Ex-Bollywood actress off the hook in Indian drug bust case involving SA-linked trafficker Vicky Goswami

1 Sep 2024

Last month, former Bollywood actress Mamta Kulkarni successfully managed to be removed as an accused in a massive drug bust case in India. That matter is connected to a Mandrax trafficking associate of hers, Vicky Goswami, who has curious criminal ties to South Africa.

About a decade ago, a group of drug traffickers with links to Kenya were apparently working to get hold of tonnes of chemicals to make Mandrax so that they could boost production of the pills in South Africa.

According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, they used proceeds from that Mandrax business to expand their criminal activities – “including efforts to import ephedrine that was produced illegally by Avon Lifesciences, [a factory] in India.”

Ephedrine is used to make crystal methamphetamine, known as tik in South Africa.

In 2016, the factory in Solapur, India, was raided and, according to the New York US Attorney’s Office, those involved in the alleged drug syndicate “were forced to abandon their plan”.

Some of the ephedrine, it later emerged in US court proceedings, could have ended up being dispatched to South Africa.

This is where the saga has more offshoots, leading to various individuals and countries – and even brushing up against Bollywood.

The US accused two Kenyan brothers, Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha Abdalla, better known as the Akashas, as well as an Indian druglord, Vicky Goswami, of several crimes, including planning to traffic heroin and methamphetamine there.

In 2017, the Akashas and Goswami were extradited from Kenya to the US to face criminal charges.

Read more: SA’s Narcos Capture – the Mandraxtrafficker and ‘wanted terrorist’ matrix haunting the ANC, Zuma, Guptas

During court proceedings against them in the US, several other matters, including the ephedrine factory case, were mentioned.

It was alleged that they were involved in them too.

The Akashas went on to be convicted in the US and, as Daily Maverick previously reported, Goswami testified in court there that he and the Akashas had been hell-bent on dominating South Africa’s drug trade.

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Goswami became a cooperating witness for the US government. Meanwhile, he remains an accused in the case involving the ephedrine factory in India.

‘No iota of evidence’

Until recently, another accused in this case was former Bollywood actress Mamta Kulkarni, who featured in several hit films between 1991 and 2003.

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In court papers in India, she confirmed she was an associate of Goswami. A statement from another person linked to the matter suggested she was engaged to him.

Kulkarni had petitioned against being added as an accused to the case, arguing that “there is no iota of evidence against her”. After several years, the Bombay High Court found in her favour in July.

Though it is not clear what has become of Goswami, he is mentioned several times in the court judgment that clears Kulkarni.

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It said Kulkarni stated that she “worked as an actress in 50 Bollywood films and also claims to be part of various commercials”. She had also “categorically admitted that she is acquainted with Vicky Goswami”.

The judgment said the case came about after a police officer received a tip-off in April 2016 about the sale and purchase of ephedrine, some of which was likely to be sold in Thane, a city outside Mumbai.

Some ephedrine was seized in crackdowns, the Solapur factory was raided and 10 suspects were arrested. Seven others became wanted fugitives.

As for Kulkarni, it was alleged that she was acquainted, and present, with individuals who met at a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, along with Goswami, to hatch the ephedrine factory plan.

Read more: Western Cape multimillion-rand Mandrax confiscations point to established gang networks in action

“The ephedrine powder which was [in the factory] at Solapur… would [be] transported to Kenya for the purpose of manufacturing methamphetamine out of the ephedrine powder, to be sold throughout the world by the accused Vicky Goswami and [one] Dr Abdulla, for their personal benefit,” the judgment said.

It added that there were other matters, including shares relating to housing, that tied Kulkarni to Goswami.

However, the judgment found: “On perusal of the entire material contained in the charge sheet, we are of the view that this material is not sufficient to sustain a charge against her.”

It found that the proceedings against Kulkarni were “manifestly frivolous and vexatious”. The case against her was therefore quashed. It appears, however, that the charges against Goswami and others accused in the case remain active.

Read more: Goswami’s SA mandrax secrets

Goswami, despite becoming a US government witness in the drug trafficking case related to that country, is wanted in India for the ephedrine case.

The judgment that cleared Kulkarni referred to him as a “wanted accused”. Documents from the Bombay High Court dated 2022 used the same words to describe him.

Papers from September 2023 from the Gujarat High Court refer to him as being in a “foreign country”.

While testifying in the US in 2019, he had referred to the 2016 Solapur ephedrine factory. A transcription of his testimony said he had confirmed that he had previously met people, including representatives from the factory, at a hotel in Kenya.

Read more: SA’s drug dons — where are they now plus the political suspicions surrounding them

Goswami testified that the representatives had offered tonnes of ephedrine and in return “needed some financial help” in the form of about a million dollars.

Asked in the US court what the factory representatives were supposed to provide in exchange for that, Goswami replied: “In tonnes, around 3.5 tonnes [of ephedrine]. We were to bring it into South Africa.”

Assassinations

Based on his testimony in the US, Goswami has other criminal ties to South Africa for which he does not appear to have been held to account.

According to the transcript of his testimony, he had mentioned someone in South Africa known as “Taka” who was involved in trafficking.

Goswami testified that in 2016 – presumably when he was still in Kenya before extradition to the US – he had sent assassins to South Africa to murder Taka.

Read more: Can South Africa close the net on lethal narcotics trade linked to web of global crime?

“Some shooters went to his house and they killed him in his house,” Goswami said.

He also testified about the murder of a rival drug trafficker’s sidekick, identified in the US court proceedings only as Pinky, who was shot roughly 32 times in South Africa about a decade ago.

Goswami testified about the reasons for Pinky’s murder: “First of all, Pinky was threatening us. Second, we wanted to have him killed so we can put an impression in [the] South African drug market [that] we are not here to play.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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South Africa

‘No iota of evidence’

Assassinations