ED Meets Its Match in Thane: How a Trespasser Broke into Seized Flat Linked to Dawood Ibrahim's Brother
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The Enforcement Directorate (ED), India’s most formidable financial probe agency, can freeze offshore bank accounts and unravel complex shell companies, but securing a physical padlock in suburban Thane has proved unexpectedly tricky.
In an amusing turn of events, federal investigators had to approach the local Kasarvadavali police station to register a First Information Report (FIR). Their grievance? A local trespasser had casually broken the agency's official seal, replaced the door locks, discarded the legal seizure notice, and moved right into a residential flat attached in a money laundering case against jailed gangster Iqbal Kaskar—brother of India’s most wanted fugitive, Dawood Ibrahim.
A Federal Seal vs a Suburban Locksmith
The apartment, located in Neopolis Cooperative Housing Society on Ghodbunder Road, was originally extorted in 2015 by Iqbal Kaskar using Dawood Ibrahim’s name to intimidate a local builder. The Enforcement Directorate provisionally attached the flat in April 2022 and executed physical possession in December 2024 following approval from the PMLA Adjudicating Authority.
While federal officers assumed the property was safely locked under the full weight of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), ground reality told a different story. On 16 July, the housing society's managing committee emailed the central agency to report that a man, identified in police records as Haresh Kamble, had simply broken the seal, fitted a new lock, and set up home while claiming ownership.
When India’s Top Agency Needs a Police Complaint
Despite warnings from society office-bearers that the flat was under federal seizure, the uninvited resident refused to vacate. India's premier financial agency was forced to compile an official inspection report for the Special PMLA Court before organizing an eviction drive alongside local police and independent witnesses.
Officers managed to reclaim possession, fit yet another padlock, and affix a fresh warning poster on the door. To ensure the intruder does not return, the agency registered a police case under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 223 and 329(4). The incident stands as a rare moment of bureaucratic irony: while the ED relentlessly tracks international money trails, keeping a physical key on a underworld-linked flat still requires a visit to the local police station.
