Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday registered a case against Iqbal Kaskar (52), brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, and two of his associates for allegedly laundering extortion money abroad, part of which was suspectedly rerouted to India as donation to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).
Kaskar and his associates are currently in the custody of Thane police. He was arrested on September 18. Kaskar has allegedly revealed to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) sleuths that money from Pakistan — stated to be from Dawood — made its way as donations to Naik’s IRF in Mumbai.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday registered a case against Iqbal Kaskar, brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, and two of his associates for allegedly laundering extortion money abroad, part of which was suspectly rerouted to India as donation to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation (IRF). Kaskar and his associates are currently in the custody of Thane police.
Alleged revelation by Kaskar during interrogation by Intelligence Bureau (IB) include money from Pakistan — stated to be from Dawood — making its way as donations to Naik’s IRF.
“Link between the money sent out of India and donations to IRF will also be probed by us. We have information of several benami properties of Kaskar. Dawood’s link with this is being looked into hence we have mentioned others in our case,” said a senior ED officer, requesting anonymity.
The Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) was registered against Kaskar, Asrarali Sayyad and Mumtaz Shaikh, who were arrested by the Thane crime branch in two separate cases of extortion on September 18. Sources in the ED said that the case comes amidst information of Kaskar owning several benami properties in Mumbai and Thane region, which were extorted from property developers.
These properties were later sold and the money made out of such transactions along with the cash extortions was allegedly diverted to the D-gang in Pakistan and Kaskar’s family in Dubai.
The Pakistan link had come up during the ED’s probe into the case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Naik. The officials now said that the recent developments would help in shedding more light on that probe.
During the ED’s investigation against Naik and his foundation, the agency had found that they had received donations from Pakistan. The chunk of money was however routed to Naik and IRF via Dubai.
“Thane police’s case talks of extortion and sale of flats, cash of '30 lakh and jewellery from the victims. Our probe will focus on what was done with that money and if it was laundered,” added the senior ED officer.
While two victims of extortion have come forward as complainants, the police has said there are in all at least 20 persons targeted by Kaskar and his henchmen in the name of Dawood.
The quantum of extortion is hence stated to rise exponentially as the racket was operating since at least 2010 as per Thane police’s investigation.
