This Saturday, the judge agreed to release four detainees in the investigation concerning the airline Plus Ultra for a white ham with money. They are the company’s dueño, Julio Martínez; the delegated advisor, Roberto Rosell; a third businessman named Julio Martínez and a Spanish lawyer, as confirmed by judicial sources. The magistrate agreed to withdraw the passport and weekly appearances as a precaution for everyone. The cause that runs Juzgado de Instrucción number 15 in Madrid questions the possible laundering of the capital of the Venezuelan monetary company with the rescue funds of 53 million euros that the government delivered in 2021.
The Unidad de Delincuencia Económica y Fiscal (UDEF) arrested those involved last July and they were taken this Saturday from the police stations to the Madrid court where the guardian judge (holder of the investigating court number 13) made the declaration, if all those involved were accepted by him. I have the right not to declare because the acts remain secret.
The cause stems from a complaint against the anti-corruption tax earlier this year after receiving information from France and Switzerland on the existence of a criminal organization in Europe dedicated to laundering money from Venezuela. The public prosecutor considers that there is a “misuse” of public aid which was granted to the company after the Executive qualified it as a “strategic” company.
The first complaint against the Anti-Corruption Tax was against three people of Peruvian origin, Venezuelans, a citizen of the Netherlands and a Spanish lawyer. Legal sources say at least five people have been investigated. Among those who voted this Saturday, the judicial decision was among the managers of the company, as well as Julio Martínez Martínez, who appears as a client of Whathefav SL, the communications and advertising agency of the daughters of the former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. According to the aforementioned sources, the commercial department carried out “cartel and marketing” work with Martínez.
UDEF agents registered for hours at Plus Ultra headquarters this week. Judge Alfredo Barrera, who was on duty this weekend, decreed weekly appearances, the ban on leaving the country and the withdrawal of the passport, as requested by the Fiscalía, which is the only accusation currently pending because it is secret.
The anti-corruption complaint describes, presumably, criminal activity in a white paper on “illicit funds” resulting from bad practices committed in Venezuela by public officials. Specifically, it details funds from the Venezuelan Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP) – a government plan for food distribution – and for the sale of white gold in Venezuela. The organization’s involvement in Spain was such, the tax administration estimates, that the airline diverted the rescue aid into “closures following receipt thereof” of accounts “abroad of companies which are part of the criminal organization”.
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