Who is Vangush Dako, the man accused of controlling Durres from behind the stage?

Vangjush Dako entered politics in 2007. His successful career, Dako started by winning elections for the city's municipality of Durres against majoranca candidate Armand Teliti by a margin of only 308 votes

In 2011, Dako not only managed to win elections in front of the Ferdinant Xhaferray candidate but managed to win by nearly 3600 votes. Dako became an important figure for the Socialists in the 2013 local elections. In Durres County, including the Shijak and Kruje municipalities, the Socialists won 44% of the vote, after having won only 39% in 2009. And in 2017, they managed to win 51% of the vote. Durres thus became the district that greatly influenced the national winner of the Democrats in 2005 and the Socialists in 2013 and 2017, and the key actor of this success seemed to be Vangjush Dako.

In 2018, an investigation launched by German authorities on a large criminal organization operating in the drug trafficking field revealed, not only the criminal network in several cities in Albania, but also the free manner by which politicians in Albania talk and receive favors from crime exhibitors. Operation entitled V OL-VO4 brought the arrest of not only dozens of people suspected of drug trafficking, but also of the two former Socialist Party Controversial delegations Arben Ndoka and Arben Cuko. Their names came out on a case in the drug investigation.

The investigation also noted that drug traffickers, not only deal with traffic, but have the power to mobilise votes, buy votes, and, at least in one case, catalyze their favourites on the Socialist Party's candidate lists for deputies.

The file in question is called 339. Excess of conversations bugged by the prosecution showed how Vangouse Dako, the mayor, had frequent relations with members of the group of traffickers. One of the traffickers, Astrit Avdylaj, the leader of the group, pleads, saying he would propose Edi Rama a man for a deputy candidate and that in return, the Socialists' outcome in Shijak would be one who would surprise Rama herself.

In 2019, the Socialists no longer reruned him for mayor, while a few months after his departure as chairman, the State Department declared his appointment as a person involved in major corruption and sanctioned his and his family's ban from entering the US.

The exposure of crime links to the Socialist Party and Dacon also highlighted what later became known as the Socialists' electoral machine, which is accused of adopting the personal data that citizens have deposited in various public institutions and exploits this data, once to campaign, and occasionally, to buy votes and blackmail voters.

Dako, officially without political power, continued to be repeatedly accused by the opposition of controlling Durres from the background, which he has denied.