Dongri to Dubai - Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia

by Hussain Zaidi

  Speculation aside, it is obvious that Rajan had every reason to fear for his life in Bangkok and that his escape was carefully planned. The gunmen who were sent to kill him, identified as followers of rival mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim, had vowed to fulfill their mission as soon as they were released. It might be some time before the three gunmen who were apprehended after the shootout walked free, but other gunmen from Dawood’s gang were suspected to have arrived in Bangkok, awaiting the chance to kill Rajan.

  So where did Rajan go? It would have been foolish of him to try to leave via any of Thailand’s airports, where the immigration authorities maintained computer records of everyone entering and leaving the country. The fastest and easiest overland escape route would be a five-hour drive from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. Cambodian immigration authorities issue visas on the spot to anyone for USD20. Rajan could then have continued by car to Phnom Penh, and from there left by air to any destination in Asia, the Middle-East, Europe, or Australia.

  Another possibility would have been the more than 24-hour-long drive down to the Malaysian border. It is possible to sneak across undetected, as hordes of illegal immigrants and smugglers do all the time. Given that Rajan used to be based in Malaysia and had extensive contacts within the Indian community there, it would have been possible for him to hide there till the uproar over his escape died down. Then he could arrange for a passport and leave for a safer destination. Thailand’s only other land borders are with Myanmar and Laos, which are not considered likely escape routes.

  Regardless of how he escaped, Rajan’s flight from Thailand meant that an important chapter in his criminal career had come to an end. Rajan, as Vijay Daman, had initially obtained a tourist visa, but in May 2001 he requested to have his visa status changed to that of a business visitor, which would have made it possible for him to obtain a permission to run a company, called Daman Import-Export. The company ostensibly exported dried fish from Thailand to Hong Kong, but it is suspected that it was a front for his illegal activities. A business visa simply enabled him to stay on in Thailand.

  Rajan’s near-perfect set-up in Bangkok went up in a burst of gunfire three months before the attack on him, and recreating such a set-up was not going to be that easy with Dawood’s men hot on his tail.

  19

  Post 9/11

  The promise of a virginal, green-eyed hourie in the garden of paradise, where streams of honey and milk have been abundantly flowing, has been the most powerful motivation for crazy men since time immemorial. But none can beat what a few insane pilots did on the historic morning of 9/11. In a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al Qaeda upon the United States on 11 September 2001, a group of jihadis launched one of the most heinous attacks in modern history.

  Early on the morning of 11 September, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington D.C. (Washington Dulles International Airport). At 8:46 am, American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, followed by United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the South Tower at 9: 03 am.

  Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9: 37 am. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 9: 57 am, after the passengers on board engaged in a fight with the hijackers. Its ultimate target was thought to be either the Capitol (the meeting place of the United States Congress) or the White House (http://news.bbc.co.uk).

  It is reported that the suicide attack resulted in the death of 2, 973 victims, apart from the hijackers. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over seventy countries.

  These men had learnt that the attack would give them a quick death and an equally rapid meeting with a seductress in heaven. For them, jihad was the quickest means to reach heaven, regardless of any insanity that they may have to perpetrate in the process.

  Muslims across the world reacted to the incident in different manners. While some were jubilant that the mighty United States of America had been brought to its knees, others had to hang their head in shame, feeling that the attack was orchestrated in the name of Islam by a few self-appointed guardians of Islam. The attack thus blemished a religion of peace forever. The 9/11 attacks became a watershed incident, one that changed the world forever.

  The incident also had far reaching repercussions for Dawood Ibrahim. One of the famous euphemisms that Dawood cited while giving instructions to his men to kill his detractors was, ‘Duniya uske liye choti kardo [make his world smaller than it is now]’ — implying that the movement of his enemies be restricted so as to not let them roam around the world freely. Let them be cocooned in their shells with fear of getting caught or killed.

  Ironically, the 9/11 attacks made the world a smaller place for Dawood. In fact, he had been on the US radar for a long time, but as terror had not hit Uncle Sam earlier, they did not get serious about apprehending him.

  Way back in 1995, US President Bill Clinton, by presidential decision directive number 42, designated the activities of organised crime groups a major threat to national security and made it a priority for American intelligence agencies to apprehend such groups. A similar decision was taken by John Major’s government in the United Kingdom on the recommendation of Stella Rimington, the then director-general of MI5, and by other European Union governments.

  Since then, the Dawood gang was amongst the organised crime groups being closely monitored by various Western intelligence agencies, thereby keeping him largely confined to Karachi, where he is a privileged guest of the ISI.

  Over the years, Pakistan premiers and later its military dictator General Pervez Musharraf and the ISI have fine-tuned the art of hoodwinking the international community and particularly the US Administration—be it with respect to its assistance in supplying clandestine weapons of mass destruction to North Korea and Iran, its sponsorship of cross-border terrorism into India and Afghanistan, or evasion of action against terrorists and other organisations.

