Spain’s National Court has charged former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with money laundering, influence peddling, document falsification, and related criminal offenses stemming from the government’s €53-million pandemic-era bailout of Plus Ultra airlines.

Judge José Luis Calama said the National Court is investigating whether Zapatero is the “leader of a stable and hierarchical influence-peddling structure,” El País reported Tuesday. The court confirmed that officers from the National Police’s Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit had raided Zapatero’s offices, and police also searched the residences of his daughters, according to The Times. 

Searches of buildings belonging to three unnamed companies were also carried out, Politico said. The former Socialist Party leader has been ordered to testify on June 2.

The case centers on the Spanish government’s 2021 bailout of Plus Ultra, which operates flights between Spain and Latin America, Politico reported. Because of alleged ties between the airline and the government of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, authorities investigated whether any bailout funds had been misappropriated.

In December, El País reported that Spanish prosecutors were investigating whether Plus Ultra used a Covid-era bailout to launder money embezzled from Venezuela through a web of companies in France, Switzerland, and Spain. The National Police searched the airline’s headquarters and arrested its president, Julio Martínez, and chief executive, Roberto Roselli, as part of a widening money-laundering probe, the newspaper said at the time. 

Plus Ultra received the €53-million injection in March 2021 after Spain’s government classified the small long-haul airline as “strategic” in the wake of the pandemic, according to the December report. 

On Tuesday, El País reported that at least one offshore company tied to the case—identified as Landside Dubai Fzco or Landside Middle East Fzco—was created in Dubai on Zapatero’s instructions. 

Investigators have been examining payments of more than €400,000 made over several years to Zapatero for consultancy work linked to the company Análisis Relevante, owned by Martínez, according to The Times. At a Senate hearing earlier this year, Zapatero acknowledged receiving €463,000 for consulting services from the company. 

The indictment is unprecedented in Spanish politics, Politico noted. While other former prime ministers have been called to testify in corruption cases, no former head of government has previously been charged with a crime of this magnitude.

The charges dealt a fresh blow to current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, as Zapatero had become a key ally in recent years. During Spain’s 2023 national elections, Zapatero campaigned actively for Sánchez and helped consolidate support within the party’s old guard, according to the report.