MUMBAI: Salim Mohammed Sohail Shaikh, an alleged key player in the drug trafficking network operated by the Dawood Ibrahim gang, has been arrested by the crime branch and remanded in police custody till October 30, officers aware of the matter told Hindustan Times.
Shaikh, an alleged associate of fugitive drug lord Salim Dola, was taken into custody by the Mumbai police crime branch shortly after his deportation from Dubai, the officers said.
“Shaikh was a key link between the Dawood Ibrahim gang and other drug trafficking networks in India. He managed the operations of a major Mephedrone (MD) manufacturing network and played a key role in coordinating and supplying synthetic drugs across the country and abroad,” an officer told HT, requesting anonymity.
A red corner notice had been issued earlier through the Interpol for the Shaikh’s arrest, crime branch sources said. Based on the notice, he was detained by authorities in Dubai and brought to the city with the help of sister agencies, the sources said.
Shaikh is the 15th accused to be arrested in connection with the probe that commenced in February 2024, when some alleged drug peddlers were nabbed, said Lakhmi Gautam, joint commissioner of police, crime branch, who has been monitoring the case.
In March 2024, the crime branch busted an MD manufacturing facility operating out of a farm in Sangli district and seized 126.14kg of MD and raw material worth ₹252 crore. The facility was controlled by Dola and his son Taher, said sources in the crime branch. Taher was deported from Dubai and arrested by the crime branch in June this year while his relative Mustaffa Mohammad Khubawala was deported in July. Shaikh was the third accused in the case to be deported from Dubai, the sources added.
“The raw material required to make MD in Sangli was provided by Khubbawala from Surat, who bought the chemicals from various industrial areas in Gujrat. From Sangli, a bulk of the manufactured drugs would be sent to Mira Road,” said the officer quoted earlier.
Luxury cars like Mercedes or BMWs were used to distribute the drugs, to avoid raising suspicion, and the money collected from the distributor was sent to the key players who operated the network from Dubai via hawala channels, the officer said.
Another alleged key aide of Salim Dola and member of the Dawood Ibrahim gang, who operated several drug factories across the country, was still overseas, sources in the crime branch said.
Besides the factory in Sangli, the absconding accused operated drug factories in Vikarabad district in Telangana and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Both factories had been busted and mephedrone and raw material worth ₹327 crore had been seized from the premises, the sources said.