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Declared “persona non grata” by the US State Department for “involvement in significant corruption”, the former mayor of Durrës will stand trial over alleged abuses in the granting of a construction permit and a consultancy tender.
The criminal procedure appears set to secure him a lower sentence if he is found guilty. He will receive a one-third (⅓) reduction after the Special Court of First Instance accepted his request for a “summary trial” on Friday, 19 July 2024.
The longest-serving Socialist mayor of Durrës has repeatedly faced opposition accusations of suspected ties to criminal groups, while in 2019 he was barred from the United States.
Dako, who led Durrës for three terms between 2007 and 2019, was arrested in June 2023 along with nine former municipal officials and the owner of a private company.
After almost a year of investigation, prosecutors say they have established his involvement in unlawful activity in two cases: one concerning a construction permit approved in 2011, and the other the alleged misuse of public funds in a consultancy tender.
The allegedly improper permit concerns an apartment building in central Durrës whose construction, according to prosecutors, had been completed in 2012. Prosecutors suspect that the permit was formally issued to the company “Fakle” in 2014, two years after construction had been completed and residents had moved in. Moreover, the building did not conform to the approved design: it had four additional floors.
SPAK, Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure, accuses former mayor Dako of exceeding his powers by legalising an unpermitted building.
The second criminal matter in which prosecutors seek a guilty verdict against Dako concerns a procurement procedure: consultancy commissioned in 2014–2015 for a project called “Detailed design for the Coastal Promenade and Public Beach from Bërryli to Currila”.
According to SPAK, members of the procurement committee established on Dako’s orders calculated a tender ceiling almost ten times higher than the amount permitted by law, causing an economic loss of around 18 million lek.
The abuses had also been identified by the State Supreme Audit Institution, while Ferdinand Xhaferraj, the former head of the Democratic Party in Durrës, had previously filed a criminal complaint.
Dako maintains that he was unaware of the procedures followed because procurement experts calculated the funding. It will nevertheless be the trial that ultimately determines whether the most talked-about Socialist mayor was involved in these corruption affairs.
Dako’s power
It was October 2018 when transcripts of telephone conversations with Vangjush Dako, then the serving mayor of Durrës, leaked to the media from wiretaps collected by the Serious Crimes Prosecution Office on a suspected drug-trafficking group.
The conversations revealed the mayor’s “friendly” relations with people accused by the authorities of membership in criminal groups, including Altin Avdyli, known as “Niçja”, whose friends and relatives are suspected of having worked to increase the Socialist Party’s vote in the 2017 parliamentary elections.
At the time, the opposition accused Dako of ties to organised crime networks and involvement in vote-buying schemes. He defended himself by saying the communications were nothing more than ordinary calls as part of his “relationship with the electorate”.
“That’s politics. He fights for me, wins votes, makes a contribution, and you can’t even give him a phone call?!” Dako said in a television studio, describing himself as “Superman”, able to meet thousands of citizens during election campaigns.
He used this “routine” activity to justify his meetings with suspected drug traffickers as well.
The publication of the telephone conversations was not the only episode pointing to Dako’s suspected links with the underworld.
In December 2016, the Court of Appeal released Lulzim Berisha on parole. Berisha had been found guilty of several murders committed between 1998 and 2003 as the leader of the so-called “Durrës Gang”, which was said to be involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and an extortion network in the coastal city.
Berisha was released for “exemplary behaviour” and with a guarantee of an “alternative sentence involving voluntary work” provided by Durrës Municipality, then led by Dako.
In December 2021, the Supreme Court overturned the appeal ruling that had released Berisha, but he had left Albania.
The media revealed that Durrës Municipality had intervened in at least 30 cases to secure parole for convicted prisoners by offering “alternative sentences involving voluntary work”.
Dako was never formally charged over his links with organised crime figures or his suspected involvement in vote-buying. But in 2019, Socialist Party leader Edi Rama left him off the list of candidates for mayor of Durrës.
Dako subsequently resigned from his leadership positions in the party. A few months after his departure, the US State Department declared him “persona non grata” for “involvement in significant corruption”, barring him and his family from entering the United States.
But Dako’s past contains other accusations and allegations.
In February 2015, he was accused of abuses in the allocation of social housing. The opposition alleged violations and unfair allocation of 150 social housing units built at the end of 2011.
The opposition also continued to accuse Dako of manipulating electoral rolls, alleging that 2,700 residents had been added to Durrës solely to vote in that year’s local elections.
Meanwhile, the involvement of Vangjush Dako’s brother in construction has repeatedly been accompanied by accusations of favouritism.
Further allegations of poor quality and abuses in construction entered public debate after the earthquake of 26 November 2019, when many apartment buildings in Durrës were badly damaged.
Although away from active politics, Dako continued to enjoy the support of Prime Minister Rama, who openly declared his friendship with him.
“Vangjush Dako has been, is and will remain my friend. The US State Department does not decide who my friends are. My own principles and convictions decide that.
Even if he goes to prison tomorrow, he will be my friend,” Rama said in February 2020 on Blendi Fevziu’s programme “Opinion”.
*Revised version by the author. Previously produced and published for Shteg.org – A project of the Network for Reporting on Corruption and Organised Crime in Albania – Republication rights belong exclusively to the author and “RRKOKSH”.
* This article was reviewed and corrected on 8 October 2026.