Monday, April 25 2005 17:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The United States has put notorious drug dealer Iqbal Mamen alias "Iqbal Mirchi" on the list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers.

The list released by the US Treasury Department named Mamen, who is also known as "Iqbal Merchant", as the person whose entry was blocked into any part of the United States.

The list provides all the four dates of birth being used by the drug dealer in his various passports. His passport numbers issued from India and from the United Arab Emirates have also been put on the list.

The move is apparently taken after the drug peddler had been making some attempts to enter the United States for setting up his business.

India had secured a Red Corner Notice against Mamen, a resident of Mumbai, in 1994 after the police unearthed an illegal factory in Pune where 1,600 kilograms of Methaqualone, a substance used in the manufacture of Mandrax tablets, besides seizing 110 kilograms of Mandrax powder.

After the registering of the case, Mamen never came to India and is presently believed to be shuttling between the gulf and European countries.

Mamen, who had to leave Dubai in 2003 following the murder of underworld don Sharad Shetty, has no direct connection with the 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' Dawood Ibrahim but security agencies said that some deals had taken place between the two in early 1990s.

It is alleged that Mamen sold nearly five million Mandrax tablets between February and September in 1993.