Mumbai: Gangster Ejaz Lakdawala’s arrest is the result of two year's operation led by the Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Mumbai crime branch. Lakdawala is on India’s most wanted list for the past many years and was also a close associate of underworld don Chota Rajan in his early days in the world of crime. Later, he started his own extortion racket.
In the last 10 years, Lakdawala has threatened over 100 people for extortion. “Lakdawala, being tech savvy, used different applications to make the extortion calls,” said a crime branch officer. The applications helped him to hide his real identity and location being traced by the investigation agencies.
He is on AEC’s radar since many years and from the past two years, the crime branch increased its efforts to locate him. The first breakthrough came in February 2019, when AEC arrested Lakdawala’s cousin Sameer in an old extortion case. Sameer led AEC to Lakdawala’s elder brother Aquil Lakdawala, who was arrested in March.
According to the AEC officer, during interrogation, it has been confirmed that Lakdawala has a daughter who has forged her documents and taken the identity of Sonia Advani. The crime branch apparently learnt that she has a passport on the same name. After which, the crime branch had issued a look out circular (LOC) on her.
On December 28, immigration officers at the Mumbai International Airport alerted the Mumbai crime branch about Sonia travelling to Nepal, after which she was nabbed from the airport.
“The information received from Sonia helped the crime branch to pin point Lakdawala,” confirmed Joint Commissioner of Police, crime branch, Santosh Rastogi.
According to the AEC officer, Lakdawala has multiple identities and had travelled to the United States, London, Canada, Thailand, Malaysia and Nepal. In Nepal, he was running a garment business for namesake, said an officer.
Since the past few years, Lakdawala is living in Nepal with his wife and daughter Sonia and a 12-year-old son. Sonia moved to Mumbai two years ago and married a Versova-based man.
