Nineteen months of investigation into former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will presumably be revealed today. The judge of the National Court, in charge of the Plus Ultra case, has lifted the secrecy of the file once the most important procedure, the search of the former leader’s official office, has been carried out. From this Monday, the parties involved in the process, including popular accusations, will have access to the case and it will be inevitable that details of the investigation will become known.
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The content of half a dozen mobile phones, analysis by the National Office for the Investigation of Fraud (ONIF), the Tax Agency, writings from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, reports from the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the Police, seized documents and invoices make up the bulk of the investigation, which was launched in October 2024 with a complaint from the Prosecutor’s Office.
The case includes the dumping of half a dozen phones from the former president’s friend and Plus Ultra executives
This case did not start ex officio in the public prosecutor’s office, which a year earlier had agreed to close the case opened against Plus Ultra for the 53 million euro bailout authorized by SEPI in 2021.
An alert from France and Switzerland regarding an investigation into Venezuelan businessmen put the investigators’ focus back on the airline, this time for alleged money laundering. There was evidence that bailout money might have been used to pay loans granted by companies investigated in Venezuelan corruption cases.
The file begins with an alert from France and Switzerland about alleged money laundering by Venezuelans
The UDEF and the Prosecutor’s Office contacted American authorities, with whom they maintain fluid relations in investigations on money laundering in Venezuela, especially concerning the oil company PDVSA. Among other data, they were sent the content of the phone of an airline shareholder, Rodolfo Reyes, investigated by the United States, where conversations appeared describing how to access high political levels to obtain public money and save the already indebted company. That phone contained references to Zapatero, ‘team Zapatero’, ‘Zapatero group’, ‘boutique finance’ and more details about Julio Martínez, a Spanish businessman and personal friend of the former president.
Initially, the National Court did not want to investigate it and the matter was left in the hands of a judge in Madrid. At that time, there was already data on Zapatero but it was not yet time to reveal everything. Investigators conducted a first police operation in December 2025 and searched the offices of Martínez, the airline’s president Julio Martínez Sola, and his number two Roberto Roselli, and seized their phones. All that documentation and messages have served to outline the charges against Zapatero and are all included in the file. All this data shed more light on the case, which led the National Court to decide in March of this year to take over the investigation. Two months later, Judge José Luis Calama, based on the evidence in the case, searched Zapatero’s office and also took everything his secretary kept. This second phase is now being analyzed by the investigators, so it will take some time to see its results.
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The phone, agenda, and safe of the former president’s secretary, key to the second phase of the case
Now, the investigators’ focus is precisely on everything seized in the so-called “network coordination center,” the office of the former Prime Minister on Ferraz Street, opposite the national socialist headquarters. From there, around 2:00 p.m. last Tuesday, the Anti-Corruption prosecutor handling the case left surrounded by agents carrying numerous cardboard boxes, presumably with the seized documentation. Hours earlier, four other police officers did the same but with black briefcases. According to sources close to the investigation, UDEF agents had to call their colleagues from the Technical Interventions Operational Group (GOIT), specialists in opening safes. They found one in the office where the former head of government’s secretary, María Gertrudis Alcázar, worked, who claimed she did not have the key to open it. GOIT ultimately did not have to intervene because one of those present during the search opened it, with agents finding documents and some cash inside.
UDEF is analyzing that material to try to support the hypothesis that payments received by Zapatero—and his family—through Análisis Relevante, owned by his friend Julio Martínez, came from Plus Ultra. The documentation seized in Ferraz is added to that from the other two searches on Tuesday: the companies Softgestor and Whathefav—the latter owned by Zapatero’s daughters. The agents have new phones to analyze but without a doubt, the one the investigators place their full hope in is Gertru’s, the always discreet secretary behind the scenes of power, on whom even a body search was authorized for fear she might hide evidence. The instructor believes Gertrudis Alcázar played the role of a front figure to “avoid” a “direct link” between the former socialist leader and the illicit activity.
For the investigators, obtaining direct messages from Zapatero himself is key to reinforcing the evidence defined against him after correlating proofs. The file includes, for example, a message sent to Martínez by the contact “Z” that says: “In time and form. Successful management,” which UDEF identifies as Rodríguez Zapatero. However, the judge has already warned that Martínez “systematically deletes some messages” to hinder the traceability of his links with Zapatero. “Would Gertru have done the same?”
Martínez, Zapatero’s “front man”
According to the UDEF report that served the National Court to charge José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Julio Martínez’s corporate network, his friend, was made up of 39 companies intended to channel funds obtained from the network’s kickbacks. Most of these, 20 companies, were inactive. Another three also had no activity yet “there is significant movement in their bank accounts.” The other 15 companies did have operations, although eight of them, for example, have no employees.
Investigators believe Martínez “formally assumed ownership or management of the network’s corporate structure,” playing the role of “front man for José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.”
A conclusion supported by one of the intercepted conversations between two people linked to the network, Danilo Diazgranados and lawyer Miguel Palomero. The first, a Venezuelan businessman, “states that Martínez ‘is the boss’s bank,’ to which Palomero responds that he understands what he means.” / Leonor Mayor Ortega.
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