Dawood Ibrahim is a Dongri-born Indian mafia gangster, drug kingpin, and wanted terrorist. He is said to be the leader of the Indian organized crime syndicate D-Company, which he established in Mumbai in the 1970s.
Ibrahim is wanted on murder, extortion, targeted killing, drug trafficking, and terrorism charges.
In 2003, India and the United States designated him as a global terrorist, with a US$25 million bounty on his head for his suspected role in the 1993 Bombay bombings.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Forbes ranked him third on their list of “The World’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives” in 2011. In order to avoid FATF sanctions, the Pakistani government recently sanctioned Dawood and 87 others.
He has been reported to live in Karachi, Pakistan, though the government of Pakistan denies it. In 2020, the Indian government sold off Dawood’s six properties in his ancestral village in Ratnagiri district in coastal Konkan in Maharashtra.
The government organized the e-auction of his properties under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act (SAFEMA), 1976. In November 2017, Dawood’s three properties, including the famous Rounaq Afroz Restaurant, also known as Delhi Zaika, were auctioned off by the government.
Early life
Dawood Ibrahim was born on 26 December 1955 to a Konkani Muslim family in Khed in Maharashtra, India. His father, Ibrahim Kaskar, worked as a head constable with the Mumbai Police, and his mother, Amina Bi, was a homemaker. He lived in the Zadgaon area of Dongri and attended Ahmed Sailor High School, from which he dropped out.
Criminal career
Dawood began committing fraud, theft, and robbery in his teens. He eventually joined the gang of local gangsters and don Baashu Dada, who were both members of the locally organized crime syndicate.
He later split from the gang in the late 1970s, forming his own gang with his elder brother Shabir Ibrahim Kaskar. Shabir became the sole boss of his gang, known as the D-Company, after being killed by the rival Pathan gang.
He was primarily involved in gold smuggling, real estate, extortion, and drug trafficking at the time. After being wanted by the Mumbai Police for the murder of Samad Khan, he fled to Dubai in 1986.
In the following years, he further expanded his gang with the help of his second-in-command Chhota Rajan, with his gang having over 5000 members and bringing in tens of crores of rupees in revenue annually by the early 1990s.
He was named by the Indian government as one of the masterminds in the 1993 Mumbai Attacks. Following the attacks, he fled Dubai for Karachi, where he is said to live to this day.
The United States Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Ibrahim as a terrorist on the Specially Designated Nationals List and the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act as part of its international sanctions program, effectively forbidding US 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 the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. The fact sheet also said that Ibrahim’s syndicate is involved in the large-scale 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. In the late 1990s, Ibrahim traveled to Afghanistan under the Taliban’s protection.
The syndicate has consistently aimed to destabilize India through riots, terrorism, civil disobedience, and pumping fake Indian currency notes into the country. India Today reported that Ibrahim provided the logistics for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Ibrahim’s current criminal activities include terror financing, drug trafficking, gunrunning, extortion, and money laundering.
He has also made significant investments in real estate in Karachi, Dubai, and India. He is thought to control a large portion of the hawala system, which is a widely used unofficial system for transferring money and remittances away from the gaze of official agents. He was linked to the financing of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s increasing attacks in Gujarat.
In 2006, the Indian government handed over to Pakistan a list of the 38 most wanted criminals, which included Ibrahim. His crime syndicate is spread across Asia, Europe, and Africa, with India accounting for more than 40% of its earnings.
1993 Bombay bombings
Dawood is widely suspected of masterminding the Bombay bombings in March 1993. Ibrahim was designated a “Global Terrorist” by the governments of India and the United States in 2003. Lal Krishna Advani, India’s Deputy Prime Minister, called it a significant development. Ibrahim is currently on the “Most Wanted” list in India.
In a public speech in June 2017, Ram Jethmalani confirmed that, following the Bombay blasts, Dawood Ibrahim called him from London, saying he was willing to come to India and stand trial on the condition that he not be subjected to any third-degree police treatment.
Location
On 22 August 2020, Pakistan issued two notifications sanctioning key terrorist figures. In it, three addresses of Dawood Ibrahim were listed “White House, Near Saudi Mosque, Clifton” in Karachi, Pakistan, in addition to “House Nu 37 – 30th Street – defence, Housing Authority, Karachi” and “Palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad in Karachi.”
Pakistan denied it was admitting he was in Pakistan, stating the notifications only contained what was listed in the list of sanctioned individuals and entities belonging to the United Nations. He had been designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee with those addresses in 2003.
Family
In 2006, Ibrahim’s daughter, Mahrukh Ibrahim, married Junaid Miandad, the son of Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad. In 2011, his daughter Mehreen, 24, married Ayub, a Pakistani – American. His son Moin married Saniya, the daughter of a London-based businessman on 25 September 2011. Several of his family members, including his brother, Iqbal, live in Mumbai.
