India gang lords involved in KL, Bangkok drug trade?

January 31, 2011

NEW DELHI, Jan 31 Indian underworld mafia dons, suspected to have gone into hiding in Malaysia and Thailand, appear to have muscled their way into drug trafficking in Southeast Asian capitals.Their organised crime gangs are believed to have masterminded drug trafficking pipelines into the capitals.The involvement of the crime dons surfaced after the Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) in Mumbai detained two traffickers during a raid at a hotel last week, who were allegedly trying to smuggle 74kg of ephedrine, a party drug, according to a Mumbai-based daily.Very likely, the denizens of the underworld holed up in Malaysia and Thailand, could have ordered the drugs from India, where it is easily available, reported the MidDay newspaper, quoting sources.Following the raid in Andheri East in Mumbai, ANC sleuths who interrogated the suspects, aged 42 and 24, both from Chennai, discovered they were hired by underworld gangs to transport the drug consignment.The drug worth nearly RM1 million were concealed in hidden compartments inside 11 thermo flasks.It is cartel. We can (not) say anything more now as we are still investigating. They (the suspects) are not saying more, an ANC senior officer close to the investigations told Bernama today.In the past, notorious Mumbai underworld kingpins like Dawood Ibrahim and his rival, Chotta Rajan, plied from Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok to Dubai, managing their cross-border clandestine operations, involving money laundering, smuggling, drug trafficking and extortion of wealthy Indian businessmen and even Bollywood actors.The well-linked gang leaders and their henchmen, operating from foreign soil, have remained elusive and managed to escape from the Indian police.Recent trends indicate that members of the underworld are switching to dealing (in) drugs like ephedrine, which is easily available, compared to other expensive designer drugs, and also to evade arrest and severe punishment associated with dealing in other drugs, added the paper. Bernama