an airline, More Ultrawhich began its activities in July 2015. A bailout of 53 million euros that this company received from the government of Pedro Sánchez in May 2021. A judicial investigation in which the terms tax fraud, criminal organization, embezzlement, money laundering, Venezuelan gold, straw men and commissions appear. And in all this cocktail a striking name, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whom some media present as a real shadow power, a lobbyist with important contacts with the Latin American left and the world superpower China, who has even been described as “the most dangerous Spaniard”.

It is a guide to not getting lost in the latest corruption affair which, for the moment, does not affect the former socialist president, even if the name of Plus Ultra is accompanied by that of Zapatero in many reports.

Plus Ultra was founded in Spain by the former director of Air Madrid (Madrid), Julio Martinez Sola. In March 2021, the Council of Ministers approved a loan to the airline of 53 million euros (it was actually two loans of 19 and 34 million). The money came from the Solvency Support Fund for Strategic Companies (Fasee), with which other airlines like Air Europe (475 million euros) and The volley (200 million) due to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. The aid was channeled through SEPI.

So far, the company has only returned the interest, around 9 million euros. Plus Ultra is obliged to repay 19 million next year and the remaining 34 million in 2028. The question is whether this airline was strategic, knowing that in 2021 it only had three planes. Today, it serves Peru, Colombia and Malabo (Equatorial Guinea).

Much information links Plus Ultra to Venezuelan capital and even to the regime of Nicolas Maduro. Its main shareholder is Julio Martínez Sola (today he owns 64% of the company). Another of its founders was Fernando Isidoro González Enfedaque, who was sentenced in early 2020 in the Basque Country to two years and nine months in prison for tax offenses. The question is why SEPI authorized a loan in 2021 to a company that had this type of manager. González Endefaque left the board of directors of Plus Ultra at the beginning of 2021 and his sentence (reduced to 23 months in prison) was final in 2024. It is true that until recently he had Venezuelan partners: businessmen Rodolfo Reyes Rojas and Joaquín Olimpio Domingues Ferreira.

The Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police registered the airline on December 11. The same day, Julio Martínez Sola, president of Plus Ultra, was arrested; Roberto Rosellithe CEO of the airline; the businessman Julio Martínez Martínez (who shares a first and last name with the president) and a very important lawyer whose identity has not been revealed. The investigation is being carried out by the investigating court number 15 of Madrid. Others under investigation: Peruvian businessmen Luis Felipe Baca Arburu and Enrique Martín Baca Arburu; an advisor to the latter, Gabriela Puente Garaboa; Venezuelan businessmen Kristhian Alegre Walter and Danilo Alfonso Diazgranados Manglano; and a Dutch creditor of the airline, Simón Leendert Verhoeven.

Because the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office received a request for help from two European prosecutor’s offices, that of France and that of Geneva (in Switzerland). The French company, for example, began to investigate for trafficking in privileged information and money laundering to Luis Felipe Baca Arburu, who had been a banker in Switzerland. This led to Danilo Alfonso Díazgranados, a Venezuelan broker. The National Police then registered several properties in his name in Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Tenerife and Mallorca, and Anti-Corruption opened a secret investigation which led to Plus Ultra and the 53 million euro bailout granted by the Spanish government in 2021.

Based on what was investigated, Anti-Corruption filed a complaint with the National Court on October 21, 2024. But it agreed on November 15 of the same year not to admit it for treatment because it understood that it was not competent to investigate these crimes. The prosecution appealed, finding that the Court had jurisdiction to investigate money laundering offenses linked to Spain, France and Switzerland. And he spoke, for the first time, of embezzlement committed by officials in Venezuela. The complaint also highlighted the alleged misuse of Spanish public aid, with reference to the 53 million euros received by Plus Ultra.

The court rejected the prosecutor’s appeal and decided that the investigation should be entrusted to the investigating court number 15 in Madrid, which in 2021 received a complaint from PP and Vox for a ransom of 53 million euros. A complaint which had been filed provisionally in January 2023. The Court decided that the fight against corruption must integrate its investigations into Tribunal 15 and that it must reopen the case. Which, moreover, had been archived due to a judicial error. The judge of the 15th forgot to prolong the case.

The indications are that the 53 million euros that the airline received from SEPI in 2021 were not used to maintain the viability of the company, but rather to repay loans that some of those investigated had made to Plus Ultra. That is to say, an inappropriate use of public aid.

The UDEF follows part of these 53 million in foreign companies established in Switzerland, France, the United Arab Emirates and Panama. “The company Plus Ultra appears as a signatory and beneficiary of loan contracts with three companies of the criminal organization, involved in the sale of gold,” indicates the documentation to which it had access. Infobae. A ransom used to return money owed and launder opaque proceeds from the sale of gold, the purchase of real estate and luxury watches. One of the characters is Danilo Alfonso Díazgranados Manglano, “one of the financial operators chavismo favoritesduring the time of Hugo Chávez,” according to various published reports.

Julio Martínez Martínez is one of those detained by the UDEF. Valencian consultantcurrently manages around twenty companies. Investigators are looking into whether any of these companies could have been used to embezzle funds from Plus Ultra. Among them, “Zenzap” (ZAP is striking). The agents discovered that another of their companies, “Análisis Relevante”, had been a client of the communications and marketing agency of Rodríguez Zapatero’s daughters. He denies it and assures that he is only a good friend of the former president, that he has nothing to do with the rescue of Plus Ultra and that the airline is only his client, as he emphasizes in an interview with ‘El Mundo’.

“It must be clarified that Zapatero does not appear in the initial complaint that the Anti-Corruption filed before the National Court in 2024, when it tried to bring the matter to justice there after the request for help arrived from France and Switzerland”, UDEF sources explain to this newspaper, “but the investigations consist of pulling the thread”.

Investigators in the Plus Ultra case are looking for possible relationships between Julio Martínez Martínez and the former president of the government or a member of his family. At the moment there is no link to the plot. Víctor de Aldama, accused before the National Court in the “Koldo case”, declared the other day in a television program that Zapatero could have received 10 million euros in commissions for having negotiated the rescue of Plus Ultra. The former minister Jose Luis Abalos (currently in prison) also indicated in another interview that Zapatero “pressured” to facilitate the rescue of Plus Ultra. No one has presented proof of these claims.