The National Court suspects that part of the 53 million euros from the Plus Ultra bailout approved by Pedro Sánchez’s Government were transferred “immediately” to opaque bank accounts of shell companies that have acted in the sale of gold of unknown origin. This is evident from the arrest warrant issued last March 17 by the judge José Luis Calama against Rodolfo Reyes, one of the airline’s shareholders, whose mobile phone was seized by the United States, and whose content delivered to Spain has been key to charging José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
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Calama explains that, according to judicial investigations in Spain, France, and Switzerland, there is a criminal organization dedicated to money laundering managed by Luis Felipe Baca and Simón Leendert, of which Reyes is an alleged client. According to the French Prosecutor’s Office, the organization controls “significant amounts of money,” with black cash invested in the stock market to return “clean” money to its clients. This, besides disguising the origin of the money, allows the network to act as a “pseudo-bank.”
Plus Ultra received public aid on March 9, 2021, with an initial delivery of 19 million euros as an ordinary loan and another 34 million as a participative loan. On March 12, the private financial contract between the Strategic Companies Solvency Support Fund and Plus Ultra, as the beneficiary, was elevated to a public deed. According to the indications of the procedure, the airline’s managers devised an alleged plan to appropriate those amounts of “clean” money, which was destined “in part” and through “immediate transfers” to shell companies of the laundering network of which Reyes is allegedly part.
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The judge points out that part of the public money ended up in shell companies (Valerian Corporation SA, Allpa Wira Trading AG, and Wailea Investment LTD) making transfers to bank accounts in Gibraltar, Switzerland, Montenegro, the United Kingdom, and Mauritius. One of them, although the judge does not specify which, has acted in the sale of gold of unknown origin to a company in Dubai, with even indications of Reyes’s participation in some operation. Calama also notes in the arrest warrant that the money could also have been diverted to Reyes’s own companies in Panama, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.
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