As of early August 2026, Spanish courts have placed former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero under formal investigation for influence peddling, money laundering, tax fraud, and smuggling tied to the 2021 Plus Ultra airline bailout and luxury jewelry discovered in his office. He testified at the Audiencia Nacional in June, denied all allegations, and was deemed not a flight risk, with proceedings remaining in the pretrial investigative phase. No trial date has been set, and Spanish law requires full evidentiary hearings, defense arguments, and judicial rulings before any conviction or prison sentence can result. Traders assign high probability to no sentence occurring by resolution because these cases typically advance slowly through appeals and require substantial proof beyond initial charges, consistent with historical patterns for high-profile political investigations.