Centre moves to put financial squeeze on Dawood Ibrahim

The Centre has decided to tighten the noose around the fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim by opening a financial front against him, targeting his assets in India and abroad.

The latest decision to auction three of the don-turned-global-terrorist’s properties in Mumbai under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators, Forfeiture of Property Act SAFEM (FOP) is in sync with the Centre’s recent moves to corner Dawood by targeting his financial assets.

The Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) have been asked to secure fresh intelligence on money laundering activities by Dawood’s D-Company and draw up a list of the properties of the underworld on in India. The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau’s (CEIB) Economic Intelligence Council (EIC), which is chaired by the Union finance minister, has recently discussed and arbitrated inputs on “threat finance” pertaining to Dawood.

Among four types of UK assets belonging to Dawood, on the radar of Indian agencies, include hotels, residential apartments, guest houses and restaurants at Kent, Warwickshire and Essex. Security officials said Dawood also have a slew of semi-posh residential properties in the Midlands region, central and east London and on the immediate outskirts of the British capital city of London. Also Dawood's assets in a few other countries are being flagged by Indian security and intelligence agencies.

The moves form part of a larger plan to freeze the assets of Dawood and simultaneously put the financial squeeze on him.

Getting Dawood back has always figured high on the agenda of the Narendra Modi government and the PM’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. The NSA is often credited with leading the charge against Dawood.

The August 2017 UK sanctions aiming to freeze Dawood’s assets followed the moves of the UN Security Council Special Committee on ISIL (Daesh) and Al Qaeda in August last year when it confirmed Dawood’s six addresses Pakistan. The British government’s decision to include Dawood in its ‘Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK’ is a shot in the arm for the national security agencies in India which are trying to corner him.

The UK list, updated and released on August 23, identified ‘assets freeze targets’ listing individuals such as Dawood and organisational entities dealing in ‘threat finance.’

Two-pronged strategy
To corner Dawood financially and also score substantial diplomatic brownie points on the international front is part of a “mixed bag” strategy adopted by New Delhi of late.

The recent move by the UK Treasury Department is being viewed by India to arm and bolster internationally co-ordinated law-enforcement actions against Dawood who is still intimately “chaperoned” by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), said security officials. Security sources said that the “vetting” of the Karachi addresses of Dawood, who has been accused of funding Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, is set to act as a two-pronged slap on the face of Pakistan which has been blatantly denying his presence in the country.

According to officials in the national security establishment, Islamabad’s moral duplicity on Dawood and the denial of his presence in Pakistan is never viewed as authentic by the global powers and the current wielding of the sanctions stick by the UK would be a double whammy for India’s neighbour.

Now, Pakistan’s lie has once again been exposed with the UK listing three addresses of Dawood in Karachi, blowing the lid off his various camouflage addresses. The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) had, for quite some time now, specified White House, Near Saudi Mosque, Clifton/House Number 37-30th Street, Defence Housing Authority, Karachi and a palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad as the residential addresses of Dawood. Incidentally, the UK Treasury Department and the UN Security Council, before it, had ratified these addresses.

Security officials have also, all this while, detailed the various passports issued to Dawood, including A 501801, P 537849 and K 560098, issued in Mumbai, and A 717288 and F 823692 issued in Dubai and Jeddah respectively.

Three other passports G866537, C 267185 and H 123259 issued from Karachi and Rawalpindi were also redflagged by the intelligence agencies. India has also diplomatically managed to successfully underscore Pakistan’s untenable position on Dawood especially in the face of the fact that it hid information about the presence and hold-out of slain Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden.