Ahmedabad, Nov. 4 -- The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Tuesday said it has arrested international drug trafficker Salim Ismail Dola, who was brought back from Turkiye earlier this year, in connection with the seizure of mephedrone worth Rs.438.64 crore from a factory in Sindhrot near Vadodara in 2022. Dola, believed to be a close aide of gangster Dawood Ibrahim, is facing drug trafficking charges in India and is accused of operating a transnational narcotics network. The ATS in a press release said Dola was taken into custody following due legal procedure on October 31, four years after the mephedrone factory was busted. On April 28 this year, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) brought Dola back from Turkiye, where he was arrested three days prior on the basis of an Interpol Red Notice issued at India's request in March 2024. He was lodged in a Mumbai jail, from where the Gujarat ATS took him into custody on October 31, officials said. On December 1, 2022, the ATS raided an illegal factory in Sindhrot, on the outskirts of Vadodara, and seized 87.728 kg of mephedrone (MD) worth around Rs.438.64 crore in the international market, the ATS release said. Ten people were arrested, and an FIR was registered under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. According to the ATS, one of the arrested accused, Soumil Pathak, came into contact with Dola while in jail, and the investigation found both were involved in manufacturing and selling narcotics. The Sindhrot consignment, the agency said, was delivered in Mumbai to Aiman Musa Sheikh alias Ayan Khan, an associate of Dola. "Gujarat ATS will now conduct intensive interrogation of the accused to ascertain his exact role in the Sindhrot Drug Factory case, the sources of raw materials used for manufacturing Mephedrone, financial transactions, other associates involved in the manufacturing and distribution of drugs, interstate and international connections, and further investigate the entire drug trafficking network," the release said. ATS officials said Dola lived in Dubai on an Indian passport and used mobile numbers registered in the UAE and Kenya. "According to information received through intelligence inputs, during the 1990s, when Iqbal Mirchi was involved in the international illegal trade of Mandrax drugs, Salim Dola used to work for him by transporting drugs," the release said. Dola and his associates later set up their own network, concealing narcotics in containers carrying legally exported goods and establishing dummy companies in destination countries to receive them, the release added. Dola was arrested at Mumbai airport in 1998 with about 40 kg of Mandrax, and by the Mumbai Anti-Narcotics Cell in 2013 with about 79 kg of charas. He was named in a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence case in 2017 over gutkha worth Rs.5.5 crore smuggled from Gujarat to Kuwait, and in a Rs.1,000-crore fentanyl case in 2018. Since 2022, his name has figured in around 10 more cases across Mumbai, Thane, Vasai, Bhopal and Gujarat, registered by police stations, the NCB, the DRI and Mumbai's crime branch. These invoke the NDPS Act, the Arms Act, and forgery and cheating provisions, as well as, in 2025, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act. The release also said the Enforcement Directorate is probing his finances, properties and alleged money laundering....