Fugitive drug trafficker Selim Dulla, who was deported from Türkiye on Tuesday, obtained a Bulgarian passport to flee the country under the fake name Hamza, officials familiar with the matter said. Indian agencies took copies of his Bulgarian passport.
“He was trapped in Turkey because he came to the country in 2024 on an 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,” said a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity.
Dula, who is currently being interrogated in Mumbai by Narcotics Control Bureau officials, told investigators that after escaping from India in 2018 while out on bail, he reached the UAE. For the past two years, he has been trapped in Türkiye where he arrives on holiday with his family in 2024.
“His family joined him in the UAE after he fled India. In March 2024, while they were coming to Istanbul for a holiday, a red corner notice was issued against him. This made it impossible for him to leave the country on the Indian passport. His family members returned, while he had to stay in Turkey. That’s why he was changing his residence in Turkey and got a fake passport,” the official said, adding that only two months ago Dula had moved to a house in Beylikduzu. Istanbul, where he was finally arrested by the Turkish authorities. Indian agencies had provided the Turkish administration with the man’s location and new identity.
Read also:Salim Dula supplies the arrested defendants with 40 kilograms per month: the Central Bank tells the court
A city court in Mumbai has sent him to the custody of the NCB until May 8.
“He is a key link to several clandestine synthetic drug labs busted in various states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Over the years he has dealt in everything from Mandrax to marijuana, fentanyl and mephedrone. He would invest in any drug that was more profitable,” the officer added.
Last year, his son Taher and nephew Mohammed Kabwala were deported from the UAE.
Dula, who is based in Mumbai, was on Tuesday brought to India from Turkey under ‘Operation Global-Hunt’, in an operation which Union Development Home Minister Amit Shah described as a ‘major achievement’. As part of this operation, the NCB, along with central agencies, identified overseas Indian residents involved in drug trafficking in India, people familiar with the matter said.
“Over the years, Dula has created a major transnational drug trafficking syndicate extending to a number of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. His criminal antecedents spanning over two decades include direct involvement in cases involving multiple high-value seizures of heroin, charas, mephedrone, mandrax and methamphetamine in Maharashtra and Gujarat,” the Home Ministry said in a statement.
According to court records, Dula was first arrested on July 28, 1998, at Sahara Airport in Mumbai while trying to smuggle Mandrax tablets. In 2017, he was arrested by the DRI after the agency seized nearly 100,000 gutka bags worth more than 100,000 gutka bags. $5 crores before being smuggled to Kuwait via sea. Then he got the title of Gutka King. The consignment was seized at Pipavav port in Gujarat and a port in the national capital. In 2024, the Mumbai Police also found him involved in a case related to the seizure of around 126 kg of mephedrone and traced the supply chain from Maharashtra to Turkey and Dubai. The people arrested in the case have named him as the person behind the drug manufacturing and supply chain. Dula’s son, Tahir Saleem Dula, who was named in this case, was extradited from the UAE by the Central Bank of Iraq last year.
Dula was arrested in the past by DRI, Mumbai Police and NCB before he jumped bail and fled the country sometime in 2018.
After several cases of clandestine laboratories across India manufacturing mephedrone, the Center on March 13 issued a notification under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 amending the NDPS (Regulation of Controlled Substances) Order 2013 and adding the chemical 2-bromo-4-methylpropiophenone to the list of controlled substances. It was added to the list because it is a precursor chemical for the manufacture of mephedrone – a synthetic stimulant drug also known as meow meow and drone on the market. Earlier this year, the NCB also wrote to the government about the rampant use of this chemical in pharmaceutical laboratories.
