Chhota Shakeel: Don who loved Cavalli suits

Chhota Shakeel, the Dawood Ibrahim lieutenant rumoured to have died in January, is best known for his extortion calls to filmstars.

But he was also a man who loved Roberto Cavalli suits, found a late-life career in diamonds, and worried that his children hated him — which they reportedly did.

Shakeel is believed to have been worth about $300 million, but he started out as Mohammed Shakeel Babu Miyan Shaikh. His first career was running a travel agency in Dongri.

After the 1993 serial blasts, Chhota Rajan defected from the Dawood gang, forcing the top rung of that operation to flee the country. Shakeel moved to Pakistan in 1994 and was offered state protection by Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence (ISI).

There, he began to redefine his image, honing his English and dressing in Roberto Cavalli suits.

He was eager to blend in with the local upper-middle-class, say underworld sources. He took on the name Rizwan, attended festive occasions in Pathani suits.

One of the first things Shakeel and the ISI did after he entered Pakistan was to cultivate a voice proxy in Rahim Merchant alias Dogla, a wealthy Pakistani who lives in North Karachi.

Shakeel would sit next to Rahim when calls were made to Indian nationals, and write down the questions to be asked. He later became a means of keeping Shakeel’s name alive and powerful.

In addition to his well-catalogued interests in real-estate, weapons and narcotics in association with Afghan syndicates and

MUMBAI:

Colombian cartels, Shakeel began investing in mines in Africa, smuggling diamonds to and for the Ukraine’s Odessa Mafia; he also bartered the diamonds for weapons. Diamonds offered him a significant advantage — the physical movement of cash was no longer necessary.

As revenue began pouring in again, the 5.5-ft Shakeel, with his trademark moustache and wavy hair, began to live it up. He upgraded his luxury cars regularly. His 2013 model was a bulletand bomb-proof Toyota Landcruiser. He began to use only an encrypted satellite phone – the Thuraya XT Pro Dual.

He still rarely drank alcohol, but would smoke hashish and marijuana.

He reportedly developed a penchant for underage Ukrainian and Romanian girls.

He even bought a diamond mine in Sierra Leone. In addition to a Pakistani passport, Shakeel acquired at least two others — one each from Botswana and Malawi — presumably to help him in his diamond-running.

The diamonds were typically smuggled out of Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Republic of Mali