United Nations: Pakistan-based underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's criminal syndicate has mutated into a terrorist network, India has said as it sought the US Security Council's "focussed attention" to address the real threats posed by the D-Company, the JeM and the LeT.
Terrorist organisations are increasingly involved in lucrative criminal activities such as trading in natural resources and human trafficking to raise funds, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said on Tuesday.
Similarly, criminal groups are joining hands with terrorists and are providing services such as counterfeiting, illicit financing, arms dealing, drug trafficking and smuggling terrorists across borders, he said at the Security Council debate on 'Threats to International Peace and Security: Linkages between International Terrorism and Organised Crime'.
"In our own region, we have seen the mutation of Dawood Ibrahim's criminal syndicate into a terrorist network known as the D-Company.
"The D-Company's illegitimate economic activities may be little known outside our region, but for us, such activities as gold smuggling, counterfeit currency, as well as arms and drug trafficking from a safe haven that declines to acknowledge even his existence, are a real and present danger," Akbaruddin said.
He emphasised that the success of a collective action to "denude" the ISIS is a pointer that the Council's "focussed attention can and does yield results".
"A similar degree of interest in addressing the threats posed by proscribed individuals, such as Dawood Ibrahim and his D-Company, as well as proscribed entities, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), listed as affiliates of al-Qaeda, under the 1267 sanctions regime, will serve all of us well," he said.
Pakistan's Foreign Office last week said "Dawood Ibrahim is not in Pakistan", a day after a UK court was informed that the underworld don wanted for the deadly coordinated bombings in Mumbai in 1993 is currently in exile in the country.