The National High Court judge José Luis Calama is not the only one investigating José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The Tax Agency also is. A communication sent by the Spanish Treasury to the magistrate reveals that less than a month ago it opened a tax investigation against the former Spanish president and his family. Specifically, the Tax Agency initiated the inspection against Zapatero on June 15 of this year, when he was already implicated in the National High Court for influence peddling, criminal organization, and document forgery and a few days after it opened a separate case for the jewelry found in his office. On the same day, another tax investigation was opened against his wife, Sonsoles Espinosa.

1. Nobody should read what Zapatero and his secretary said to each other on WhatsApp. Nobody should know how Koldo paid for Ábalos's sexual services. Nobody should have looked at the message in which Rajoy told Bárcenas “aguanta, Luis”. Nobody should have heard Minister Fernández Díaz assuring the director of Antifrau the “esto te lo afina la Fiscalía”. Nobody should have heard what Victoria Álvarez and Alícia Sánchez-Camacho were plotting at La Camarga. Nobody was supposed to do anything, in operation Volhov, whether Puigdemont believed or not that 10,000 Russian soldiers would come to help us in the grave hours. Nobody could suspect that Cospedal would order an investigation into whatever about Junqueras's brother. Nobody should have seen the trap video of Exuperancia Rapú with Pedro Jota. Nobody should have heard how Florentino Pérez belittled Mourinho in a conversation from years ago. Nobody had the right to read what Rubiales and Piqué said to each other in the Arab concession of the Super Cup. Nobody has anything to say about the venereal diseases that Bill Gates hid from his wife. Nobody had to know the criteria for granting positions according to Lluís Salvadó. Nobody should have seen Estefania de Monaco making love by the pool. Nobody needed to know that Zapatero – Zapatero again – confessed to Oriol Mitjà that Minister Illa was failing in managing the pandemic. Nobody should listen to Jonathan Andic's call to 112 to warn that his father had fallen off a cliff. Nobody should know what the Andic family and the alleged therapist said to each other, especially now that we have learned that she was not even registered as a psychologist but, on the other hand, she was dedicated to emotionally tidying up the lives of various rich people in the country, in exchange for an arm and a leg.

In recent days, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has deployed his defense strategy on multiple fronts: four written statements in four days. The latest step taken by the former Spanish president has been to lash out very harshly at the UDEF, whom he holds responsible for his diaries and conversations with his secretary having ended up leaked to the media.having ended up leaked to the media. He denounces it as an “authentic outrage”, an “indiscriminate dissemination” with a “devastating result” and “the most serious attack that can be made” against the rights to honor, privacy, self-image, and secrecy of communications. This latest request, which ARA has accessed, is added to the other moves he has recently made to try to invalidate the chats that incriminate him. They are all conversations between third parties who speak about him and which were the basis of his indictment. So far, his roadmap focuses on attacking the origin and legitimacy of the evidence.

Carlos Parry is president of the Professional Association of Institutional Relations (APRI) and does not hide his displeasure. He talks to ARA in a cafe near the Congress of Deputies, for which this professional sector has been waiting "fifteen years" – he says – for regulation on the activity of lobbyists in Spain. In his opinion, clear rules of the game would be positive for both sides: for lobbyists, who would know their scope of action, and for active politicians, as it would give them legal security when deciding whether or not to receive any company that wants its interests to be taken into account when legislating. This newspaper's interview with Parry has been arranged following the Zapatero case, but the conversation goes further and addresses a general reflection on the sector.

