Mumbai: Police has obtained vital leads on the underworld pumping black money into the real estate in the metro to channelise the flow of funds by acquiring "benami" properties and developing them as commercial plazas and shopping multiplexes.

Dawood Ibrahim and his associates had evolved strategic plans to acquire legally or illegally old buildings located in prime areas of Mumbai and developing them into commercial plazas or markets, police sources said on March 23.

Police had stumbled upon plans hatched by underworld figures to invest in real estate in the case involving Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar Shaikh, who has been booked under a stringent law for his complicity in cases of land-grabbing and evicting a woman from her hut, the sources said.

Prosecutor Rohini Salian had earlier told a special court that Iqbal's case was just a tip of the iceberg and that his involvement in similar cases was being probed.

Iqbal, deported from Dubai on February 20, has been arrested under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) along with two others in a land-grabbing case. He has also been arrested in another case for murder of a customs officer.

According to police, Iqbal was allegedly looking after the real estate investments of Dawood Ibrahim and his family and was holding several "benami" properties.

Iqbal has been remanded to police custody till March 27 in the land-grabbing case registered against him under MCOCA. In another case he is in judicial custody till April 3.

PTI