US blacklists 2 lieutenants of Indian crime lord
May 15, 2012, 7:12 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration is slapping sanctions on two senior lieutenants of India’s most-wanted organized crime lord.
The Treasury Department on Tuesday designated the two men _ Chhota Shakeel and Ibrahim `Tiger’ Memon _ as drug trafficking kingpins. The step freezes any assets they may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from doing business with them.
The men are close associates of Dawood Ibrahim, who is alleged by control criminal gangs in India’s business hub of Mumbai and is accused of smuggling heroin and hashish from Afghanistan and Thailand to the U.S, Europe, the Mideast, Latin America and Africa.
Ibrahim is also the alleged mastermind of 1993 bombings in Mumbai that killed 257 people. Indian police say Ibrahim lives in Karachi, Pakistan but Pakistani officials deny that Ibrahim is there.
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