क्राइम

20-day-long operation, multiple agencies — how Deepak Boxer was detained before ‘planned escape’ to US

“Ab samajh gaya, yeh Delhi Police hai (Now, I get it, this is Delhi Police)”— these were the first words Deepak Pahal alias Deepak Boxer, allegedly one of the Delhi-NCR’s most wanted gangsters, uttered when he saw two police officers on-board the flight to India after his detention in Mexico Monday, ThePrint has learnt.

Deepak Boxer — who was allegedly running key operations of the Gogi gang after Jitendra Mann alias Gogi was shot dead inside Delhi’s Rohini Court complex in 2021 — was lounging in a small hotel by the sea in Cancun area Monday when he was detained by the Mexico police for entering the country illegally, police sources told ThePrint Tuesday.

He, however, thought of it as a small issue that he would easily wriggle out of, till he was put on a Turkish Airlines flight to India via Istanbul in which two Delhi Police officers, who he recognised, were also onboard, sources added.

“He had no idea that he was being taken back home to the police he escaped,” an intelligence source told ThePrint.

Deepak was detained by the Mexico police as part of a joint operation of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell with the help of Office of the Legal Attaché, US Embassy, Delhi, that went on for over 20 days, police sources said.

With over 10 cases of murder, extortion, kidnapping against him, Deepak carried a reward of Rs 3 lakh against him.

According to the police and intelligence agencies, Deepak had planned to sneak into the US via Mexico and had sought help from a human trafficking cartel to facilitate his travel through ‘donkey route’ (illegal method of entering a foreign country). The illegal entry to the US through the human trafficking cartel would have cost him around Rs 40 lakh.

“He was travelling with a group arranged by the human trafficking cartel and his plan was to get to his gang members in the US and then run his operations from there. Had he managed to escape to the US, it would have been extremely difficult to get him back,” one of the sources said.

As part of the operation that began after 16 March, Office of the Legal Attaché, US Embassy, Mexico police and the Special Cell of the Delhi Police worked in close coordination, tracking Deepak’s whereabouts with the help of technical surveillance and human intelligence.

More than a dozen of his associates were rounded up and questioned in India, while many calls were intercepted and their locations were mapped to finally reach him, the intelligence source quoted above said.

According to the source, it was a broadband network that Deepak connected his phone to, that led the team to the area where he was staying and, subsequently, his detention.

He had been in Mexico for the last 20 days, the source said. “Despite a 12-hour difference, our team in Delhi was continuously working with the Office of the Legal Attaché, US Embassy and Mexico police to track his whereabouts. The Mexico police zeroed down on locations and started a search after he was found to be in Cancun,” the source added.

“Their search led them to an area dotted with hotels. That was the place where these human trafficking cartels who sneak illegal immigrants into the US, operate. When the Mexico police asked about the presence of any Indians in the vicinity, they reached the hotel where Deepak was staying,” the source said.

Deepak was detained when he was unable to show proper documents of his arrival in Mexico. “He did not have an immigration stamp on his passport showing his arrival in Mexico; so, he was detained. But Deepak had no idea that it was a joint operation to get him back to India,” the source said.

To get him back to India in time, too was a task.

The source said that Indian authorities did not want to give even 24 hours to Deepak in Mexico, fearing that he may appeal for an asylum. It was decided that he would not be taken to Mexico City and instead will be put on a flight to India via Turkey from Cancun itself.

“We did not want to give him any time. So, another channel was opened with Turkish authorities and they, too, were taken on board. He was then taken to Istanbul from Cancun and will reach Delhi soon,” the source said.

Deepak had fled India in January on a fake passport that he arranged from Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly in the name of ‘Ravi Antil’ in December last year. This, according to the police, was the first tip-off. The two men involved in arranging the passport have also been arrested.

According to the source, after leaving India from Kolkata, Deepak first reached Dubai, then moved to Almaty in Kazakhstan. After spending a few days there, he moved to Panama City and then to Costa Rica.

“From Costa Rica, he went with a group that helps illegal immigrants to cross over to the US and Mexico,” the source said.

According to the Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) H.S. Dhaliwal, Deepak’s cousin based in California, Sandeep Nahari, and his other associates based abroad were helping the alleged gangster while he was on the run.

According to the source, while the aim of the Delhi Police was to catch Deepak and get him back to India, the main aim for the US officials was to bust the human trafficking cartel facilitating entry of illegal immigrants into their territory.

The US has been facing illegal immigration the issue of migrants illegally entering its territory from Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico. These cartels smuggle a large number of migrants, many of them also from India, through dangerous routes via jungles and through the sea on boats, to reach America.

According to a senior Delhi Police officer, the success of the operation is a strong message to members of organised gangs.

“Once Deepak is back, it will send out a strong message to these gangsters, who think that it is easy to dodge the police by leaving the country and finding safe havens to park themselves. It will tell them that if Deepak can be brought from Mexico, they too will be nabbed, if not today, (then) tomorrow. It will be a big deterrent for those who plan to flee,” the officer said.

“Just like many of these gangsters stopped going to Bangkok and Dubai, because they feel they may get caught, success of this operation will deter the ones planning to flee to the US via different routes,” the officer said. “We are extremely grateful to the officers of the Indian government who coordinated with their counterparts (Mexico and the US) and made this possible.”

The officer added that the Delhi Police has been concentrating on breaking the organised crime syndicate and arrested 51 people and seized weapons — including AK47s, MP5s and grenades — from them, in the last one year.

A national level-boxer-turned-gangster and native of Ganaur in Haryana’s Sonipat district, Deepak left boxing sometime in 2015-2016 and took to crime, according to reports.

“After Gogi’s murder, Deepak Pahal took over as the commander (of the Gogi gang). In the last five years, Deepak’s involvement was found in at least 10 sensational crimes. Last year, after the meeting with the home minister (Amit Shah), the Special Cell started focusing more on these hardened criminals,” Special CP Dhaliwal told ThePrint.

In August last year, Shah held a meeting with officers of the Crime Branch and Special Cell, and directed them to pursue criminals based outside the country.

The initial criminal cases against Deepak are from 2016, according to his criminal dossier accessed by ThePrint. A Class 10 passout, his methods of killing include “forcible hanging”, it states.

The former junior national boxing champion was first arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch in 2016 in a robbery case. Pahal was also allegedly part of the group that helped slain gangster Jitender Gogi escape from Haryana Police’s custody in Bahadurgarh the same year.

He was, later, arrested by the Haryana Police but got out on bail.

“He came out on bail in 2018 and was absconding since then,” a senior police officer told ThePrint.

Sources said that Deepak managed to evade the police since 2018 as he kept changing his hideouts. “He wouldn’t carry a phone most of the time. In these five years, he hid in various states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh,” the officer said.

In September 2021, Jitendra Mann alias Gogi was dead during a hearing, allegedly by two members of the rival Sunil Maan alias Tillu Tajpuriya’s gang inside the Rohini district courtroom.

Deepak was also part of the syndicate that allegedly attacked the police to help Kuldeep Fajja escape custody in east Delhi’s G.T.B Hospital in 2021.

He was allegedly involved in the killing of Burari-based realtor Amit Gupta in September last year and claimed responsibility in a purported post on Facebook. According to sources in the Delhi Police, the murder was allegedly planned to take as the Gogi gang believed that Gupta had ties with the Tillu gang.