  At the request of the Government of India, Interpol, based in Lyons, France, issued many lookout notices for Dawood’s arrest and deportation to India if he was found in the territory of any member-country. The lookout notices also gave his Karachi address.

  In response to these notices, the Pakistani authorities kept denying the presence of Dawood in their territory. Earlier, the matter was taken up by Atal Behari Vajpayee with President Pervez Musharraf during their meeting in Agra in July 2001 (which was reiterated during their meeting in Islamabad in January 2004). Dawood’s name also figured in the list of twenty terrorists wanted for trial in India, which was handed over by the Government of India to Islamabad. The stock response from Musharraf was, of course, that Dawood Ibrahim was not in Pakistan.

  During the Agra Summit, Musharraf was not lying because as an astute military leader he knew that if the RAW sleuths decided to call his bluff and expose Dawood on Pakistani soil, it would be an international embarrassment for him. So Dawood was shifted from Pakistan for a temporary period, just like Tiger Memon’s family was shifted to Bangkok when the Indian government had turned the heat on Pakistan in 1993.

  It was widely speculated that Dawood was shifted to Waziristan near the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

  However, the Intelligence Bureau later gathered that before Musharraf visited India in 2001 for the Agra Summit, the ISI secretly sent Dawood away to Malaysia through Singapore with the help of one Rakesh Tulshiyan and Shahid Sohail. He stayed in Malaysia as a guest of billionaire Mohammad Tahir’s family and returned to Karachi later. Dawood is believed to have extensive mining interests in Malaysia, from where he and his group indulge in the smuggling of silver into India via Nepal.

  Many Caribbean and South Pacific countries offer fugitives from justice what is called ‘eco
nomic citizenship’ to enable them to evade arrest and deportation to countries where they are wanted for crimes. This citizenship is sold in return for a minimum deposit in foreign currency kept safely in local banks.

  Pakistan does not have any laws providing for such ‘economic citizenship’, but its government, on the ISI’s advice, informally awarded economic citizenship to Dawood, who was issued a Pakistani passport under a different name. Similarly, his brothers, including Anees Ibrahim and his aides, including Chhota Shakeel, were given Pakistani passports under pseudonyms.

  It is believed that in the nineties, Dawood had offered Pakistan financial aid in the clandestine procurement of nuclear and missile technology and components and that this factor too probably influenced Islamabad’s decision to grant him economic citizenship.

  All of this had helped Dawood in developing thick contacts with the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) and Al Qaeda elements such as Ramzi Binalshibh (a top LeT operative who was later arrested by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the US), who had been given sanctuary in Karachi by the LeT.

  Over the years, somehow Dawood and Musharraf had become indispensable to each other. In fact, Dawood had reportedly hired several retired Musharraf loyalist officers of the Pakistani intelligence community as his security officers.

  And according to an IB dossier, Dawood Ibrahim also played an active role in organising the referendum campaign of Musharraf in Karachi by bringing in voters to the polling booths in trucks to vote for Musharraf.

  But even as Musharraf was on his denial spree, the Pakistani press went ahead and exposed him. Then there were two simultaneous developments, which not only nailed the fragile lies of Musharraf but also made the world a smaller place for Dawood.

  Newsline, a prestigious Pakistani monthly, in its September 2001 issue, carried a detailed article on the presence of Dawood and his men in Karachi and their activities here. The Pakistani media reported that the journalist who wrote this article, Ghulam Hasnain, was detained and harassed by the Pakistani authorities.

  The article stated as follows: ‘Dawood Ibrahim and his team, Mumbai’s notorious underworld clan, including his right-hand man Chota Shakeel and Jamal Memon [Tiger Memon], are on India’s most wanted list for a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai and other criminal activities. After the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, the gang have made Karachi their new home and operating base. Living under fake names and IDs (identities), and given protection by government agencies, they have built up their underworld operations in Karachi employing local talent like Shoaib and Bholoo.

  ‘In Pakistan, Dawood managed to establish another huge empire, comprising both legitimate and illegitimate businesses. In fact, the last few years have witnessed Dawood emerge as the don of Karachi. Dawood and his men have made heavy investments in prime properties in Karachi and Islamabad and are major players in the Karachi bourse and in the parallel credit system business—hundi. Dawood is also said to have rescued Pakistan’s Central Bank, which was in crisis at one point, by providing a huge dollar loan. His businesses include gold and drug smuggling. The gang is also allegedly heavily involved in (cricket) match-fixing.

  ‘Not only have the Pakistani authorities turned a blind eye to the gang’s activities within Pakistan, but many in the corridors of power have partaken of Dawood’s hospitality… He is said to have the protection of assorted intelligence agencies. In fact, Dawood and his men move around the city guarded by heavy escorts of armed men in civies believed to be personnel of a top Pakistani security agency. A number of government undercover agents, who came into contact with Dawood because of their official duties, are now, in fact, working for him. Nearly all the men, who surround him for security reasons, are either retired or serving officers, claims an MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) activist.