The book could not be more opportune: journalist and deputy director of Vozpópuli, Isaac Blasco, has just published the book Zapatero, in Trump's crosshairs (2026, Última Línea). It is the first about the already controversial figure of the former Spanish president following the investigation opened against him by the National Court and deals precisely with the role Zapatero adopts after being president and sporadically serving on the Council of State. Blasco presented it this Thursday in Madrid, at the El Halcón Maltés bookstore, which was quickly too small for the crowd.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has a real secretary. Her name is Gertrudis Alcázar. She is not a fake secretary, like those some writers invent to avoid unpaid activities. For example, let me tell you that Mrs. Àfrica Witacker Casaldàliga, who you won't deny has an authentic name, has recently done a service to the cause: she has kindly refused to participate in a "different" interview, up on La Mola, and of an intimate nature. It was not paid, but up there they gave you artisan cheese from the sponsor's brand. Àfrica has written that Mrs. X would have been very excited, because money doesn't matter to her, she really likes that sponsor's so-called "artisan" cheese and it would be good for her to spend a morning going up and down mountains, which is good for health, but unfortunately she has to go to a book club on those dates.

The day after they came to light the private conversations and diaries of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Judge José Luis Calama, the investigating judge of the Plus Ultra case at the National Court, has requested that the leaks be investigated. Calama has sent the request to the courts of Madrid, urging them to identify those responsible for the leaks, which he considers potentially criminal. The magistrate emphasizes that the facts have "gravity" and could fit into criminal offenses of revealing reserved proceedings. In parallel, the former Spanish president has requested Calama to nullify all actions in the case due to the violation of four fundamental rights. According to the document, to which ARA has had access, Zapatero claims that an "illicitly analyzed piece of evidence" has been incorporated into the proceedings.

The investigation by the Audiencia Nacional into José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is revealing the movements of the former Spanish president in recent years. L'ARA has gained access to his 2024 and 2025 diaries and to the WhatsApp conversations he had with his secretary, Gertrudis Alcázar, between April 2025 and the day of his indictment. "Cancel my run?", she asked him that morning. "Yes, of course", he answered her immediately afterwards. There are messages in which both speak directly about Junts. "I can't do English, mess with Junts", Zapatero told him on July 21, 2025. The next day there was the last plenary session of Congress of the political year and Junts voted against the anti-shutdown decree, which also derailed with the rejection of Podem, and against the advance payments, which Moncloa saved thanks to the approval of the PP.

There is a comparison between two fashionable judges who are currently making a name for themselves: José Luis Calama, who is investigating José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the National Court, and Juan Carlos Peinado, who has sent Begoña Gómez to trial after a two-year investigation. It is obvious to everyone that the way these two major media cases in which they are involved are being handled is different. Indeed, high-ranking voices from Moncloa in the corridors of Congress admit that Calama "is not" Peinado, as shown by the fact that the investigation into the former Spanish president, still in its early stages, does not have the extravagances of the indictment of Pedro Sánchez's wife. The clear distance between the two has become evident, especially in two matters: the adoption of precautionary measures and the indictment of individuals who have previously testified under oath to tell the truth. Let's go step by step.

The Unit of Economic and Fiscal Crime (UDEF) of the Spanish police has opened a new front for José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. A report accessed by ARA reveals that the former Spanish president allegedly received 200,000 euros from a Peruvian company –Grupo Gloria– in exchange for "mediating or influencing" "various millionaire lawsuits" that the company had in Bolivia. He allegedly charged them through a "simulated contract" with an intermediary company –Focus Social– through three invoices: one for 100,000 euros in 2024 and two for 50,000 euros in 2025. For this purpose, he "allegedly met or contacted" "high political spheres" of Bolivia, such as President Luis Arce, the ministers of Economy and Justice, and the state attorney general. At the center of the target was a sanction of 107 million dollars that the company's cement subsidiary –Soboce– had received.

The defense of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has launched an offensive to annul as evidence the conversations that led to the imputation of the former Spanish president in the Plus Ultra case. His lawyer has sent a letter to Judge José Luis Calama stating that if the conversations were not intercepted with judicial approval, "they must be excluded from the proceedings" and that, therefore, this would entail "promoting an incident of nullity." The validity of this evidence is seen as the great legal battle between the former president and the investigating judge that will determine the future of the proceedings.

