Maharashtra’s criminal underbelly has a Bangladeshi address. A New Delhi Post investigation finds that a wave of crimes involving narcotics, trafficking, prostitution, child exploitation and illegal fertility rackets, sweeping across Maharashtra, share a single, disturbing thread: organised networks of illegal Bangladeshi nationals with links traced back to Dhaka.
Drug peddlers in Versova. Human traffickers in Mira Road. Child exploiters in Vasai. Operators of illegal embryo-harvesting centres in Badlapur. At first glance, these appear to be unrelated crimes investigated by different police units across Maharashtra. But New Delhi Post has uncovered a disturbing pattern: the same faces, forged documents, mule accounts and financial trails repeatedly surfacing across cases, all leading to a common destination near Dhaka.
Maharashtra is quietly emerging as a hub for organised criminal networks run by illegal Bangladeshi nationals. Investigators say the threat extends beyond conventional crime. Large sums of money are allegedly being funnelled across the border, with some funds suspected of supporting radicalisation efforts and anti-India activities.
>> Drug Network With Transgender Cover
In the warren of cramped lanes off Yari Road in Andheri’s Versova area, a drug operation was quietly running out of a nondescript rented flat. At its head, according to police, was Tushi Khan, an illegal Bangladeshi national who had allegedly undergone gender-transition procedures specifically to acquire a new identity, then used that identity to obtain forged Aadhaar documents and open bank accounts. It was an audacious reinvention, and for a long time, it worked.
Tushi’s network, investigators say, relied on a web of kinnars for street-level distribution of mephedrone, commonly known as MD, a synthetic stimulant with a voracious market in Mumbai’s nightlife ecosystem. Daily earnings allegedly ranged between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. Roughly 70 per cent was collected in cash; the rest flowed through digital payment platforms linked to accounts opened in forged names. The money moved fast: cash deposited, rapidly transferred across multiple accounts within hours, each transaction adding another layer of obscurity.
In February this year, the Versova Police ATS unit arrested 25 Bangladeshi nationals from the Yari Road area, 21 of them transgender, along with two women and two men — all for illegal stay in India. Sustained interrogation cracked the network open. “The drug distribution network of kinnars operated from a flat in Versova,” confirmed a senior police official. “The mastermind managed to escape to Bangladesh before we could close in.”
Tushi is still at large. But the network she left behind has given investigators their most detailed picture yet of how illegal Bangladeshi nationals have structured criminal enterprises inside Maharashtra, using gender identity, forged documents and the informal kinnar community as operational cover.
If the Versova drug case revealed the sophistication of these networks, a POCSO case out of Mira-Bhayander exposed their depravity. A 12-year-old girl from Bangladesh who had reportedly failed her school exams was lured by a relative and trafficked to Kolkata, then flown to Mumbai in early 2024 on forged documents. What followed was among the most disturbing sequences in this entire investigation. Traffickers allegedly administered hormonal injections to accelerate her physical development, making her appear older than she was. Within three months of arriving in India, she had allegedly been sexually exploited by more than 285 clients across Mumbai, Vasai, Surat and other cities. Hotel records, mobile phone data and customer chats recovered by police painted a picture too grim to fully detail in print.
“The minor had failed her exams in Bangladesh, was lured by her relative and trafficked to Kolkata, then flown to Mumbai using forged documents,” Dr Binu Varghese, a social activist who spent years campaigning against prostitution and narcotics rackets run by Bangladeshi networks, told New Delhi Post. “The traffickers administered hormonal injections to make her look older. She was sexually abused by over 285 clients in just three months.”
Acting on his intelligence, the Mira Bhayander Vasai Virar (MBVV) Police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) laid a trap using a decoy, leading to the arrest of three Bangladeshi nationals who had been living illegally in Mumbai and the adjoining Thane district for the past ten to twelve years. Ultimately, six Bangladeshi nationals were arrested and five victims rescued.
The money trail from this trafficking operation, investigators found, ended in Kolkata, and then crossed the border to the same destination near Dhaka that had surfaced in the Versova drug investigation.
On June 6, in another incident, Mumbai Police arrested seven more Bangladeshi nationals in Andheri — all of them without valid documents, all of them having lived in the city for nearly fifteen years. The targeted operation has opened a new probe into a human and drug trafficking network with a support system spread across Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata, leading once again to a common destination near Dhaka.
