Wiretaps from the operation against the Russian mafia in Spain have revealed that entrepreneurs from Alicante linked to this criminal network turned to the circle of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in an attempt to launder capital through investments in Cuba, according to information provided by the UDYCO's Central Organized Crime Brigade to the investigating judge.
The scheme, outlined in the summary of the Investigating Court number 46 in Madrid, involved installing a one-gigawatt solar photovoltaic park on the island and receiving payment in kind with strategic minerals: nickel, cobalt, and gold.
The company acted as an intermediary between the Cuban regime and solar park installation companies from China, South Africa, and Mexico, and also maintained ties with the oil company PEMEX, interested in investing in Cuban refineries.
The phone interceptions began to pick up these movements in March 2024. In a call on the 25th of that month, one of the businessmen described the regime's proposal: "They have accepted the one-gig park in exchange for nickel and cobalt."
When the negotiations stalled —the Cuban official Rosell Guerra Campaña, director of Renewable Energies at the Ministry of Energy and Mines, refused to show up— the entrepreneurs decided to leverage their political connections.
In the intercepted recordings, one of those involved explains it bluntly: "He had to use Jorge, who played with ZP's group, Rodríguez Zapatero, and those people don’t do things for free."
After that effort, Alfredo López Valdés, director of the Cuban Electric Union (UNE) and former minister, contacted the business owners directly.
The mediation is attributed to Julio Martínez Martínez, an entrepreneur from Alicante and a personal friend of Zapatero, who is already a central figure in the Plus Ultra case, where his consultancy billed 460,000 euros to the airline and paid the former president 463,000 euros gross for "global consultancy."
Investors were also supported by the collaboration of René Capote, a diplomat from the Cuban embassy in Spain, with whom Sarmiento spoke directly to arrange a meeting in Alicante.
The former president's entourage distanced themselves from the operation and stated they had no information on the matter.
This Cuban branch adds to the multiple legal fronts that Zapatero is facing. On May 19, the National Court charged him with criminal organization, influence peddling, and document forgery in the Plus Ultra case, making him the first former president of Spanish democracy to be charged with corruption.
On that same day, agents from the Economic and Financial Crime Unit (UDEF) searched his office on Ferraz Street in Madrid and opened the safe in his office, where they found nearly 80 pieces of jewelry valued at over 1,300,000 euros, including emeralds from Zambia, sapphires from Thailand, rubies, and diamonds.
The judge José Luis Calama, instructor of the so-called Zapatero case in the National Court, has described a network of influence peddling in international operations spanning Cuba, Venezuela, Peru, and other countries.
In January 2026, the National Court had already opened a case against Zapatero for his alleged collaboration with the Nicolás Maduro regime, following a lawsuit for drug trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime.
Zapatero appeared before the National Court on June 17 and 18 to testify regarding the jewels and the charges in the Plus Ultra case, consistently denying that he had exerted any influence to favor any of the parties under investigation.
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