Topic: Underworld
US names Iqbal Mirchi as narcotic trafficker
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Posted online: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 0211 hours IST
NEW DELHI, APRIL 25: The United States has placed wanted drug dealer Iqbal Mamen alias Iqbal Mirchi on the list of specially designated narcotics traffickers.
The list released by the US Treasury Department named Mirchi, who is also called Iqbal Merchant, in the category of persons whose entry is blocked to any part of the United States.
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The list provides all the four dates of birth being used by Mirchi in his various passports. His passport numbers issued from India and from the United Arab Emirates have also been put on the list.
Apparently, Mirchi had been trying to gain entry into the US which is believed to have prompted Washington to study his case thoroughly and then blacklist him. He is said to have been making attempts to set up a business in the US.
India had secured a red-corner notice against Mirchi, a resident of Mumbai, in 1994 after the police unearthed an illegal factory in Pune where 1,600 kg of Methaqualone which is used to make mandrax tablets was recovered.
Mirchi then fled India to avoid arrest has been shuttling between the Gulf countries and Europe.
Mirchi, who had to leave Dubai in 2003 following the murder of underworld don Sharad Shetty, has no direct connection with the ‘‘specially designated global terrorist’’ Dawood Ibrahim but security agencies said that some deals had taken place between the two in early 1990s.
It is alleged that Mirchi sold nearly five million mandrax tablets between February and September in 199
Posted by Mahesh
at 10:45 PM EDT
