Official agencies fail to find ‘adverse conclusions’ against Iqbal Mirchi

The investigation into the terror funding and hawala operations of the Dawood Company has hit a dead wall, with the ED failing to arrive at any “official or adverse” conclusion in the matter. The ED had launched the investigation in 2015 in cooperation with other Indian agencies. It focused on Iqbal Mirchi, the right hand of Dawood Ibrahim.

The investigation, which was started soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came into power, was first reported by this newspaper in its 1 November 2015 edition (Agencies pursue Mirchi Trail to reach Dawood).

After more than three years of investigation, the Indian agencies have nothing to show despite collecting information about multiple properties that were allegedly held by the late Iqbal Mirchi, alias Iqbal Memon, an accused in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case, in various countries including India, Dubai, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand.

The Indian agencies had earlier prepared a comprehensive report on the basis of findings that it came across during the course of the investigation against Mirchi.

This was also shared with the United Arab Emirates, where a major chunk of property was allegedly purchased by Iqbal Mirchi.

The report had detailed information on key Indian attorneys who helped Iqbal Memon set up various companies.

The sleuths claimed to have tracked down several bank accounts opened in India to facilitate operations, including in Bank of India and HSBC.

As per the report, Dawood and his associates had generated more than Rs 1,000 crore by selling four buildings in Mumbai’s prime Worli Seaface locality in 2010.

The Central probe agencies in 2015-16 had issued over a dozen notices to the sons and the widow of Mirchi, his relatives, their constituted attorneys and business associates seeking their cooperation in the probe that was spread across 10 countries and multiple firms and hundreds of bank accounts.

However, despite such efforts, “no adverse conclusions” could be drawn from the probe.