  ‘According to informed sources, Dawood is Pakistan’s number one espionage operative. His men in Mumbai help him get whatever information he needs for Pakistan. Rumour has it that sometimes his men in Karachi accompany Pakistani intelligence agents to the airports to scan arriving passengers and identify RAW (Indian external intelligence) agents.’

  Ghulam Hasnain was so harassed and tormented by the government that he had to flee Pakistan and take refuge in the US.

  The fallout of the 9/11 attacks was that the US had begun to realise the proportions of the menace that is dirty money as it floats around the world, ploughed for terror operations and the despicable aspect of the global brotherhood of Muslim terrorists. They realised that they would have to cut both the jugular vein of slush funds, money for multifarious activities, and the umbilical cord of the Muslim terrorists.

  Shortly after 9/11, US President George Bush signed Executive Order (EO) No.13224 on 23 September 2001, declaring a national emergency to deal with terrorist threats to the US. He said in his EO: ‘I also find that because of the pervasiveness and expansiveness of the financial foundation of foreign terrorists, financial sanctions may be appropriate for those foreign persons that support or otherwise associate with these foreign terrorists. I also find that a need exists for further consultation and cooperation with, and sharing of information by, United States and foreign financial institutions as an additional tool to enable the United States to combat the financing of terrorism.’

  The annual report on the Patterns of Global Terrorism during 2001 submitted to the US Congress in May 2002, by General Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, described the significance of this EO as: ‘EO 13224 enables the US Government to block designees’ assets in any financial institution in the US or held by any US person. It also expands US government’s authority to permit the designation of individuals and organisations that provide support or financial or other services to or associate with, designated terrorists. EO 13224 designations allowed the US government, as well as coalition partners acting in concert, to block tens of millions of dollars intended to bankroll the murderous activities of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.’

  Unlike the Indian government, the US government moved swiftly and under this EO, has so far designated 322 individuals of different nationalities and organisations as terrorists and terrorist supporters, and frozen over $136.8 million in terrorist assets by acting in concert with other member-nations of the UN. Apart from terrorist organisations such as the Al Qaeda, the Jemaah Islamiya, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), etc., which have been so designated under this EO, a number of individual terrorists wanted for acts of terrorism in different countries have also been so designated. The most important among them are Ayman Al-Zawahiri and other leaders of the Al Qaeda.

  While the US government has designated the HUM, the LeT, and the JeM as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, none of their leaders has so far been designated as global terrorists. The only individuals living openly in Pakistan and brought under the purview of this EO till 15 October 2003, were Sultan Bashir-ud-din Mahmood, Abdul Majeed, and Mahammed Tufail, who were suspected of trying to help bin Laden in the clandestine acquisition of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). They were so designated on 20 December 2001, and their bank accounts, wherever found, were ordered to be frozen.

  A press release of the US Department along with the Presidents’ EO (available on the website) said: h‘Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian crime lord, has found common cause with Al Qaeda, sharing his smuggling routes with the terror syndicate and funding attacks by Islamic extremists aimed at destabilising the Indian government. He is wanted in India for the 1993 Bombay Stock Exchange bombings and is known to have financed the activities of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Army of the Righteous), a group designated by the United States in October 2001 and banned by the Pakistani Government—who also froze their assets—in January 2002.’

  A fact sheet attached to the press release said: ‘Ibrahim’s syndicate is involved in large-scale shipments of narcotics in the UK and Western Europe. The syndicate’s smuggling routes from South A
sia, the Middle East and Africa are shared with Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network. Successful routes established over recent years by Ibrahim’s syndicate have been subsequently utilised by bin Laden. A financial arrangement was reportedly brokered to facilitate the latter’s usage of these routes. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim travelled in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban.’

  It added: ‘Ibrahim’s syndicate has consistently aimed to destabilise the Indian government through inciting riots, acts of terrorism and civil disobedience. He is currently wanted by India for the March 12, 1993, Bombay Exchange bombings, which killed hundreds of Indians and injured over a thousand more.

  ‘Information from as recent as Fall 2002, indicates that Ibrahim has financially supported Islamic militant groups working against India, such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT). For example, this information indicates that Ibrahim has been helping finance increasing attacks in Gujarat by LeT. ’

  The statement and the attached fact sheet, however, do not say how the US government came to know of Dawood’s links with the Al Qaeda, bin Laden, and the LeT.

  The Executive Order and the tightening of the noose by the US had rattled the Pakistani government. Dawood Ibrahim and his cohorts had clearly been asked to shut up, as it was obvious that Indian agencies would now be waiting to pounce on any opportunity to establish that Dawood was in Pakistan.

  20

  Not so Chori Chori, Chupke Chupke

  Chhota Shakeel, for time immemorial, had always harboured aspirations of being the one holding the reins of Bollywood. Highly enamoured as he was by the glitz and glamour of India’s tinseltown, he had always been left with a bitter taste in his mouth when he was told by the powers-that-be to quietly focus on his designated area of work or ‘beat’, which was extortion. He was left gritting his teeth whenever he was reminded that it was Abu Salem and Anees Ibrahim who were in control of the coveted Bollywood end of things.