. Martínez Martínez was arrested for alleged money laundering. During the searches, the judicial police found 40,000 euros in cash at his home.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office saw indications that Plus Ultra had made an alleged “improper use” of the public bailout money and the alleged existence of a supposed money laundering scheme. Faced with such suspicions, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office filed a complaint with the National Court, which has now summoned Zapatero to testify as a suspect.
What is Análisis Relevante?
Análisis Relevante is a consulting company owned by Julio Martínez Martínez whose task is to prepare geopolitical reports. The opposition believes that this company is actually a shell company that Zapatero used to collect commissions from the Plus Ultra bailout and that Martínez Martínez was just a front, but the former prime minister also denies this: “I have never had a company here or in Kuala Lumpur.”
Julio Martínez Martínez signed a contract with Plus Ultra to obtain a 1% commission from the airline’s bailout. Zapatero has declared that he was unaware of the existence of that contract. But that alleged commission is key for the opposition, which believes that Análisis Relevante is “a shell company with no employees or activity, with a single client, Plus Ultra, which the airline received a government bailout of 53 million and that Zapatero collected 660,000 from that company, about 500,000 himself and the rest his daughters.”
The former prime minister’s reports and invoices
What Zapatero has acknowledged is that he worked for Análisis Relevante. He prepared reports and was paid for them. “I have received about 70,000 euros gross per year for my work at Análisis Relevante, invoiced, because I am self-employed,” says the socialist former prime minister. The problem lies in the content of those reports, which would be inconsistent or mere copy and paste of information gathered from the internet. Zapatero also responded to those accusations by assuring that many of those reports “were oral” and the result of his knowledge: “Many consultants never make a report, their task is broader, establishing perspectives, seminars… thanks to their knowledge,” he assured.
Zapatero’s daughters’ company
“When I accepted to be a consultant I proposed that my daughters’ company carry out the marketing tasks. That was the agreement we reached,” Zapatero recounted. Thus, Zapatero’s daughters’ company, Whathefav, also worked for Análisis Relevante. Whathefav is a marketing and communication agency, which would have received 198,000 euros from Julio Martínez Martínez for alleged design and online communication services. The former prime minister says that his daughters’ company “is modest, it only has six employees and has never contracted with the public administration.” The judicial police are also raiding Zapatero’s daughters’ company this morning.
The alleged tip-off from Zapatero to Martínez
The alleged tip-off from Zapatero to his friend Julio Martínez Martínez before the latter was arrested last December is also being investigated, according to El Confidencial. The former prime minister and the businessman went for a run three days before the arrest took place. But the former prime minister has always denied that he took advantage of that moment to warn the businessman that he was under the justice system’s scrutiny: “That information was a crude fabrication.”
