Empty folders and outdated emails: UDEF complains that SEPI did not provide all documentation

MadridOne of the two reports from UDEF –the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit of the National Police– that the judge has used to impute José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero complains about the obstacles that SEPI –the State's investment arm and the entity that greenlit the Plus Ultra bailout– placed during the investigation. "The documentation sent was incomplete and had shortcomings that prevented its analysis," concludes the document, which ARA has accessed. The judge had to make a second request for information because the first batch of documentation was insufficient: "Some of the folders are empty of content and lack documentation, and other files cannot be opened," says UDEF. It also regrets that the emails provided were from the year 2025, four years after the bailout. "It should be noted that these emails exist or have existed," UDEF points out. "It is evident that a flow of communication took place," it adds at another point.

And it cites a name: José Ángel Partearroyo, the director of Participades IV at SEPI. The report mentions six conversations between him and Roberto Roselli, CEO and financial director of Plus Ultra, in a fluid relationship during the months the bailout was being processed and gestated. Partearroyo is the one who announced to him that it was ready and that only the formal approval of the Council of Ministers was missing: "No press, please," he asked him. After hearing this, Plus Ultra executives celebrated with a seafood dinner: "Don't worry, this comes out of the 1%," they said.

Responding to the second judicial request, SEPI indicated that the information it provided was equivalent to the original and assured that it had only added data related to the follow-up of the financing. But UDEF detected that this was not exactly the case, and that there was less information than initially: "The number of files and folders provided is notably lower, and the reasons are unknown." Likewise, there were also no documents that Deloitte –the external advisor hired by SEPI as part of the bailout– mentioned in its report: the certificate of being up to date with Social Security debts and an aircraft rental contract from November 2019.

Did Plus Ultra have debts?

To obtain public rescue during the pandemic, one of the non-negotiable requirements was to have no debts – as of December 31, 2019 – with Social Security. With this objective, in August 2020 Plus Ultra presented SEPI with two certificates to that effect. However, after a request from the judge, the General Treasury of Social Security reported that Plus Ultra had an outstanding debt at that time, without specifying the amount. Furthermore, the technical report prepared by Deloitte, from February 2021, detailed that Plus Ultra had provided an approving resolution from October 2020 regarding the deferral of a pre-existing debt of 452,000 euros. This resolution arrived one month after a meeting between Zapatero and the then Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá. This single mention of the current governor of the Bank of Spain has led the PP to summon him to the Senate.

False data to hide an identity

The report also detected indications that Plus Ultra provided "false data" to SEPI to hide "the true identity" of the beneficiary of a pending debt to "facilitate" obtaining the bailout. It is a payment of 40,000 euros to Raif El Arigie Harbie, a director of Plus Ultra. In a conversation on March 2, 2021, Santiago Fernández Lena – a lawyer for Plus Ultra – recommends that he can collect "through a company" because he is "afraid" it will generate "some contingency" with SEPI: "If he can include it through another channel, I think it's better," he suggests. To avoid this, Roberto Roselli proposed channeling the payment through Aerovip, a company that the UDEF presents as a "close collaborator" of Plus Ultra.

"Makeup" on loans

At another time, the UDEF cites a conversation from December 2020 between Rodolfo Reyes – owner and majority shareholder of Plus Ultra– and Roberto Roselli. They talk about loans from Panacorp, a Panamanian company, and Roselli sends an audio message to Reyes: "We are drafting some documents. I will send them to Alcides [Alcides José Carrión, signatory of the loan agreements], I'm copying you. But well, you know, a little more makeup regarding this," he says.

For the UDEF, this is framed within a set of "deceptive maneuvers aimed at generating a false perception" and reveals the intention to communicate to SEPI a "narrative not consistent with reality, constructing a self-serving alteration." Within the framework of a "deliberate concealment of information," the UDEF also alludes to a conversation from March 2021 in which Julio Martínez Sola announces that they will hold an unofficial board of directors meeting so that SEPI does not find out: "Thursday morning, board meeting. But unofficial, as we would have to inform SEPI."