MADRID (AP) — Police in northeastern Spain on Tuesday arrested the son of Isak Andic, the billionaire founder of the Spanish fashion brand Mango, for allegedly having played a role in his death.
Andic, 71, was hiking with his son in the mountains near Barcelona when he fell about 150 meters (about 500 feet) down a cliff and died in December 2024.
The son, Jonathan Andic, 45, was the only witness. Police opened an investigation but closed it a few weeks later. It was reopened in March 2025, and in October police confirmed the death was being investigated as a possible homicide.
Jonathan Andic was taken to court facilities in Martorell, a city in eastern Spain where the case is being investigated, said a spokesperson for the Catalan regional police, Mossos d’Esquadra, who spoke on condition of anonymity following department policy.
The case is subject to a nondisclosure order, he added.
Jonathan Andic is the eldest of Isak Andic's three children and one of his father's heirs. He is the vice chairman of the board at Mango, one of Spain's biggest retailers.
Isak Andic’s family moved from Turkey to Spain when he was young. He opened Mango’s first store in Barcelona in 1984 and over the following decades helped Mango grow into one of Europe’s leading fast fashion makers.
Mango has 2,900 stores in 120 markets around the world. The fashion group’s revenue hit a record high of nearly 3.8 billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) in 2025, an 11% increase from the previous year.
FILE - Isak Andic, the founder of Spanish fashion brand Mango, arrives at the Fall-Winter 2011 Mango's fashion show in Paris Tuesday, May 17, 2011. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)
MADRID (AP) — A Spanish court is investigating former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for alleged influence peddling and other possible crimes tied to a government airline bailout.
The National Court in Madrid is probing possible financial wrongdoing in connection with the Spanish government’s rescue of the Plus Ultra airline, which in 2021 received 53 million euros (now $62 million) in public money as part of COVID-19 recovery funds.
The court said in a statement that the investigation was widened to include Zapatero, who was summoned to answer a judge’s questions on June 2. Police with warrants from the investigating judge searched Zapatero’s office on Tuesday.
Zapatero, 65, was prime minister from 2004 to 2011. He is a member of the Socialist party headed by current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
He denied any wrongdoing related to the bailout in a Senate hearing in March, saying he “never received any commissions from Plus Ultra.”
Plus Ultra is a Spanish-owned airline with investors from Venezuela. It specialized in flights between Spain and Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador.
Since leaving office, Zapatero has focused a large part of his activity on maintaining dialogue with the far-left regime in Venezuela, which was largely isolated from Western countries after it cracked down on the democratic opposition.
Zapatero had been out of public office for a decade when Plus Ultra received the bailout.
The former premier is considered a political ally of Sánchez, whose party has been rocked by other corruption scandals over the past two years.
FILE - Spain's former Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero speaks to journalists in La Paz, Bolivia, Thursday, May 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)
