ED probes Iqbal Mirchi’s Rs 3,000-cr hawala racket

A full-blown investigation into suspected terror funding and hawala operations of the infamous ‘D’ company has been launched with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) bringing under its scanner a Rs 3,000 crore global money laundering ring allegedly involving family members and associates of late Iqbal Mirchi- who was a right-hand man of fugitive Pakistan-based don Dawood Ibrahim.

The central probe agency has issued over a dozen notices to two sons and the widow of Mirchi, his relatives, their constituted attorneys and business associates even as it has written to the Mumbai police Crime Branch, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Maharashtra land records authorities seeking their cooperation in a criminal probe that involves about 50 tainted assets in over 10 countries, a clutch of about 40 firms in the country and abroad and a maze of at least 20 bank accounts in India and some private banks overseas.

The highly sensitive probe has been in the making for over a year now as part of which the ED has obtained voluminous documents and data to find that Mirchi’s family and associates sold at least five prime properties in Mumbai and allegedly moved crores of funds obtained from their sale to purchase some costly assets abroad.

A huge amount of these monies from this deal is also suspected to have found its way into the terrorist and arms-running mafia run by Dawood, which is part of the larger probe, sources said.