Pakistan Army-ISI Nexus Believed To Be Fully Immersed In Drug Money, Claims Book

Gangster Dawood Ibrahim converts into money the drugs that come to Pakistan, where he enjoys immunity, from Afghanistan through his mules as well as containers, a newly released book has claimed.

In his book titled 'The Reverse Swing- Colonialism to Cooperation', Ashok Tandon, former media advisor to late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has also mentioned that the nexus between Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency ISI is believed to be fully immersed in the drug money.

"It is opium and heroin entering from Pakistan that comes through many border areas where the old drug network still operates," he said.

This is part of the chapter on 'Indian Black Money Tracked'.

"This drug money, at least a good part of it, is generated in this area, with the help of Dawood Ibrahim, who works overtime on behalf of his masters and runs his operations through Pakistan.

"Drugs come by means of Dawood's 'mules' protected by the ISI, with the connivance of some other agencies, and in containers which carry equipment sent to Pakistan for 'repair' from Kandahar and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan," the book said.

Further, Tandon claimed that the drugs are converted into cash by Dawood Ibrahim who enjoys immunity in Pakistan.

Talking about India, he said that a list of 5,000 accounts lying dormant in various banks, including Swiss banks, was released in July 1997.

For the first time, the list revealed the names of members of some scions of Indian princely states and the trusts formed by their families.

"One surprise joint account was in the nature of Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh and a safe deposit vault -- last operated in the 1930s -- at the UBS AG Bank in Berne.

"Princess Catherine, daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh, died in 1942 and her will made no mention of the Swiss bank account number," Tandon said

Maharaja Duleep Singh was the fifth and last ruler of the kingdom founded by his father Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab in 1799.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh died in 1838 and British forces defeated the Sikh army in 1849. Maharaja Duleep Singh lost his throne and was taken to England. He died in wilderness in Paris in 1893, the book said.

While referring to the British Raj, Tandon said that some of the Indian royal families parked the allowances paid to them by the British empire in British banks and others moved their accounts to private Swiss banks and offshore banks across Europe.

"In the post-independence era, parking unaccounted money abroad in Swiss banks and other tax havens continued among the neo-rich businessmen, smugglers, drug traffickers, underworld mafias and a few other categories of affluent Indians," as per the book.

Citing data from the Global Financial Integrity, the book noted that Indians are believed to have moved USD 644 billion to tax havens.