Henchman of Dawood Ibrahim's brother Anees held at Kannur airport

MUMBAI: A key member of Dawood Ibrahim's gang, who has been a close aide of his brother Anees Ibrahim, was arrested at Kannur airport in Kerala on Monday by the Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Mumbai Police. Mohammad Altaaf Saeed holds two Indian passports and used to frequently travel between India and Dubai. Saeed has been handling hawala operations for Anees, police said.When in Mumbai, he used to live at Vashi.
"Acting on specific information, we intercepted Saeed at Kannur airport in Kerala on Monday after he landed from Dubai. He was brought to Mumbai and interrogated. We found his involvement in a 2017-18 case where a hotelier had been threatened for extortion," said the AEC in a press statement.
Last year, the police arrested Ramdas Rahane, a known shooter from the D gang, for threatening a hotelier based in the western suburbs at the behest of Anees. When the hotelier registered a complaint with AEC, four people were arrested under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA). Those arrested included a hawala operator. A chargesheet has already been submitted before the court. Saeed was booked in the same case and produced before a special MCOCA court which remanded him to police custody till August 16.
According to police sources, Saeed has been associated with the D gang for over a decade and slowly worked his way up the hierarchy. Over the past year, the AEC had been tracking his movements and found that he kept coming to India to handle Anees' work. The police are also trying to verify information that Saeed was involved in smuggling rackets in the nineties when the D gang was at its peak.