Narcotics crackdown forces Dawood to seek new cartel ties in Mexico and beyond

New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Following Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s strict directives to the anti-narcotic task forces of states and Union Territories, the security forces have been on overdrive mode to crack down on this menace.

The Home Minister also instructed the central agencies to scale up action against drug smuggling and the actions in the last couple of months have yielded results.

While drug cartels from various regions have been operating on India soil, it is very important to break the Dawood Ibrahim syndicate, which still controls a major chunk of the business. This crackdown has led to the Dawood syndicate trying to re-strategise its operations.

The money that he makes from this trade is used directly to fund terror in India.

In fact, at least 80 per cent of the terror funding comes from the Dawood network and hence he is today under immense pressure to deliver. At a time when the ISI and Pakistan is constantly plotting attacks on India, it would need the funds to do so.

This means that the narcotics trade only has to increase and for Dawood decreasing it is not an option. The agencies have learnt that as part of the new strategy, the Dawood network has reached out to drug cartels in South Africa and Mexico.

While Dawood always had considerable clout in South Africa, the Mexico cartels are relatively new for him. In such a scenario, the Mexico network is important since it is capable of sending in huge quantities of narcotics into India.

Signs of the Mexico cartel being at play first came to light when on November 25 the Indian Coast Guard seized a huge consignment of drugs from a fishing trawler in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The role of new cartels came to light and these are the same ones that the Dawood network is trying to forge ties with.

Indian agencies are adept with dealing with the Dawood networks as they have been doing so for long.

However, the ploy to deploy newer networks poses a challenge as they have different styles of operations and unknown players in India who are their foot-soldiers. Dawood has reached out to a Mexican drug lord El Mencho to do business with when it comes to India.

While the D-gang would still try and push drugs through conventional routes such as Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Gujarat, the Mexican network would try and flood the southern market.

To handle the newer routes the ISI has roped in the likes of Haji Salim and Salim Dola. Both these persons are in charge of handling the international cartels to smuggle drugs into India.

Dola is a person of interest as he specialises in the production as well as smuggling of mephedrone, which is a synthetic drug.

While Haji Salim networks from Pakistan after having moved from Afghanistan, Dola functions from Turkey. For the Indian agencies the newer players from the Chinese and Mexican cartels pose a challenge. The idea of the ISI is to get Dawood into as many partnerships and try and push drugs into India through multiple routes.

Handling so many networks at a given time tends to stress the system. Officials say that it is a continuous challenge and the radar on such networks would be at an all time.

The ISI over the last couple of years has become very ambitious and wants to bleed India by a thousand cuts. It wants to open fronts again India along the Bangladesh and Sri Lanka border, like it did in the case of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

To fund such operations, there is a huge needs for funding. The fake Indian currency racket market is relatively down and hence the narcotics trade remains their main option. This is why the ISI is asking Dawood to open up talks with multiple fronts so that the flow remains ongoing at all times.

When Dawood had shifted to Pakistan following the 1993 Mumbai blasts, he had struck a deal with the Pakistani authorities.

They offered shelter on the condition that he would be allowed to smuggle drugs out of Afghanistan only on the condition that he coughs up 60 per cent of his earnings towards funding terror.

Dawood has no option but to keep the flow going if he wishes to remain protected in Pakistan.

–IANS

vicky/pgh