Terrorism funded by organized criminal activity

David E. Kaplan, with Bay Fang and Soni Sangwan, of U.S. News & World Report found that Dawood Ibrahim, a world-class mobster and engineer of the 1993 multiple bomb blasts in Bombay, is on Washington's radar screen for lending his smuggling routes to al Qaeda and supporting jihadists in Pakistan, based on interviews with counterterrorism and law enforcement officials from six countries. Sheltered by Pakistan, he is the alleged godfather of strong-arm protection, drug trafficking, extortion, murder-for-hire — all stock-in-trade rackets. " He is far and away India's most wanted man, his name invoked time and again by Indian officials in their discussions of terrorism with U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers. " The investigation reveals growing U.S. concerns over how increasing numbers of terrorist groups have come to rely on the tactics — and profits — of organized criminal activity to finance their operations across the globe. Read accompanying stories on Dawood Ibrahim and how U.A.E. serves as the region's criminal crossroads.