Dawood directly involved in Mumbai attacks: Russia

Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim was directly involved in the deadly 26/11 attacks in Mumbai and his clandestine drug trafficking network was used to finance the terror strikes in India's financial hub, a top Russian crime buster said on Thursday.

"Gathered inputs testify that infamous regional drug baron Dawood Ibrahim had provided his logistics network for preparing and carrying out the Mumbai terror attacks by the militants," the director of Russia's federal anti-narcotics service, Viktor Ivanov, said.

The Mumbai mayhem is a burning example of the use of illegal drug trafficking network for perpetrating terrorism, he said in an interview to the government daily 'Rossiskaya Gazeta'.

"The super profits of the narco-mafia through Afghan heroin trafficking have become a powerful source of financing organised crime and terrorist networks destabilising the political systems, including in Central Asia and Caucasus," Ivanov said.

Dawood is sought by India for 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and figures in the most wanted persons list sent to Islamabad by New Delhi in the wake of last month's Mumbai terror attacks blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Rossiskaya Gazeta noted.