Organised crime in Pakistan

Pakistani mafia

Founding location	United Kingdom
Years active	1980s - present
Territory	Pakistan, United Kingdom, Norway
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, weapon trafficking, robbery, contract killing, fraud, money laundering, counterfeiting, extortion, illegal gambling, murder and prostitution

Organized crime in Pakistan refers to the activities of groups of organized crime in Pakistan, The Pakistani Mafia is spread in many countries and are also politically supported and politicized. Pakistani Mafia groups are mostly ethnically-based and have influence over government. The Pakistani Mafia is involved in drug trafficking, assassination, land grabbing, arms smuggling and various other illegal activities. The world's third most wanted fugitive and Indian underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, is probably hiding in Karachi, according to an article written by an Indian writer(Nathan Vardi) on Forbes.^[1]

Other known gangsters from Pakistan are Rehman Dakait of the Peoples' Aman Committee. Pakistan is also known to large drug cartels which export heroin created in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is known to be the largest producer of heroin on earth (see Opium production in Afghanistan), but due no existing connections to the International waters, most heroin is exported through Pakistan to various regions on earth, such as Middle east, Europe, and Australia.^[2]

Political parties such as MQM or the Peoples' Aman Committee, accused of being behind crime in cities like Karachi, are however not as such organized crime groups. Pakistani gangs active in the United Kingdom, as well as several Scandinavian countries to a lesser extent, are a much closer and traditional example of organized crime.^[3] Great Britain-based Pakistani organized crime groups mostly known for drug trafficking (mainly heroin), arms dealing, as well as other criminal activities.^[4]

References

1. Vardi, Nathan (2010-05-13). "In Pictures: The World's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives". Archived from the original on 2013-01-23. Dawood Ibrahim: The most wanted man in India has for years led a 5,000-member criminal syndicate known as D-Company. The organized crime group has engaged in everything from narcotics to contract killing, working mostly in Pakistan, India and the United Arab Emirates. Ibrahim shares smuggling routes with al Qaeda, the U.S. government says, and has collaborated with both al Qaeda and its South Asian affiliate, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which pulled off the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, possibly with Ibrahim's help. Ibrahim is suspected of having organized the 1993 Bombay bombings that killed 257 people and wounded 713. Though the Pakistani government denies it, Ibrahim is probably in Pakistan, where he has important ties to the powerful intelligence service.
2. "Heroin trade throughout the world". Interpol.
3. "Caution: you are about to enter gangland Britain". The Independent. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
4. "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report". google.be. Retrieved 6 May 2015.