Former Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero Under Investigation After Police Raid Over Plus Ultra Bailout

Spanish police have searched the office of former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero after a judge widened a long-running corruption investigation to include him, in a case tied to the 2021 public bailout of the airline Plus Ultra. The probe, conducted by Spain's National Court (the Audiencia Nacional, the country's central judicial body for major financial and organized-crime cases) and overseen by investigating judge José Luis Calama, names Zapatero as an investigado — a formally investigated party — and has summoned him to answer the judge's questions on June 2. Police with warrants from the investigating judge carried out the search of his office on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, as part of coordinated raids that also targeted other commercial entities connected to the case.
At the center of the investigation is the rescue of Plus Ultra, a small Spanish-owned airline with significant Venezuelan investment that specializes in routes between Spain and Latin America, including Caracas, Lima, Bogotá, and Buenos Aires. In 2021, the carrier received €53 million in public money — structured as a loan — from a multibillion-euro fund the government of current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez established to rescue companies deemed strategic and battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Investigators with the National Police's economic-crime unit (UDEF) and prosecutors have spent months tracing where that bailout money went, and reporting indicates they suspect the rescue funds may have been used to launder illicit capital linked to corruption networks in Venezuela. The legal net around the airline tightened in late November, when authorities raided Plus Ultra's headquarters and arrested its chairman, Julio Martínez, and chief executive, Roberto Roselli.
According to the judicial case file as cited by Spanish media, Zapatero is suspected in connection with three offenses: membership in a criminal organization, influence peddling, and document forgery. The file reportedly describes a "stable and hierarchical structure of influence peddling" allegedly aimed at obtaining economic benefits through influence exerted on public authorities on behalf of third parties. Investigators are said to suspect that Zapatero and his two daughters received €1.95 million in irregular commissions connected to the matter. It should be stressed that these are suspicions at the investigative stage rather than proven facts; Spanish prosecutors and the court have not publicly detailed the precise evidence underpinning the alleged €1.95 million payment, and naming someone as an investigado in the Spanish system is a step in an inquiry, not a conviction or even a formal indictment in the trial sense.
Zapatero has firmly rejected the allegations. The 65-year-old, who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2011 and is a member of the same Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) now led by Sánchez, declared his "total innocence" and pledged full cooperation with the justice system ahead of his scheduled appearance. Notably, Zapatero had been out of public office for a decade by the time Plus Ultra received its bailout. Since leaving the premiership, he has devoted much of his public activity to maintaining dialogue with the government of Venezuela, which has been largely isolated by Western countries — a connection that has drawn particular scrutiny given the airline's Venezuelan ties and the suspected Venezuelan origin of the funds investigators are examining.
The case carries clear political weight. The governing PSOE has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals over the past two years, and the Plus Ultra affair has already been a subject of parliamentary attention, including efforts in the Senate to compel Zapatero's appearance before an investigative committee. Sánchez has publicly defended Zapatero while acknowledging that his party is going through "tough times," and a government spokesperson said the administration was approaching the news "with calm, confidence, prudence and respect for the law." Opposition figures, by contrast, have seized on the development as further evidence of corruption surrounding the ruling party. If the inquiry advances to formal charges that are ultimately sustained, the political repercussions for the PSOE could be significant, feeding public perceptions of impropriety within its ranks; if it does not, the episode may instead become a flashpoint over the politicization of judicial probes — a recurring theme in Spanish public life.
The news drew rapid reaction from Spanish and international outlets and across social media, with commentators characterizing it as a major scandal and Spanish daily El Mundo circulating footage of the police operation. For now, investigators appear to be intensifying their scrutiny of the 2021 bailout and of any intermediaries who may have benefited from the transaction, with Zapatero's June 2 testimony set to be a key moment in the process. The development underscores the continuing legal fallout from pandemic-era economic interventions and signals that Spanish courts are willing to pursue complex financial probes reaching into the country's recent political leadership — even as the underlying allegations remain unproven and contested.