Zapatero Becomes First Spanish PM Indicted for Corruption
Spain's former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will become the first ex-head of government questioned for corruption since 1977 when he appears in court June 2 over a €53 million airline bailout.
The unprecedented appearance stems from a 158-page police report that describes what investigators call a “finance boutique” established to channel political influence payments around the controversial €53 million state bailout of Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas, a small airline with documented ties to Venezuela, as Brussels Signal reports.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will answer questions from Judge José Luis Calama at Spain’s Audiencia Nacional high court based on report 1908/26 from the country’s UDEF financial crimes unit, dated April 22. Judge Calama’s 85-page indictment order, signed May 18, was followed the next day by Operation Tibet, a search of Zapatero’s office at 35 Ferraz Street, directly opposite Socialist Party (PSOE) headquarters. Investigators seized a concealed safe, diaries, and cash.
Four fronts converge on former premier
According to Brussels Signal, the case is unusual in its scope, interlocking Spanish criminal procedure with a US sanctions inquiry, a perjury complaint in preparation at the Spanish Senate, and the diplomatic mediation channel that has kept the minority government of current Socialist premier Pedro Sánchez in office.
The UDEF report reconstructs the steps that led Spain’s state holding company SEPI to grant €53 million in March 2021 to Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas. The investigation draws on two key sources: an extraction from the mobile phone of Rodolfo Reyes Rojas, the airline’s main shareholder, provided by the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office, and devices seized in a Spanish police operation on December 11, 2025.
Suspects in the case allegedly referred to their own structure as a finance boutique, according to the report. From March 23, 2020, six days after Spain declared its first Covid-19 state of alarm, Reyes is said to have activated two parallel channels: one through then-Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos, run by his aide Koldo García Izaguirre, and another opened March 30 via Venezuelan national Ramón Gordils, allegedly leading to Zapatero.
Police name Zapatero as network leader
The police conclusion is explicit. At the top of the influence network, the report states, Zapatero would be located, exercising non-visible leadership and strategic supervision. Judge Calama has charged him with influence peddling, criminal organisation, document falsification, and money laundering.
Also named as intermediaries are businessman Julio Martínez Martínez, owner of consultancy Análisis Relevante, and Manuel Aarón Fajardo, with Zapatero’s longtime secretary María Gertrudis Alcázar and Cristóbal Cano at the operational level.
The most incriminating thread is dated February 26, 2021. According to the report, Martínez Martínez congratulated Reyes that day on the upcoming approval of the SEPI loan and predicted approval in the Council of Ministers on March 9 — six days before SEPI’s management board would meet. For the UDEF, this demonstrates the capacity of the influence network to access privileged information.
US prosecutors include Zapatero in Venezuela probe
The case has a significant international dimension. HSI was already investigating Reyes as part of a transnational organised crime group dedicated to money laundering and the circumvention of US sanctions, with Plus Ultra named in the network. Cooperation between Madrid and Washington is explicitly noted in Judge Calama’s order.
The US Southern District of New York prosecutor’s office has included Zapatero on a list of 64 individuals under investigation for alleged ties to Chavismo, the political movement founded by the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. The US Treasury Department has separately traced a $519,000 (€478,000) transfer to a Swiss account linked to alleged Venezuelan oil-related corruption, Brussels Signal reports.
Senate perjury complaint in preparation
A fourth front is opening in the Spanish Senate, which is controlled by an absolute opposition majority. Legislators are preparing a perjury complaint based on testimony Zapatero gave to the chamber regarding his knowledge of the Plus Ultra case and his contacts with Venezuelan authorities.
The convergence of criminal proceedings, international sanctions investigations, parliamentary action, and the ongoing political fallout represents an unprecedented challenge for a former Spanish prime minister in the democratic era. The case also implicates the diplomatic channels the current Socialist government has used to maintain its fragile parliamentary majority.
With information from Brussels Signal
