Drug Kingpin Ali Punjani was released from a Mumbai hospital on Thursday, according to Mumbai police who have put him under their radar. According to sources, Punjani is planning to fly to another country, fearing arrest in Kenya something the Mumbai police are fully aware of hence watching him.
His business class air ticket has been booked for Nairobi from Mumbai for August 26 on Kenya Airways. His flight from Mumbai will reach Nairobi at 10.20am on August 26. After three hours, his connecting flight to Mombasa is scheduled from Nairobi at 1.30pm and he is expected to land in Mombasa at 2.30pm on the same day.
Ali Punjani, was admitted to Bandra-based Asian Heart Institute where he underwent angioplasty.
According to Indian newspaper the Midday, the Mumbai police have taken serious note and have approached the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) — the nodal liaisoning agency for INTERPOL, to know if any international administrative request had been made to assist the Kenyan cops in their war on drugs but are yet to receive any reply according to a senior police officer.
Police raided the home of Mombasa tycoon Ali Punjani, a day after Interior CS Fred Matian’gi said no individual, no matter how connected, will be spared in the war on drugs.
Plains clothes and GSU officers camped at the home in Nyali area as K-9 Unit police officers used sniffer dogs to search the house on the shores of the Indian Ocean. His kins were later released because ''there was no case"
Many individuals have been targetted in the crackdown on narcotics, especially after the extradition of the Akasha brothers, who are likely to face a death sentence in US federal prisons.
In March this year, CNYAKUNDI.COM confirmed that the Central Bank Of Kenya, DEA and Kenyan security agencies were probing that African Banking corporation over money laundering, fraud and links to narcotics.
The United States government put Kenya on a list of global hotspots for money laundering, citing insufficient controls on the circulation of dirty cash and the lack of laws against terrorism financing.
In a report by United States Department of State Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, “criminal activities include transnational organised crime, cybercrime, corruption, smuggling, trade invoice manipulation, illicit trade in drugs and counterfeit goods, trade in illegal timber and charcoal, and wildlife trafficking.”
It described Kenya’s vibrant financial system as a magnet for money laundering.
“Banks, wire services, and mobile payment and banking systems are increasingly available in Kenya. Nevertheless, unregulated networks of hawaladars and other unlicensed remittance systems facilitate cash-based, unreported transfers that the government cannot track,” it said.
ABC bank has been mentioned severally as one of the platforms through which drug dealers, pirates, and other criminals clean their cash. Punjani has all his accounts with the bank. ABC Bank Group Managing Director, Shamaz Savani with EAX Board Chair, Dr. Jendayi Frazer In our march expose, CNYAKUNDI.COM also independently confirmed that the Bank has more than 1,000 Acres of land acquired from drug-linked “tycoon” Ali Badruddin Punjani.
A confidential letter from the Scotland Yard to Central Bank and copied to the Banking Fraud Unit in January 2015 and seen by the editor of this website says authorities in Kenya need to investigate the “strong appetite” ABC bank has for the housing sector, particularly in Nairobi and the Kenyan coast, Mombasa. It further says the bank has acquired a huge swath of land in Lamu, near where the new proposed port is to be built.