Ketamine smuggling racket linked to D-Gang, terror funding

In its plea before the metropolitan magistrate court for an extension of Shiraji’s custody remand, the AEC has stated that Shirazi, who was arrested on May 23 while fleeing to Dubai, is considered the main associate of drug lord Kailash Rajput

Mumbai: The Anti-Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Mumbai Crime Branch has linked the Ketamine smuggling racket to terror funding and said that a prime accused – Ali Asgar Shirazi, a drug trafficker – arrested in the case was connected to fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim’s gang.

The police said that Shirazi had deleted all the data from his mobile and laptop. He had allegedly sent 30 consignments of contraband mixed with banned medicines to the UK, USA and Australia with the help of Rajput this year. The police have been trying to extract mobile data to know his past records of drug consignments, as he was active in drug trafficking since 2012, said a police officer. (HT PHOTO)

In its plea before the metropolitan magistrate court for an extension of Shiraji’s custody remand, the AEC has stated that Shirazi, who was arrested on May 23 while fleeing to Dubai, is considered the main associate of drug lord Kailash Rajput.

“Shirazi had many times visited Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and several other places in the country and Rajput was found to have links with Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and Chhota Shakeel and part of the earnings of the Ketamine smuggling racket is suspected to have gone for terror funding,” states the remand application of Shirazi.

The police said that Shirazi had deleted all the data from his mobile and laptop. He had allegedly sent 30 consignments of contraband mixed with banned medicines to the UK, USA and Australia with the help of Rajput this year. The police have been trying to extract mobile data to know his past records of drug consignments, as he was active in drug trafficking since 2012, said a police officer.

“He had earned a lot through drug trafficking and police are probing the funds in the terror link,” added the officer. “While extracting a part of the data from his computer, police have stumbled upon 200 files and found that the files contained information in code words used for drug smuggling.”

Shiraji was produced in the court after his remand ended on Thursday and the court extended his police custody till June 3.

AEC in March raided a courier office in Andheri East and allegedly seized 15 kilograms of Ketamine and 23,000 tablets of Viagra, worth around ₹8 crore. The contraband material and the banned medicines were being smuggled to Australia and the UK, police officials said. Subsequently, the police arrested a total of seven accused in the case, including some employees of Customs clearing agents. They revealed that Ketamine was procured from Gujrat.