Dawood Ibrahim

Dawood Ibrahim (born Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar) is the leader of Indian organized crime syndicate D-Company in Mumbai. He is currently on the wanted list of Interpol for organised crimeand counterfeiting. He was No. 3 on the Forbes' World's Top 10 most dreaded criminals list of 2011, rising from the 4th position in 2008.

Dawood Ibrahim is accused of heading a vast and sprawling illegal empire in and against India and Indians. After the 1993 Mumbai bombings, which Ibrahim allegedly organized and financed, he became India's most wanted man. According to the United States, Ibrahim maintained close links with al-Qaeda's Osama Bin Laden. As a consequence, the United States declared Dawood Ibrahim a "global terrorist" in 2003 and pursued the matter before the United Nations in an attempt to freeze his assets around the world and crack down on his operations. The Bush administration has since imposed several sanctions on Ibrahim and his associates. Indian and Russian intelligence agencies have pointed out Ibrahim's possible involvement in several other terror attacks, including the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, as per Interpol.

Background

Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, the son of a police head constable Ibrahim Kaskar, was born in Mumbke village in Khed Taluka of Ratnagiri district, Konkan region in the Indian state of Maharashtra on December 27, 1955. He belongs to theKonkani Muslim community. He is said to have begun his career in Mumbai working for the Karim Lala gang exploiting the rapid expansion in Mumbai textiles industry to his advantage He soon moved his residence to Dubai in theUnited Arab Emirates where he has business interests alongside India. Indian defence intelligence agencies believe that Dawood and his associates have huge stakes in ship-breaking industry in India and are using these operations for smuggling in arms, explosives and contraband into the country.

Hawala Control

Dawood Ibrahim was believed to control much of the 'hawala' system, which is the very commonly used unofficial system for transferring money and remittances outside the view of official agencies. Much of the organisation's operations are in India.

Ibrahim is widely believed to have masterminded the March 1993 Mumbai Bombings. In 2003, the Indian and United States governments declared Ibrahim a "Global Terrorist". The then Deputy Prime Minister, L.K.Advani described it as a major development and that India stands "vindicated". Ibrahim is currently on India's "Most wanted List".

The United States Department of Treasury has also designated Ibrahim as a terrorist as part of its international sanctions program — effectively forbidding U.S. financial entities from working with him and seizing assets believed to be under his control. The Department of Treasury keeps a fact sheet on Ibrahim which contains reports of his syndicate having smuggling routes from South Asia, the Middle-East and Africa shared with and used by terrorist organisation al-Qaeda. The fact sheet also said that Ibrahim's syndicate is involved in largescale shipment of narcotics in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. He is also believed to have had contacts with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden, now dead. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim traveled in Afghanistan under the Taliban's protection. The syndicate has consistently aimed to destabilize the Indian government through riots, terrorism and civil disobedience.

Washington added that they will request the United Nations to list Ibrahim "in pursuance of relevant Security Council resolutions". The UN listing will require that all UN member states freeze Ibrahim's assets and impose a travel ban. Juan Zarate, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said that they are committed to identifying and attacking financial ties between terrorism and the underworld. Ibrahim is also suspected to have connections with terrorist organisations, and in 2002 was linked to the financing of increasing attacks in Gujarat by Lashkar-e-Toiba. New Delhi handed over to Islamabad a list of 38 most wanted criminals, including Ibrahim.

In a major blow to Ibrahim, ten members of his gang were arrested by Mumbai Crime Branch on November 21, 2006. They were extradited from the United Arab Emirates, from where they had been deported.

A TV news channel, India Today reported that Dawood Ibrahim provided the logistics for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Pakistani deportation resistance

In January 2002, a month after the Parliament attack, Indian officials visited the US, where they had meetings with Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. A list of the Top 20 most-wanted terrorists in Pakistan was handed to the US. Ibrahim was wanted in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. Following the meetings, "He (Powell) told his Indian interlocutors that Pakistan would hand over Dawood Ibrahim to India 'with some strings attached' and also thatMusharraf needed 15 to 20 days more for doing so," However, Advani says he "started facing hurdles" soon and recollecting it now "is not a very happy experience."

No Pakistani action was made the following months.

“

...there was only fibbing and foot-dragging. In my interactions with visiting Americans, I began to see, strangely, a certain lack of enthusiasm. 'We do not have the clout to compel Pakistan to act on this issue,' they started saying...I suspected, not without basis, that somebody in the bureaucratic system was trying, in Indian's dialogue with Americans, to de-emphasise or derail the issue of getting Ibrahim and other Indian terrorists back from Pakistan... [India] was ‘denied a major success in its war against Pakistan-supported terrorism by way of bureaucratic non-cooperation ‘that I have not been able to fully fathom’.

”

In reaction to India's list Pakistan also prepared a list of most wanted terrorist demanding India to handover to her and that list included the name of L.K Advani for a killing attempt on Nation's Leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, a terrorist captured in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 173, had confessed to authorities that Ibrahim's organization provided arms and explosives to the Lashkar-e-Taiba group that were used to carry out the attacks.

Family

Dawood Ibrahim's daughter, Mahrukh Ibrahim, is married to the son of Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad. Javed's son and Ibrahim's daughter met while studying together in the UK.

On 30 March 2009, his brother NoorAIN died in his sleep of natural causes, aged 50. Dawood's brother Anis Ibrahim is a co-accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings.

Recent events

First came the death of Umer Bashir, Dawood's financier and long term confidant. News media outlets reported the murder as a sign of a dramatic shift of power between the crime lords. The loss of Shetty was followed by the declaration by the United States Treasury Department declaring Ibrahim a global terrorist because of his links with Osama bin Laden. Ibrahim then lost one of his closest aides, Shoaib Khan, in 2005.

The 2002 Indian film Company is loosely based on his activities, as well as its prequel, the 2005 film D. Other Indian crime films loosely based on Ibrahim and his D-Company include Black Friday in 2004, Shootout at Lokhandwala in 2007, Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai in 2010 , Shootout at Wadala , D-Day Once upon a time in mumbaai again in 2013.