Ndugu zangu hii nchi imeshaposwa inangojea mwenyewe aje kuchukua chake?
Haiingii akilini kukuta ghaidi kama huyu anapokelewa kama mwekezaji?
Haiingii akilini kukuta ghaidi kama huyu anapokelewa kama mwekezaji?
From don to druglord: Dawood gets a career change
Sumon K Chakrabarti / CNN-IBN
Published on Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 19:59
New Delhi: Dawood Ibrahim was branded a global terrorist by the US in 2003. Interpol says that he is a part of the worldwide terror syndicate of Osama bin Ladens al-Qaeda.
However, despite restrictions and embargoes issued on him, Dawood Ibrahim has time and again managed to travel outside his hideout in Pakistan with several passports issued by various countries.
His business has also expanded beyond Karachi and the Gulf countries.
The don has spread his wings across continents from South East Asia to Europe to Africa, from real-estate to cricket betting to shipping, gun-running and narcotics, Dawood runs all kinds of 'businesses'.
Indian intelligence sources indicate that Dawood has an investment running into $700 million, equivalent of about Rs 30 billion.
He earns nearly about Rs 150 crore every year from selling gutkha (chewing tobacco) in Pakistan.
And in Dubai, Dawood enjoys special access. He receives VIP treatment at the Dubai airport, where he is whisked away from the tarmac without any immigration formalities. In Dubai, Dawood is involved in the hotel and gold business and real estate, apart from laundering drug money. He owns at least 53 business ventures in the Gulf country.
And Dawood has now moved beyond his territory. He is investing in the flourishing hotel industry in Zanzibar Islands in Tanzania, apart from trafficking in narcotics and illegal arms.
Sources say that he has also invested in a Pakistani-owned textile company in Tanzania, which has come under the scanner for funding terrorist organsations.
drugs across Europe
- In South Africa, he has set up his base to smuggle drugs to Europe.
- In Kenya, Dawood has invested at least 10 million USD in the hotel industry.
- In Nepal, dawood is reported to have invested in a top television Network, a leading airline company and one of the five biggest hotels in Kathmandu.
- In Thailand and Hong Kong, Dawood is now increasing his drug trafficking business through underground Chinese groups and cheap Chinese arms are smuggled to the Western countries in four ships that he owns.
- In London, he uses two nightclubs in Birmingham to distribute
But this impressive multinational presence is a pointer of the direction in which Dawood's business has been moving over the past few years the drug trade. Intelligence agencies across the world are branding him the biggest druglord ever.
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