Dawood Ibrahim

Dawood Ibrahim’s Urdu: داوود ابراه, birth name was Sheikh Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. He was born on December 26, 1955 in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, India. He is 59-years-old. Ibrahim is the some of Ibrahim Kaskar, a policeman. His brothers, Anees Ibrahim and Chetan Gaidhane are believed to be his primary aides in his businesses

Ibrahim started his career in Bombay (now Mumbai). He worked for the Karim Lala gang. He moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates and ran his business there and in India and Pakistan. His business continued to expand throughout the Persian Gulf states. He is the head of the crime organization, D-Company, which does billions of dollars worth of business in drug smuggling, money laundering. He has also dedicated his organization to destabilizing the Indian government through riots, terrorism and civil disobedience.

Ibrahim is widely believed to have been the mastermind behind a series of attacks in Mumbai in March 1993. After those attacks, he fled to Pakistan and is believed to be hiding in Karachi. There are strong suspicions that he is under the protection of the Pakistani government. The Pakistani government denies any knowledge of him being in Pakistan. After the 1993 attacks, Ibrahim lost support of his Hindu gangsters as well as a few muslim gangsters. It also resulted in him being placed on India’s most wanted list. All of this affected his mobility and it’s said that his empire has suffered as a result.

In 2003, the United States Government declared Ibrahim a ‘global terrorist’ because of his close ties with the al-Qaeda terror organization and with Osama bin Laden. The Bush administration imposed sanctions on Ibrahim and lobbied the United Nations to crack down on his operations. The Bush administration has attempted to freeze his assets around the world. This has further restricted his business endeavors.

He is believed to have drug smuggling routes, shared with al-Qaeda, through South Asia, the Middle-East and Africa. He is thought to ship large quantities of narcotics into Western Europe. Its believed he has contact with Osama bin Laden and has been able to travel in the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. He has had known connections with the Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba since at least 2002.

In addition to being on India’s most wanted list and the United States ‘global terrorist’ list, Ibrahim is wanted by Interpol and is Number 4 on Forbes’ Top 10 Most Dreaded Criminals in the World list for 2008.

Ibrahim is married to Zubeena Zareen (Mehajabeen). His daughter is married to Junaid Miandad, the son of Javed Miandad who is a former Pakistan Cricket Team captain.

Boston: This may not be his only claim to 'fame', but India's most wanted criminal Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar has made it to the Forbes 2010 list of the ‘World's Most Powerful People’. The D-Company kingpin occupies the 63rd spot on the list.

Listing Dawood's 'achievements', Forbes writes, "[He]runs a vast criminal enterprise in India and...is thought to have had a hand in the 2008 terror attacks that killed 174 people in Mumbai."Other "odious men" who have made it to the power list include Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden (ranked 57th) and Joaquín Guzmán (ranked 60th), the "billionaire drug trafficker who heads Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel."Chinese President Hu Jintao aces the powerlist, ahead of US President Barack Obama who is ranked second among 68 most influential people in the world.

Kingpin: "Successful routes established over recent years by Ibrahim's syndicate have been subsequently utilised by bin Laden... In the late 1990s, Ibrahim travelled in Afghanistan under the  protection of the Taleban," the US Treasury list says.

India's top detective agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, says Ibrahim uses 13 aliases to hide his identity.

The gangster, according to Indian investigators, was born in the western city of Ratnagiri, the son of a police constable.

The CBI says he is 5' 4'' tall and has a "mole on his left eyebrow" and that he is also "involved in extortion, forgery and cheating".Details about Ibrahim's early life are fuzzy and almost impossible to verify - the police says the school-drop out carried out killings for the late Mumbai underworld don Karim Lala in his early years with the mob.

In the 1980's and early 1990's Ibrahim became the kingpin of Mumbai's underworld, straddling a multi-billion dollar vice empire covering prostitution, gambling and drugs.

Investigators say Ibrahim fled Mumbai to Dubai in 1986 to avoid criminal prosecution, but he continued to remain a key figure in the city's underworld.

He also prospered enough to gain a grip over the city's prolific film industry, Bollywood. Ibrahim allegedly began financing a number of films and got some of the industry's leading actors to star in them. "They wouldn't dare refuse an invitation (from Ibrahim)," a friend of the gangster was reported as saying. His Bollywood connections came out in the open when he was seen on television sitting with a number of leading stars and watching international cricket matches in the Gulf city of Sharjah.

'Lavish life'

Grainy videos have surfaced of some Bollywood actors and playback singers entertaining guests at his parties in Dubai. There have been reports of a much-publicised live-in relationship with a starlet.

With many of the Gulf countries having extradition treaties with India and the police hot on his heels after the Mumbai bombings, investigators believe that Ibrahim fled to Pakistan.

The US Treasury list says that since 1992 Ibrahim has been giving money to Islamic militant groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba working against India and financing attacks in India.

In 2001, Pakistani journalist Ghulam Hasnain, researching an article on the gangster, wrote that Ibrahim's life read like a page from The Godfather, Mario Puzo's gangland classic."Ibrahim lives like a king," he wrote of his life in Pakistan shared by his wife, four daughters and son.

"Home is a palatial house spread over 6,000 square yards, boasting a pool, tennis courts, snooker room and a private hi-tech gym."He wears designer clothes, drives top of the line Mercedes' and luxurious four-wheel drives, sports half-a-million rupee Patek Phillipe wristwatch, and showers money on starlets and prostitutes."

Lavish wedding

Ibrahim is reported to have connections with some cricket players in Pakistan - former captain Javed Miandad being one of them.Javed Miandad's son, Junaid, got married to Mahrukh Ibrahim, one of the gangster's daughters, at a lavish ceremony in Dubai last July.But according to journalist Ghulam Hasnain, Ibrahim still missed the good life back home.As one of his associates put it: "Mumbai was Mumbai. There we had everything, here one cannot have the life or the fun we did in India."