How India managed to get 3 accused in drug peddling case deported from UAE in the past 4 months

“There are two factors at play here. Firstly, over the past few months, especially, there have been positive interactions between the India and UAE governments that smoothened the process,” an officer said.

Since the past year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the BRICS summit, where he emphasized strong ties between the two nations. He has also held meetings with the Abu Dhabi and Dubai crown princes.

Secondly, when it comes to narcotics cases, the laws in the UAE are very strict, which worked in India’s favour, the officer said. “Ever since we registered the narcotics case, we gathered enough evidence to pinpoint the role of the accused. We got our chargesheets translated into Arabic, which had all the evidence along with the location of the accused in the UAE,” the official said.

“Based on the information provided, the accused were arrested there. Once they were convinced of their role in drug cases based on the evidence we provided, they assured us that they would be deported soon, which happened over the course of the year,” the officer said.

The officer added that this was an ideal case where the probe began with the arrest of a woman with merely 641 grams of mephedrone in January 2024. “However, with the growing menace of mephedrone in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has directed “forward and backward” links too should be traced in all drug cases. Hence, we decided to unearth the entire network.

12 people arrested, Sangli drug manufacturing factory busted

During the course of the investigation, the police arrested 12 individuals, traced the factory where mephedrone was being manufactured to Sangli, busted it, and seized drugs worth Rs 252 crore.

The police identified Salim Dola as the main accused linked to the Dawood Ibrahim gang that was running the network. Along with him, the alleged roles of his son Taher, nephew Mustafa Kubbawala, and right-hand man Shaikh alias Lavish were identified and named as wanted accused.

“While Salim Dola managed to flee to Turkey from the UAE after he realised the authorities were onto him, we managed to get the others. This is a major blow to Salim Dola’s empire as all those close to him have been arrested. We want to pass the message that people fleeing India and operating drug networks from abroad are no longer safe,” the officer added.