Spain’s Civil Guard has raided the Madrid headquarters of the ruling Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) over alleged irregular financing of the party.
Agents from the Central Operative Unit (UCO), the Civil Guard’s elite investigative branch, have arrived at the PSOE’s national base at 70 Calle Ferraz, in central Madrid, shortly before 9am on May 27, 2026, according to investigative sources cited by Spanish daily Vozpópuli.
The search has been ordered by the Central Investigating Court Number 2 of the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s high court for major national cases. The probe, which remains under judicial secrecy, focuses on suspected illegal financing of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party.
It is the second time in less than a year that the UCO has entered the PSOE’s Ferraz base. In June 2025, agents acting on a Supreme Court order cloned the corporate email of Santos Cerdán, the party’s then secretary of organisation, in the so-called Koldo case.
The operation has unfolded eight days after officers from Spain’s National Police searched an office used by former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, also located on Calle Ferraz, in the separate Plus Ultra corruption inquiry.
In that case, Audiencia Nacional judge José Luis Calama has imputed Zapatero on suspicion of organised crime, influence peddling and document falsification linked to a €53 million state rescue of the airline Plus Ultra granted in 2021. The court has frozen the former premier’s bank accounts, and Zapatero, who denies any wrongdoing, is due to appear before the judge on June 17-18.
Sánchez has publicly backed Zapatero, though the renewed police activity has deepened the PM’s political crisis. Former prime minister Felipe González has called for early elections.
