Salim Dola, a close aide of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and the alleged kingpin of a Rs 5,000 crore transnational synthetic drug empire, has been brought to India on Tuesday following a coordinated deportation operation by intelligence agencies working in collaboration with international counterparts, according to ANI sources.
Dola was flown in on a special aircraft and landed at a technical airport in Delhi earlier today. He is currently being questioned by intelligence officials and is expected to be handed over to Mumbai Police for further investigation.
The deportation follows his recent apprehension in Istanbul, Turkey, where he had been living under an assumed identity using a UAE passport.
Who is Salim Dola
Salim Ismail Dola, 60, is a Mumbai-born fugitive linked to Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company, who allegedly headed the syndicate’s drug smuggling vertical and ran one of India’s most complex transnational synthetic drug networks.
His first major brush with the law came in 1998 at Mumbai’s Sahar Airport, where he was arrested attempting to smuggle 40 kg of Mandrax tablets. He resurfaced in bigger operations thereafter — in 2017, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence nabbed him for smuggling gutka worth Rs 5.5 crore through Gujarat’s Pipavav port, and in 2018 his name surfaced in connection with a massive Rs 1,000-crore fentanyl seizure near Mumbai airport, one of the largest synthetic drug hauls in India at the time.
After jumping bail, he fled to the UAE and continued running his operations from abroad before eventually surfacing in Turkey.
The Istanbul arrest and the ISI connection
Dola was arrested in the Beylikdüzü district of Istanbul in a joint operation by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation and police units, following months of surveillance. Indian agencies, particularly Mumbai Police’s Anti-Narcotics Cell, played a pivotal role in unravelling his network.
Intelligence Bureau officials have described Dola’s arrest as a major blow not just to the Dawood syndicate but also to Pakistan’s ISI, which reportedly receives 40% of the money the D-Company earns from each narcotics transaction — funds that are subsequently routed into terror groups operating against India’s interests.
Officials noted that Dola’s arrest will significantly weaken the Dawood syndicate’s operations in Mumbai, Gujarat and Delhi, and that dismantling narco syndicates is directly linked to weakening terror financing networks.
The network being dismantled
Tuesday’s deportation is the latest in a series of blows to the Dola network. His son Taher Dola was detained in the UAE and extradited to India in June 2025, while a close associate, Salim Mohammed Sohail Shaikh, was deported from Dubai and taken into custody by Mumbai’s Anti-Narcotics Cell. Their interrogations are believed to have provided critical intelligence that eventually led investigators to Dola’s location in Istanbul.
Dola and his associates face multiple charges in India including drug trafficking, manufacturing and money laundering cases being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate. With his return to Indian soil, agencies are expected to press for further disclosures about the syndicate’s international operations, supply chains and financial networks.
This is a developing story.
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