On June 2, 2026, a joint ED effort in two states has given new force to India’s stand against a suspected cross-border ring. It is all about the financial and logistical side of things for 59-year-old Mohammad Salim Dola, the drug trafficker they have on their books since he was hauled in from Turkiye and put under in Delhi.
What set this in motion
You have to look at the string of FIRs put in across Mumbai. That’s what led the ED to file a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, officials say. We are talking about charges for the kind of trafficking in narcotics and psychotropic substances that don’t belong in the open.
The investigation is on the trail of the syndicate’s ill-gotten gains. You can expect them to be looking at where the money has been channeled, whether through some back door or via shell assets.
The scope of the search
Some 20 places were put under the microscope in one day, from Mumbai to Surat and over in Ankleshwar in the Bharuch district of Gujarat. The idea, as put it by those in the know, is to hit the spots where synthetic drugs are made, moved and paid for.
Mephedrone and its suppliers
Here is the kind of premises the investigators have in their sights:
– Those who put in for the precursor chemicals
– The middlemen in the chemical trade
– The ones making and moving Mephedrone (MD)
– Hawala men with their hands in dirty money
– People sitting on benami property bought with drug cash
It is a way of seeing how the pieces fit: the raw stuff, the go-betweens and the money. The ED wants to put their hands on the records, name the beneficiaries and put a stop to the routes for washing the money.
Making of a wanted man
Then there is Dola, or Salim Ismail Dola to you. Anti-narcotics types will tell you he is the head of a transnational outfit. And if you ask the authorities, he is no stranger to Dawood Ibrahim, the terrorist with a price on his head.
They had him back in April from Turkiye. The NCB didn’t let him get far once he was off the plane in Delhi. Having him in the box is what has made this money laundering probe possible.
Why you should be paying attention
This is about hitting both the funders and the suppliers at the same time. With the Mephedrone scene and its hubs being looked at, the ED is going after what they call the very make-up of the business.
Look at the benami and hawala and you can see where the crime has left off. Any paper they can find will only make the PMLA case from the Mumbai FIRs stick better.
Where we are with the case
The work is not done yet. What comes out of the ground in Mumbai, Surat and Ankleshwar will be put under a lens to see if it lines up with the kind of activity Dola and his ilk are tied to.
All of it is built on the FIRs and the NCB’s hand in Dola’s arrest. The ED will need hard numbers to back it up. The next phase of the PMLA process will be driven by what they find in these raid sites.
It is a change of pace from just making arrests to also disrupting the finances. Make the link between the hawala and the precursors and you have a stronger case on your hands, under both the book on narcotics and the one on money laundering.
Right now, they are trying to figure out the plan behind the Mephedrone setup. This multi-city run is meant to leave no stone unturned, from the chemistry to the currency, as it were.
