EFE.— The judge leading Spain’s Plus Ultra investigation has requested a comprehensive report on the airline’s ownership changes since 2017, the year Venezuelan capital entered the Spanish carrier.
Authorities are investigating Plus Ultra over a state rescue loan and an alleged influence-peddling scheme that reportedly involved former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Prosecutors requested the report to examine the possible impact of those ownership changes on the airline’s eligibility when it applied for public aid in 2021, as many companies in the aviation sector did during the pandemic, according to a filing that prosecutor Elena Lorente submitted to the National Court judge and that EFE reviewed.
In the filing, Lorente notes that Julio Martínez Sola and Fernando González Enfedaque founded the airline in 2011. She adds that the company later underwent several ownership changes, especially after 2017, when individuals of Venezuelan origin joined both its shareholder structure and management bodies, as a 2025 report by Spain’s National Police Economic and Financial Crime Unit (UDEF) had already documented.
After more than a year of investigation, UDEF officers arrested Martínez Sola and Roselli in December 2025. Authorities later released both men. Last week, however, Martínez Sola resigned as president of the airline.
“The entry of Venezuelan capital into the Spanish company Plus Ultra occurred through several public deeds, as the UDEF report describes. Investigators must analyze the scope and possible impact of those transactions,” the prosecutor’s filing states.
During a court appearance on June 17, Rodríguez Zapatero denied trying to influence the approval of the €53 million public rescue loan granted to Plus Ultra. He also denied contacting anyone at the airline.
Investigators are examining possible offenses that include influence peddling, participation in a criminal organization, money laundering, and document forgery.
The case became linked to Venezuela because, according to the prosecutor’s complaint, Plus Ultra appears as a signatory and beneficiary of alleged loan agreements with three companies that prosecutors say laundered money obtained through the embezzlement of public funds by Venezuelan officials.
