Judge José Luis Calama detects in the case file related to the investigation of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s circle several practices regarding the shell companies used to simulate activity. He evidences cases such as the Caletón company, in which the secretary of the Plus Ultra board, Santiago Fernández, encouraged “making more movements” to “give it content” and “dilute” the payments. It is about “giving substance” and hiding operations.
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This is one of the practices around the corporate network that feeds the financial boutique of 39 companies of Julio Martínez Martínez, Zapatero’s trusted man. The judge cites the companies that channel the payments: Plus Ultra, Caletón, Summer Wind, Afitta, Inteligencia Prospectiva, Softgestor, and Aldesa. Added to this are two companies with real activity, Gate Center and Thinking Heads, owned by businessman Daniel Romero-Abreu. The beneficiaries are Zapatero and the company of his lieutenant, Análisis Relevante, as well as that of the former president’s daughters, Whathefav.
An executive of Plus Ultra encouraged “making more movements” to give “content” to the companies
Of the companies from which the payments come out, the judge concludes that they act as mere shell companies without real activity. They channel funds through fictitious invoicing, use simulated contracts to justify previously decided payments, hide accounting documentation, operate with front men, and separate their tax domicile from conventional management.
In the “channeling of funds in a targeted manner,” Rodríguez Zapatero ends up receiving 490,780 euros from Análisis Relevante, which receives amounts from Plus Ultra, Softgestor, Aldesa, and Inteligencia Prospectiva. He receives another 352,980 euros from Gate Center and 681,318 euros from Thinking Heads. In parallel, his daughters’ company receives 239,755 euros from Análisis Relevante, 561,440 euros from Inteligencia Prospectiva, 171,727 euros from Gate Center, and 12,297 euros from Thinking Heads.
Despite the “mere documentary justification,” the companies acquire a certain degree of specialization. Three of them, Caletón, Summerwind, or Afitta, have some relation to aeronautics, while activities linked to oil and raw materials emerge around Inteligencia Prospectiva.
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According to a UDEF report, Martínez tried to use the influence network to enter businesses such as gold or nickel. He did so through Inteligencia Prospectiva, which is owned by the Venezuelan brothers Domingo Arnaldo and Guillermo Alfredo Amaro Chacón.
Among Martínez’s projects with the Venezuelans are names like Egypt, Minerven, or La Tortuga, although the UDEF more specifically refers to the “commercialization of yellow,” referring to gold, and the plans of “those from the desert,” consisting of the opening of the Emirates embassy in Venezuela.
The report details how a Chinese group and a Swiss trader established contacts with the network to buy Venezuelan oil, which includes letters of intent (letter of intention) in which Zapatero allegedly participated.
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The Chinese company was interested in “starting to operate directly without intermediaries with immediate cash purchases and no limit on quantities to acquire.” Their intention was the commercialization of “black liquid and petrocoke.” The Chinese investors are prepared to “buy ships,” and they are informed that “the Lady is the one who handles the direct allocation of the ships,” referring to Delcy Rodríguez.
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