A sketch of Iqbal Mirchi.
Underworld don
Dawood Ibrahim's
close aide Iqbal Mirchi,
an accused in the 1993
Mumbai serial blasts
case, died of a
heart attack
in London on
Wednesday
night.
Mirchi, 63, the
right-hand
man of India's
topmost
terrorist, was facing
drug
smuggling charges
in India
and was also under
investigation over the
Indian Premier
League
match-fixing and
betting scandal.He had
been living in a large six-bedroom home in an exclusive part of
Hornchurch, a town in Essex, north-east of London.
An Interpol Red Corner Notice against Muhammed Iqbal Memon or Iqbal Mirchi, ranked
among the world's top 50 drug barons, had been issued in 1994 on Central Bureau of
Investigation's request.
A United Nations report had claimed he is a senior figure in the 'D' company, a worldwide
organised-crime syndicate headed by Dawood.
In April 1995, officers from Scotland Yard had raided Mirchi's home and arrested him on
drugs and terrorism charges in connection with the blasts in Mumbai.
However, an extradition request by India was turned down by magistrates here.
Scotland Yard's investigation of Mirchi, which ended in 1999, found no evidence of criminal
activity and in 2001 the UK Home Office granted him indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Mirchi was arrested again by the Metropolitan Police and charged with threatening to kill a
41-year-old man, identified as Nadeem A Kader also from Essex, in October 2011.
The CBI had attempted to revive its extradition request at the time but the UK's Crown
Prosecution Service (CPS) had dropped all charges against him because "the evidence
received was not enough to provide a realistic prospect of conviction".
The name Mirchi relates to his family's red chilli powder business back in India, a country
he fled in the 1990s.
He had repeatedly expressed a wish to return to his "homeland" if the CBI dropped its
extradition claims.
India's most-wanted criminal Dawood Ibrahim is on FBI's list of top terrorists in the world.
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