If it is confirmed that the jewels found in the Zapatero case were part of a fraud, the economic question is: why jewels? Why would someone choose this circuit and not an intermediary company or an account abroad?The answer lies in the very nature of the object. A jewel concentrates a lot of value in a very small space. It can be handed over in person. It can be kept in a safe. It can be transported with relative ease. It does not require any bank transfer, leaves no digital trace, and can remain outside the declared circuit for years. From an economic point of view, it functions as black money converted into an object. This is its appeal. Whoever receives a jewel can keep it without it appearing anywhere. It is invisible money. If no one sees it, if no one declares it, and if no one asks about its origin, the wealth exists, but it remains off the tax radar. The tax obligation continues to exist, but the tax authorities cannot detect anything.The problem arises when this jewel has to be converted back into money. A jewel does not pay expenses. It does not pay a pension. To recover liquidity, it must be sold. And here begins the second part of the circuit. If it is sold on the formal market, the invoice appears, the buyer's identification, traceability, and the key question: where did this jewel come from? If it comes from a hidden payment, a disguised donation, or an irregular import, the regular sale can uncover the previous fraud. For this reason, these types of assets often end up in parallel markets. They are sold, at a discount, to buyers who are also interested in operating outside the system. The seller receives less than they would get in a jewelry store or at a formal auction, but avoids declaring. The buyer pays less and may be transforming opaque cash into a small, valuable, and transportable asset. The loss of price is compensated, in part, because taxes and controls do not emerge.In an ordinary jewelry purchase, the applicable VAT in Spain is the general rate of 21%. However, other taxes may arise depending on the origin, transfer, or possession of the asset: wealth tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, transfer tax, or capital gains. The opaque circuit seeks precisely to avoid this.The economic route is this: hidden money, jewelry, storage, opaque resale, new hidden money. It is not a sophisticated mechanism. It is ancient. It is the most efficient way to move wealth without going through the bank.The judicial key in the Zapatero case will be to prove its origin. A jewel can come from an inheritance, a legitimate purchase, a declared donation, or an illegal operation. Economically, the difference lies in the trace. When the trace is missing, it is fraud against the Treasury.

For weeks, Telecinco and Antena 3 have been showing contempt and prejudice against Zapatero's daughters that go beyond reasonable journalistic interest for their indictment. Both in morning and afternoon magazines and in the news, there is an obsession with showing photographs of them. The fact that they are two thirty-year-old women who do not conform to hegemonic canons, neither aesthetic nor stylistic, provokes a morbid fixation on their image. It is not new: when they were minors, they were already victims of cruel mockery.

On June 12, 2023, the PSOE began to leave behind the feeling of defeat. That day, an uninhibited José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero went on Cope to defend Pedro Sánchez's "spectacular" government, laughed at the PP's insinuations of fraud, and stated that he expected nothing more than the re-establishment of a PSOE-led government. Carlos Herrera told him that neither the results of the municipal and regional elections nor the polls predicted it to be a plausible scenario. Zapatero began the comeback.

The weekly The Economist, with a hard-won reputation for rigor and liberalism, also excels – like The New Yorker or Libération– on its covers. A few years ago, one was dedicated to Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had just arrived at Downing Street, asking: "Is Bambi a carnivore?”. Over the years and the Iraq War, the British Labourite proved to be not only a carnivore but also an anthropophage.

This was supposed to be a "week horribilis" for the PSOE – another one – but the fact is that it has held up well. For now, the socialists demonstrate that they have an ironclad bad health. When they want to feel good, they start talking about the economy and the good progress of the indicators. It is their favorite mirror, before which they see themselves favored. It's like a psychological spring for emergency situations, for example in debates in Congress. There is a lot of parliamentary agitation around them – especially in the Senate, which is the PP's paradise, where it has a comfortable majority – but the socialists neither fall nor kneel.

