NIA nabs Dawood aide
A close aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was cornered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in connection with two fake Indian currency notes (FICN) cases registered in Kerala.
The NIA has arrested and implicated Mannuparambil Abdul Majeed as the ninth accused in the Kondotty FICN case and as the second accused in a similar Nedumbassery case.
Majeed, who was absconding for long, was arrested at the Nedumbassery Airport, after being deported from Dubai with the assistance of the Interpol.
The NIA produced the accused before the Ernakulam NIA Special Court in the evening. Judge S Vijayakumar remanded Majeed in NIA’s custody for seven days.
The Kondotty case, in which 1993 Mumbai blast conspirator Tahir Merchant alias Tahir Taklya is the prime accused, was registered after the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized counterfeit notes, with a face value of `72.5 lakh, from one Mohammed Alshab, who arrived at the Kozhikode airport from Ras al-Khaimah.
According to the NIA, Majeed, a native from Malappuram, has been living in Dubai for the past few years. “From the interrogation of the other accused, we could establish the involvement of Majeed in both the cases. He has also been facilitating funds for terror groups,” informed an NIA official.
“The wider conspiracy and the sources of the FICN are to be unearthed. Abdul Majeed along with Tahir and Muhammed Rafi has been raising funds from the Gulf countries and smuggling fake currency notes to India to destabilise the Indian economy since 2007,” the NIA said.
Majeed is also the second accused in a case registered in connection with the seizure of fake currencies, with a face value of `24.16 lakh, from one K Gopinath of Mavelikkara, who had arrived from Dubai by an Emirates flight at the Cochin international airport.