The well-kept secret of future Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This is how the Balearic newspaper 'Diario de Mallorca' describes the story of how Francesco Meloni, her father who has since died, was caught in Mallorca in 1995 with 1,500 kilos of hashish. With that load of drugs he was on his way to Italy on a sailboat from Morocco. But things went wrong along the way.

HR 29-09-22, 09:48 Last update: 29-09-22, 10:27

Giorgia Meloni (45) may soon be the first female Prime Minister ever in Italy. Her post-fascist, far-right party Fratelli d'Italia won Sunday's parliamentary elections, making it the largest party in the right-wing bloc. Meloni quickly claimed leadership in the next government.

A great triumph for Meloni, also on a personal level. Because she worked her way up the political ladder after a tough childhood full of worries. It started when her father, when Meloni was barely 2, abandoned his family to travel to the Canary Islands on his boat 'Cavallo Pazzo' - translation 'Silly Horse'. Little Giorgia stayed behind in Rome with her sister and mother Anna.

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Francesco Meloni settled on La Gomera, the smallest of the inhabited Canary Islands, close to Tenerife and La Palma, in the early 1980s. He opened a hotel there and started a real estate company, getting deeply into debt to do so.

On holiday to La Gomera
At that time, contact between Giorgio and her father was limited to two weeks a year, when Giorgia and her sister came on holiday to La Gomera. In her biography, Giorgia says those visits continued until the late 1980s, when she was 11 years old. “He left us behind. I never wanted to see him again," she says. “On my 13th birthday I received a message from him saying: 'Congratulations, Francesco.' Not even signed 'daddy'. Then I told myself I made the right decision.”

Fifty million pesetas
Around that time, father Francesco Meloni was also not doing well business-wise. He was bankrupt, lost his restaurant and real estate business, but was still heavily in debt. That is why he is said to have accepted an assignment from a Moroccan who offered him the opportunity to earn 50 million Spanish pesetas. Meloni had to sail from Morocco to Italy with a load of drugs.

According to what he later told in court, Francesco Meloni came up with a sophisticated plan for this. He rented the 'Cool Star', a sailing boat, in France. He also rounded up two of his children - from a previous relationship, so not from Giorgia's mother - and a son-in-law "for a pleasure trip".

Storm at sea
When Francesco's relatives discovered the true purpose of the trip in September 1995, they were said to have become angry. At that time, the cargo of drugs had already been transferred from another ship to the sailing boat near Morocco. According to what Francesco stated, his party wanted to abandon ship.

The port of Mahon in Menorca, where police discovered the drugs in 1995.

For this reason, and because there was a storm at sea, they docked in the port of Mahón, on the island of Menorca, near Mallorca and Ibiza. However, the drug packages, amounting to 1,500 kilos of hashish, were discovered by the security services. The entire party was arrested.

Nine years in prison
In 1996 they had to appear in court in Mallorca. Francesco Meloni took full responsibility, saying he had lied to his relatives about the pleasure trip. Yet his two children and son-in-law also received four years in prison. Francesco himself was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Things never worked out between Giorgia Meloni (45) and her father. The man died a few years ago, but that didn't bother Giorgia, she says. “No hate, no anger, nothing. As if a character on television had died.” The absence of a father figure would have had a major influence on how Giorgia Meloni would later fight doggedly for a better life, through a career in politics.