The judge of the National Court, José Luis Calama, has ordered the blocking of 490,780 euros from the bank accounts of former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as part of the investigation into the Plus Ultra case, according to legal sources. This is a requirement that does not imply an “absolute” block, according to sources involved in the case, but has been done “proportionally,” only for the funds he had received from the consulting firm Análisis Relevante, which is at the center of the investigation for influence peddling. The finances of this company had already been frozen for months. Additionally, a magistrate’s order dated this Wednesday mandates the freezing of more deposits related to the scheme.
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The investigator has made this new decision after notifying the former socialist leader last Tuesday of his indictment in the judicial procedure and summoning him to testify on June 2. Calama places the former PSOE secretary general as the alleged leader of “a stable and hierarchical structure of influence peddling” for “obtaining economic benefits through intermediation and the exercise of influence before public bodies in favor of third parties,” mainly the airline that gives the investigation its name, Plus Ultra. Investigators estimate that Zapatero and people close to him may have received 1.95 million euros within the alleged scheme, although not all of it refers to irregular commissions.
As EL PAÍS reported, the justice system had already blocked the accounts of some companies such as Análisis Relevante, managed by the Alicante businessman Julio Martínez Martínez, a personal friend of Zapatero. This consulting firm is at the epicenter of the influence network; it paid a total of 959,798 euros between 2020 and 2025, distributed between Zapatero’s accounts and the company Whathefav, owned by his daughters. Likewise, the accounts of the company Agropecuaria Lucena were frozen, whose purpose, according to registry information, is the acquisition and exploitation of “all kinds of rural and urban properties,” and which has a share capital of 2,312,200 euros. This company also paid 20,993 euros to the former president’s daughters.
The former president, who is summoned to appear on June 2, distanced himself from all accusations in a video he released last Tuesday in which he defended that “all” his public and private activity “has always been carried out with absolute respect for legality.” “I have never had a commercial company either directly or through third parties, neither in Spain nor outside Spain, nor have I participated in any operation of this type,” he emphasized.
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Corpoestructura
The head of the Madrid Court of Instruction number 15, Esperanza Collazos, who was in charge of the case until early February, had carried out other preventive seizures. According to information accessed by this media outlet, a property owned by the company Corpoestructura was seized, which has no employees nor a website.
This company was established in July 2018 by Bitácora Servicios Profesionales SL, represented by the lawyer and member of the board of directors of Plus Ultra, Fernández Lena Santiago. Shortly after, on September 29, 2018, Bitácora Servicios Profesionales SL left the company and Roberto Roselli (CEO of the airline) and Rodolfo Reyes, a Venezuelan executive of Plus Ultra who left the airline last year but appears in all the conversations cited by the judge during the efforts to secure the airline’s bailout from 2020, joined the management team. The Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the Police raided both their homes when the Plus Ultra case for money laundering crystallized at the end of the year.
The commercial registry shows that both resigned on February 27, 2025, and then the nephew of Camilo Ibrahim became a director. This Latin American magnate, close to the regime of the country’s former president Nicolás Maduro, was vice president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Shopping Centers (Cavececo) and delegate of the Spanish company Inditex, according to sources familiar with his activity. The property, owned by Corpoestructura, is valued at 5,683,993 euros and was acquired with a mortgage of 3,824,000 euros.