The day after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero spent three hours testifying as an investigated person at the National Court, audios have been leaked in which the former president of the Spanish government can be heard defending himself against accusations of having allegedly committed a crime of influence peddling to obtain the public bailout of Plus Ultra, an airline linked to Venezuelan capital. It had already emerged that the former socialist leader had denied it. And, in the recordings to which ARA has had access, he can be heard saying: "I did not speak with any political authority, with any official, with any public employee about the Plus Ultra bailout." Throughout the interrogation by Judge José Luis Calama, the former Spanish president insists. "I had no involvement, I did not speak with anyone [...] and this is an unquestionable truth. There will be no one who can say otherwise. Therefore, I did not exercise the slightest influence nor did anyone ask me to."

Zapatero's jewels have been making headlines for days and are part of a new separate case within the Plus Ultra case at the National Court. But the necklaces and earrings valued at 1.3 million euros that the former Spanish president received and which come from "inheritances and gifts", according to his spokesperson, have once again put a controversial issue at the center of the debate: why can't we know the gifts that Spanish presidents receive while in office? For example, the current head of the executive, Pedro Sánchez, still has not revealed the gifts he has received since his arrival at Moncloa.

The day after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero declared himself investigated, Judge José Luis Calama makes a move and takes a further step: he indicts his two daughters –Alba Rodríguez and Laura Rodríguez– and his secretary –Gertrudis Alcázar–. The magistrate did so after the PP requested it, as leader of the popular prosecutions, pointing to the crimes of criminal organization, influence peddling and money laundering. It was an initial request from Hazte Oír that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office subsequently endorsed. Why are they being investigated?

Wednesday morning was a very stressful day for the media in general and for Espejo público in particular. The control session in the Congress of Deputies coincided with the declaration of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the National Court. By the start of Susanna Griso's program, at nine in the morning, the former president, who was under investigation, had already arrived at the building. They already had the image of the day: Zapatero getting out of the car and climbing the stairs that led him inside the courts.Public Mirror had three different viewpoints of that moment. The first, a general shot, further away, in which Zapatero was seen in profile getting out of the car. The second, tighter, in which he appeared from the back getting out of the vehicle. And the third, very similar, which captured the moment he turned to wave and went up the stairs. The program joined these three scenes to slightly extend the sequence. It was a triple entry to the National Court. Since Zapatero's declaration was simultaneous with the control session, the program split the screen into several parts. But Zapatero's car arriving was an obsession, to the point that they kept the images on loop for practically the entire program: entering the National Court over and over again. Large, small, on one side, in the center, in the bottom corner, or at the top. They varied it depending on the space they had, the connections with the reporters, and the topics they were developing. But the former president was always there, somewhere or another. Between nine in the morning and beyond one in the afternoon, we saw Zapatero enter the National Court up to 286 times (perhaps with a small margin of error which you will allow me, after spending four hours watching the television loop like someone watching a washing machine drum in motion). More than seventy times per hour. From the side, from the back, or waving. Depending on the time, they also added a few images of the confiscated jewels in between, merging the scene of the car arriving with the loot from the safe. Around eleven in the morning, they offered a touch of creativity: they repeated the images again, adding a caption that supposedly reproduced the insults hurled at him by some pedestrians. Up to eighteen times they replayed the images with the addition of “¡SINVERGÜENZA!” and “¡CHORIZO!” in huge yellow letters. From one in the afternoon, Zapatero left the courts through the guest entrance, which caught most of the media off guard. But they managed a fleeting scene of the socialist leaving, which they replayed in slow motion up to 28 times. “¡Nos han jugado al despiste!”, lamented Griso, and the panelist Toni Cantó commented that the building's column had played in his favor because it partially blocked him. The pleasure of the television verdict. Then they reiterated in two boxes the arrival and departure sequences simultaneously. Zapatero twice at the National Court. The satisfaction of a job well done.