Detained Plus Ultra executive asked police to notify former judge García-Castellón
Julio Martínez Sola, president of Plus Ultra, requested upon arrest in December that García-Castellón be informed. The airline neither confirms nor denies professional relationship.
Plus Ultra president wanted to notify former judge García-Castellón upon arrest
According to publico.es, Julio Martínez Sola, president of the airline Plus Ultra, asked the police officers who arrested him on 11 December 2025 to communicate his detention to former judge Manuel García-Castellón. It was the second name he provided to the officers, after that of his lawyer. In third place, he requested to telephone Santiago Fernández Lena, secretary of the board of directors and legal adviser of the company, also under investigation in the same case.
This is recorded in the police report of Martínez Sola's arrest and the search of his home, included in the case file being handled by judge José Luis Calama.
A request that stands out
The procedure is routine: officers inform the detainee of their rights and they indicate whom they wish to be notified of their arrest. However, the fact that the Plus Ultra executive — the airline that gave its name to the case in which former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero ended up under investigation — appealed to the former judge of the National Court at that moment has drawn the attention of investigators.
García-Castellón retired in September 2024, at age 72, after twelve years heading the Central Investigating Court number 6 of the National Court. Shortly afterwards, he registered as a lawyer with the Madrid Bar Association, where he is listed as a practising member. The mobile telephone number Martínez Sola provided to the officers matches the professional number appearing in the former judge's file at that bar association.
The airline neither confirms nor denies
Publico.es asked Plus Ultra about the possible professional relationship between García-Castellón and the company. The airline responded that it cannot "either confirm or deny" the link, citing its "company policy", "regardless of whether or not" the matter is true.
Sources close to Plus Ultra's president assert that Martínez Sola and García-Castellón are "friends for 30 years" and see each other "frequently". "They have never hidden it," these sources add, justifying the request because it "seemed better" to the executive "than giving his wife's or children's numbers". According to the police report, Martínez Sola's wife was at the residence when the arrest took place, so she was already aware of it.
On whether the former judge maintains any professional relationship with the airline, the same sources referred to Plus Ultra's official response.
García-Castellón does not respond
Last April, before Calama lifted the secrecy of the case file, this newspaper already asked García-Castellón about his relationship with the company. "I am nobody anymore," he responded by email, adding that he has "a private life of no great interest to anyone". After his name appeared in the police report, Público contacted the former judge again, who had not responded by the time of publication.
The arrest and the search of the residence
Martínez Sola was arrested at 7:20 in the morning on 11 December at his home, a detached house in the Encinar de los Reyes development, on the southern edge of La Moraleja. Police searched the property and seized a mobile telephone, a CD titled "Plus Ultra documents", several agendas, and two bundles of banknotes found in the safe of a bedroom: 107,000 euros and 75,175 dollars.
Subsequently, officers took the executive to Plus Ultra's offices in Alcobendés so he could witness the intervention of his computing devices. Martínez Sola was then held in custody and neither made a statement to the police nor to the magistrate. On 13 December he was released without bail, despite the fact that, according to the order, there were "sufficient grounds to deem the company president criminally responsible for the offence of money laundering". The judge imposed on him the obligation to appear every Monday at the court, retained his passport, and prohibited him from leaving Spain.
More arrests on the same day
On that same 11 December, Plus Ultra's chief executive officer, Roberto Roselli, and lawyer Miguel Palomero de Juan were also arrested. The latter was dismissed from Andersen law firm barely three days later; the same firm that Fernández Lena had left of his own volition eleven days earlier.
Since October 2025, Martínez Sola has been the principal shareholder of Plus Ultra, after acquiring the holdings of the airline's Venezuelan partners. In the case file he appears in numerous conversations with his "namesake" — as he calls him — Julio Martínez Martínez, the businessman who created the network of companies used for payments and collections related to alleged offences of traffic in influence and, according to investigators, also for money laundering.
Investigators also found conversations between Martínez Sola and Venezuelan Rodolfo Reyes Rojas, another of those under investigation, about the urgency of rescuing SEPI (State Company for Industrial Holdings). In one of those exchanges, the Plus Ultra president wrote: "What I want is for him to speak with SEPI, him or Zapatero, and get, even if just verbally, confirmation that they grant us the aid with 100 per cent certainty. With that response, let them find a bank for the bridge credit."
García-Castellón has handled some of the most high-profile cases of recent decades in Spain, from the Banesto case against Mario Conde in 1993 to recent cases in the National Court.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)