Ex-PM Tells Court "Nothing Outside Spain" — Judge's Crypto Seizure Order Says Otherwise 🧾

Former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero denied orchestrating an influence-peddling scheme tied to a $61.5 million airline bailout during a three-hour hearing at Madrid's Audiencia Nacional on June 17, telling the court that payments flagged by investigators were legitimate consulting fees and design work for his daughters' agency. Zapatero, who answered only the judge and his own lawyer, faces four charges spanning influence peddling, money laundering, tax fraud and smuggling. He denied any contact with government officials or airline executives over the rescue, and according to legal sources said he did not meet Plus Ultra's current president until 2024, three years after the bailout was approved.

The probe centers on the 2021 rescue of Plus Ultra, an airline with ties to Venezuelan businessmen, which drew $61.5 million through state holding company SEPI. Investigating Judge José Luis Calama has placed Zapatero at the "apex" of an organized network and says the former prime minister ordered an offshore company set up in Dubai to manage funds, registered eight days after the cabinet approved the aid, according to infoLibre. On May 18, Calama signed a seizure order directing Spain's economic crime police to track and seize any Bitcoin ($BTC) and Litecoin ($LTC) tied to Zapatero, a measure that joins frozen bank accounts and checks on the offshore company.

Any recovered tokens would move to Prosegur's high-security crypto bunker in Madrid, which stores keys offline under a contract for judicial crypto seizures. Calama previously prosecuted Spain's largest crypto frauds, including the Madeira Invest case that snared more than 3,000 people, and Spain's courts have reached for blockchain tools before, from a major crypto scam last year to the sale of seized Bitcoin ($BTC) holdings held for more than a decade. The country has tightened crypto oversight under new EU money laundering rules.

Zapatero offered the court a "voluntary universal authorization" to verify his assets and said he holds nothing abroad, telling the panel: "I have absolutely nothing outside of Spain." The instruction phase continues, and Calama has not confirmed whether tracing has located any wallets linked to the former prime minister.