The drug trafficker pictured with Feijóo claims the PSOE offered him money to drop a "bomb" on the PP leader.

BarcelonaThe photograph of Alberto Núñez Feijóo on a boat with Galician drug trafficker Marcial Dorado has haunted the PP leader since his rise to the political limelight. The image, from the mid-1990s, came to light in 2013 when it was published by the newspaper The CountryThe Galician opposition had already criticized the then president of the Galician Regional Government for not clarifying what connection he had had with Dorado, an issue that the PSOE revived in the 2023 general election campaign. Two years later, Dorado broke his silence. in an interview in The Confidential: claims that PSOE leaders offered him money in exchange for a "bomb" to harm Feijóo ahead of the elections—in fact, the idea was circulating in the Moncloa government at the time that highly sensitive information about the two could turn the election campaign around. In any case, Dorado maintains that he rejected "the offer" and that there are no recordings of conversations between him and the PP leader from the period when they were in close contact, between 1994 and 2002. According to Dorado, he had previously received a visit from PSOE representatives between 2004 and 2012: Galician socialist Pepe Blanco allegedly offered him help in putting an end to the cases affecting him if he provided them with this information. Previously, he had sent a message to Blanco through a young man who was driving his boat to try to obtain help for accusations of which he claims to be innocent. Already in prison, in 2014, he revealed that he received a visit from a lawyer—allegedly linked to Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, he suggests—who assured him that he would be "acquitted" if he spread "garbage" about Feijóo and Mariano Rajoy.

Their trips together

In the interview, Dorado gives more details about her relationship with the current leader of the People's Party (PP). They met between 1993 and 1994 through Manuel Cruz, chauffeur for the then Minister of Industry of the Galician Regional Government, at a dinner in Santiago de Compostela. "We even went out with the women, we had a glass of wine... [...] It was visible, around Arousa Island, around Vigo. There was nothing to hide," she maintains. Dorado affirms that theirs was a "friendship" – they even went on group trips together – although she adds that "there was nothing more." At the time, Feijóo held a position in the Ministry of Agriculture.

It was during one of those encounters that the photograph was taken, on one of Dorado's boats. He maintains that someone took those images from his house, where he had them stored "in drawers," and points the finger at the police. "They took them. I never found out, because when they searched my house, there were about ten of them, from Customs," he says. It was in 2003, although his name had already appeared in connection with the drug trade in the 1990s. By 2002, Feijóo and Dorado had already lost contact, according to the drug trafficker. And what has Feijóo said so far about this friendship? "The Galicians know well the difference between knowing a person and having a business relationship or one of complicity. The Galicians have judged me, and they have judged me clearly," he said in 2023, referring to the four absolute majorities he amassed in Galicia.

"I am not a drug trafficker"

Despite having served 15 years in prison for drug trafficking and smuggling, Dorado maintains his innocence and will try to have his conviction overturned by the courts: "I'm not a drug trafficker. I have a sentence that was unfairly imposed on me, and all I want is for it to be reviewed." Dorado's thesis is that he ended up convicted because "the PP [members of the previous leadership of the Galician PP] and all political groups were interested" in accusing Feijóo of having been friends with a drug trafficker. In this regard, he reproaches the current PP leader for letting him fall. On the other hand, Dorado admits to having made "donations" to the PSOE through his companies, which, in his opinion, was "the fashion" of the moment. He does not clarify whether he also did so within the PP.