>> Narcotics-Prostitution Overlap
The Bangladeshi connections do not end with trafficking. Investigators have found that prostitution networks operating in and around Mira-Bhayander were being used as secondary distribution channels for MD narcotics. Clients at these establishments were allegedly being encouraged by women to purchase the drug, marketed as a performance enhancer. Once payment was made, deliveries were reportedly arranged within minutes through a coordinated supply chain — narcotics transported in concealed forms, delivered directly to hotel rooms.
One distribution link in this chain allegedly led back to a kinnar identified as Aadhira who, investigators say, was herself connected to the wider Versova drug network headed by the absconding Tushi Khan. The overlap between the prostitution and narcotics operations, according to investigators, also created opportunities for blackmail and extortion: clients who consumed drugs during sexual encounters were allegedly compromised and later exploited.
In August last year, the MBVV Police Crime Branch busted a narcotics syndicate and seized nearly six kilograms of mephedrone, arresting twelve accused, including a 23-year-old Bangladeshi woman, Fatima Murad Shaikh, who had allegedly transported the drugs from Cherapalli in Telangana to Mumbai for distribution. In December, the same force’s anti-human trafficking cell conducted raids on residential premises in Mira Road and Naya Nagar, again uncovering Bangladeshi nationals at the centre of the operation. In every case, investigators found the same common link: human and narcotics traffickers based near Dhaka.
>> Gold Smuggling
Bangladeshi link has even been found in a recent case of gold smuggling. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Mumbai, has busted a gold-smuggling racket at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport under “Operation Golden Nexus”, seizing 3.2 kg of foreign-origin 24-carat gold dust in wax form worth about ₹5 crore. Seven persons were arrested, including one Bangladeshi national, two Sri Lankan nationals, three airport employees and one local receiver.
Acting on intelligence inputs, DRI intercepted three airport staff members, two bus drivers and a coach monitor, allegedly while they were delivering the smuggled gold outside the airport. Subsequent investigations led to the interception of three transit passengers arriving from Bangkok, who had concealed the gold inside their bodies and were attempting to leave India on connecting flights.
>> The Fertility Racket
Perhaps the most medically disturbing thread in this investigation emerged from Badlapur, in Thane district, where police uncovered what investigators describe as an illegal embryo and egg harvesting operation. Vulnerable women were allegedly administered hormonal injections to hyper-stimulate egg production, after which eggs and fertilised embryos were extracted and supplied to more than 300 IVF clinics across India.
Thane Police Commissioner Ashutosh Dumbre personally ensured that specialist medical expertise was brought into the investigation to build a technically robust case. But it was what the financial investigation uncovered that truly alarmed investigators: the bogus accounts and mule-account structures detected in the Badlapur fertility case bore a striking resemblance to those found in the Versova narcotics network and the Nashik funding investigation. The same architecture. The same methods. Different crimes, different cities but the same financial fingerprint.
>> Money Trail Leads to Dhaka
Across these cases, the most disturbing findings have emerged from the financial investigation. Officers of the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau’s nodal office in Navi Mumbai used data analytics, shipment records and transaction-pattern analysis to track funds moving through hundreds of intermediary accounts. What they uncovered, investigators allege, was not merely a criminal enterprise but a structured financial network.
According to investigators, recurring transfers made on specific dates and at regular intervals corresponded with donations received by an account linked to an Islamic seminary outside Dhaka. Monthly and quarterly transaction totals allegedly matched with unusual precision. Based on these findings, agencies suspect that a portion of the proceeds from narcotics trafficking in Maharashtra may have been diverted towards radicalisation activities, sleeper-cell networks and anti-India operations. These allegations remain under investigation and have yet to be tested in court.
The inquiry has also exposed serious questions about India’s internal security architecture. Some of the accused are believed to have lived in Mumbai and its surrounding regions for more than 15 years, renting homes, operating businesses and accessing the banking system using forged identity documents. Investigators say the cases highlight vulnerabilities in border management, document verification and the ease with which fake Aadhaar and PAN cards can be used to establish financial footprints.
Each case remains legally distinct, and investigators have not identified a single coordinator linking all the accused. Yet striking similarities recur across the investigations: illegal Bangladeshi nationals, forged identities, kinnar facilitators, mule-account networks and financial trails leading to the same destination across the border. Taken together, investigators believe the pattern is too consistent to dismiss as a coincidence.
(Dharmesh Thakkar is a Mumbai-based investigative journalist)
