Fugitive drug lord Salim Dola, who was deported from Turkiye under on Tuesday, had acquired a Bulgarian passport to escape from the country under the fake name of Hamza, officials aware of the matter said. The Indian agencies have taken photocopies of his Bulgarian passport.
A person aware of the matter, on the condition of anonymity, said, “He was trapped in Turkiye because he had come to the country in 2024 on Indian passport. He could not travel as an Indian citizen using his real name because a Red Corner notice was issued against him two years ago.”
Dola, who is currently being questioned in Mumbai by the Narcotics Control Bureau(NCB) officials, told his interrogators that after escaping India in 2018 while he was out on bail, he had reached the UAE. For the past two years he was trapped in Turkiye where he had arrived on a holiday with his family in 2024.
“His family joined him in the UAE after escaping from India. In March 2024, while they had come to Istanbul on a holiday, a Red Corner Notice was issued against him. This made it impossible for him to leave the country with the Indian passport. His family members returned, while he had to stay in Turkiye. This is why he was changing locations in Turkiye and had acquired a passport,” the official said, adding that Dola had moved just two months ago to a house in Beylikduzu, Istanbul, from where Turkish authorities finally caught him. Indian agencies had provided the Turkish administration with the man’s new location and identity.
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A city court in Mumbai has sent him to NCB’s custody till May 8.
“He is a key link to many clandestine synthetic drug laboratories busted in different states such as Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan. He has over the years dealt in everything from Mandarax to marijuana ,fentanyl, and mephedrone. He would invest in whichever drug was more profitable,” the officer added.
Last year, his son Taher and nephew Mohammed Kubbawala were deported from the UAE.
Dola, a Mumbai resident, was on Tuesday brought to India from Turkiye under ‘Operation Global-Hunt’, in a development Union home minister Amit Shah termed as a “major breakthrough”. People aware of the matter said that under this Operation, the NCB along with central agencies, has identified Indian residents settled abroad who are involved in drug smuggling in India.
The home ministry said in a statement, “Over the years Dola established a major transnational drug trafficking syndicate spanning a number of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. His two-decade long criminal antecedents include direct involvement in cases involving multiple high-value seizures of Heroin, Charas, Mephedrone, Mandrax and Methamphetamine in Maharashtra and Gujarat.”
According to court records, Dola was first arrested on July 28, 1998, at the Sahara airport in Mumbai while trying to smuggle Mandrax tablets. In 2017, he was arrested by the DRI after the agency seized nearly 100000 gutka pouches worth over ₹5 crore before they could be smuggled to Kuwait via sea. He then got the moniker of Gutka King. The consignment was seized at the Pipavav port in Gujarat and a godown in the national Capital. In 2024, the Mumbai police also found his involvement in a case related to the seizure of around 126kg of mephedrone and traced the supply chain from Maharashtra to Turkey and Dubai. People arrested in this case had named him as the person behind the drug manufacturing and supply chain. Dola’s son, Tahir Salim Dola, who was named in this case, was extradited from the UAE by CBI last year.
Dola has in the past been arrested by DRI, Mumbai Police, and NCB before he jumped bail and fled the country sometime in 2018.
Following many cases of clandestine laboratories across India manufacturing mephedrone, the Centre on March 13, issued a notification under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 to amend the NDPS (Regulation of Controlled Substances) Order, 2013 and add the chemical 2-Bromo-4-Methylpropiophenone to its list of controlled substances. It was added to the list because it is a precursor chemical to manufacture mephedrone—a synthetic stimulant drug also known as meow meow and drone in the market. Earlier this year, NCB had also written to the government about the chemical’s rampant use in drug laboratories.
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