Zapatero's daughters collected one million euros from the companies in the plot

Laura (1993) and Alba Rodríguez Espinosa (1995), daughters of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Sonsoles Espinosa, are once again in the media spotlight almost twenty years later. Protected by their father throughout his term, who always wanted to preserve their privacy, the sisters, administrators of the company Whathefav S.L.have placed themselves at the center of the controversy this week, when the investigating judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has implicated their company as a possible shell company to pay commissions to Zapatero (they received more than one million euros from the companies in the network). In fact, it was the former president himself who in March, in the Senate, stated that, given the proposal to advise the consultancy Análisis Relevante –it was the former president himself who in March, in the Senate, stated that, given the proposal to advise the consultancy Análisis Relevante –company at the center of the investigation–, proposed "that his daughters be included as well".The judge has decided to seize 490,000 euros from Zapatero's accounts and has also seized the accounts of his daughters' company, although, for the moment, neither of them is formally being investigated in the judicial case opened at the National Court. According to the magistrate's thesis, Zapatero's daughters' company would have been used as a way to redistribute and justify funds. Specifically, from the year 2020 and over five years, the company would have received more than one million euros through different companies in the scheme. The most significant contribution comes from Inteligencia Prospectiva, with 561,440 euros — considered the supposed entry point for foreign capital — followed by Análisis Relevante (239,755.01 euros), precisely the same consultancy that the former president had contracted. Although there are several invoices issued to the latter between 2020 and 2024 under the concept of "agency services", Judge Calama suspects that the actual work was limited to the layout of reports and that the rest of the services were fictitious. In fact, the investigating judge literally defines it as "an artificial structure aimed at justifying payments". Furthermore, the judge focuses on the continuous transfers made from the company to the sisters' personal accounts. The fact that the former president of the Spanish government appears as an authorized signatory on these bank accounts has substantially increased the investigating judge's suspicions. For all these reasons, Calama considers the search of the headquarters fully justified and details that the investigations have made it possible to detect that, with the company's money, assets would have been acquired and loans would have been paid off.The opening to the media world

The protection of his daughters' image when he was at Moncloa –both were minors– only suffered a small crack in September 2009, which would eventually give them involuntary fame. During a dinner at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, hosted by the then President of the United States, Barack Obama, an official White House photographer portrayed the Zapatero family along with the Obamas in a picture that was published for an hour and a half on the US government's website, until the Spanish delegation requested its withdrawal. That image quickly went viral due to the gothic attire of the former Spanish president's daughters: black tunics and military boots. Obama had invited the Zapateros because a few months earlier, in Prague, the Spanish president had asked him for an autograph for his daughters.

The sisters have almost never been separated, except during the period when Laura, the older sister, decided to leave home to live with her partner. After working as an audiovisual director for the Madrid nightclub Kapital, she decided in 2011 to start a training cycle at the Higher School of Communication, Image and Sound, a private center in Madrid that allowed her to work as an intern at Real Madrid TV. In turn, Alba, the younger sister, studied performing arts at the European University of Madrid, and in 2015 she had a brief career on YouTube, where, in a video of only 72 seconds, she was seen sitting at a table interpreting the same text but with different moods. The music video, however, was not long in being removed from the networks, although today some media are making it run again.Founded in 2019 and searched by the police last Tuesday, What The Fav defines itself as an advertising and communication agency related to electronic sports (e-sports). Shortly after opening, the company created content about video games and electronic sports for various Spanish media outlets. Its first major client, however, was Huawei, which in 2021 joined its portfolio, generating media attention. Nevertheless, the cherry on top was placed in 2024 by an advertisement in which it was looking for a Venezuelan person who, from Madrid, would work to "expand e-sports in Venezuela".