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Sources: Spanish entities seek a judicial pathway to investigate allegations involving Sánchez and Zapatero in the Plus Ultra bailout.

Several Spanish entities are working to build a judicial pathway toward a criminal investigation of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, sources familiar with the effort told Eagle Intelligence Reports.

The effort centers on Sánchez’s role in the Spanish government’s 2021 $61 million rescue of Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas, which was funded through a COVID-19 solvency program despite allegations that the airline did not meet the fund’s eligibility requirements, according to the sources.

Sources say there are suspicions that former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pressured Sánchez to approve the bailout despite the company’s ineligibility due to its debts, in exchange for the former Prime Minister receiving a commission of approximately 20 percent.

Plus Ultra was an unlikely candidate for public money. The carrier flew four leased aircraft and held a marginal share of the market. It had been losing money before the pandemic. In March 2021, the government approved the rescue through a state solvency fund. It justified the decision by citing the airline’s routes to Latin America.

Critics attacked the deal from the first day. The opposition People’s Party and Vox asked how a company that small qualified as strategic. They also asked why its Venezuelan owners merited a bailout, given their links to figures around Nicolás Maduro’s government.

Those questions have since reached Zapatero. Since May 2026, the former prime minister has been under investigation for criminal organization, influence trafficking, and document fraud. A judge called Zapatero the center of a structure that traded influence and moved money through intermediaries.

A judge also pointed to Zapatero’s “direct involvement” in “high-value international transactions, such as those relating to a petroleum derivative, gold, and the buying and selling of shares or foreign currency.” Spain’s National Court argued in May that intercepted communications revealed the network maintained contact with authorities and companies abroad, including Venezuela, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

Spain’s National Court has so far documented only a 1 percent cut from the Covid funds bailout for the airline to intermediary companies owned by Zapatero’s associate, worth about $600,000. Zapatero denied any role in the rescue or any commission tied to it.

The sources describe a far larger arrangement, one that has not surfaced in the public file. Eagle Intelligence Reports could not independently confirm it.

Vox has cast the affair as an international scheme with Sánchez as its ringleader and has demanded that he testifies. The association Manos Limpias and a separate complaint against the entire Council of Ministers push in the same direction.

The allegations come as part of a series of cases against Spain’s current leaders and their inner circles. Earlier this month, a court upheld the decision to try Sánchez’s wife for influence peddling and embezzlement. The government dismissed that case, and several others, as coordinated lawfare.

This month, David Sánchez, the prime minister’s younger brother, was convicted of malfeasance and banned from holding public office for nine years regarding a 2017 cultural job appointment in Badajoz, though the ruling is under appeal.

Eagle Intelligence Reports contacted the parties named in this report in writing to seek their comments and perspectives. No response had been received by the time of publication.

The allegations raise broader concerns about European governance and finance. For a decade, Zapatero has served as one of Europe’s most visible interlocutors with Caracas. A rescue that allegedly routed Caracas-linked money to Zapatero ties Spain’s Venezuela policy to a criminal file. For Madrid’s partners, the worry extends beyond corruption. The case raises the question of who shapes decisions inside a major EU capital.