While one of the most wanted fugitives in Europe may be on his way home to Italy soon after Brazil’s Supreme Court approved the extradition of the drug lord Rocco Morabito, Britain is yet to take initiatives in extraditing a terror-funder and convicted criminal named Shahid Uddin Khan, who has been on run for years. According to media reports, Shahid Uddin Khan is wanted by Interpol.
As to Rocco Morabito, Italian authorities say he is a leader of southwest Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia and has been called the Cocaine King of Milan.
Morabito, they say, has been involved in organized crime since the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, he moved to Brazil under a fake identity, passing himself off as a Brazilian national involved in agribusiness.
Later Morabito established himself in Uruguay, a small country south of Brazil. Police say he lived a swanky life in the city of Punta del Este, known as a resort for Latin and North American jet-setters and tourists.
Although Morabito was on Interpol’s list of the world’s most wanted criminals, he managed to stay under the radar until 2017, when he apparently used his real name to register his daughter at school.
Uruguayan authorities arrested him in the lobby of a hotel in Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital.
After serving two years in a Montevideo prison, Morabito and three other foreigners escaped just before he was to be extradited to Italy, the Uruguayan Interior Minister said.
Uruguay’s director of prisons, Alberto Gadea, resigned during investigations into which prison officials were involved in the escapes.
Morabito was arrested again in May 2021 in northern Brazil, OCCRP reported.
Morabito had been sentenced in absentia to 30 years after being convicted by Italian courts of four counts related to international drug trafficking and involvement with a mafia-type criminal organization, ‘Ndrangheta.
Morabito’s lawyer has tried to block the extradition process, even seeking political asylum for him. Supreme Court judges have said that the sentences imposed by Italian courts are common crimes, not political ones, adding that “Italy is a democracy.”
Morabito’s future is now in the hands of Brazilian President Jair Bolosonaro, who may or may not authorize the extradition.
Notorious Shahid Uddin Khan
Shahid Uddin Khan (Army No: BA002428, Course: 8-BMA, Commission Date: 10-06-1983) and his wife and daughters entered Britain with millions of dirty cash. In 2009, Shahid Uddin Khan invested millions of pounds in the United Kingdom in exchange of obtaining immigrant status under Visa Tier 1, vide VAF No. 511702. The family had laundered an unknown amount of money and brought that into the United Kingdom via United Arab Emirates and few more countries, while Shahid Uddin Khan had invested over 18 million pounds for buying citizenship under Britain’s scandalous ‘Golden Visa’ scheme.
On May 25, British newspaper The Sunday Times, in an exclusive report, revealed that Md Shahid Uddin Khan had been charged with funding terror groups, arms dealing and money laundering offenses in Bangladesh. According to the British newspaper, the sacked army officer has political links in Britain and had funded Stephen Hammonds, a Tory Party MP.
Sources told IANS that the sacked Bangladeshi Colonel Md. Shahid Uddin Khan migrated to London in 2009 under mysterious circumstances along with his wife Farjana Anjum and daughters named Shehtaz Munasi Khan, Parisa Pinaz Khan and Zumana Fiza Khan. Members of this family are having business operations in Dubai as well as in Britain. As per the latest dossier on the Dawood Ibrahim gang, the D company is involved in smuggling counterfeit Indian Currency Notes (FICN) and contraband narcotics. The illegal activities are being operated from Nepal and Bangladesh.
