LONDON: Undercover FBI informants infiltrated the top ranks of Dawood Ibrahim ’s D-Company , trafficked heroin into the US and laundered more than $1 billion of the proceeds of narcotics crime before seeking the arrest of his “top henchman”, a court heard on Monday.Pakistani national Jabir Motiwala , who uses the surname Siddiq, is contesting extradition to the US where he is wanted to face trial for conspiracy to commit money laundering, blackmail and extortion and conspiracy to import heroin into the US.The 52-year-old was arrested at the Hilton Hotel in Paddington here in August last year by the Metropolitan police’s extradition unit on behalf of the US government and is now in Wandsworth prison, alongside Nirav Modi.On the first day of his three-day extradition trial on Monday, John Hardy QC, representing the US government, revealed that as part of an FBI investigation of D-Company, which is based in Pakistan, India and the UAE, at least three FBI “confidential sources” had met and spoken to Motiwala “who made it clear to them he was with the D-Company”.“The head is Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian Muslim in exile in Pakistan. He and his brother have been fugitives from India since 1993 and over the past 10 years D-Company operatives have conducted operations in the US. The FBI investigation revealed that Motiwala reports directly to Dawood and that extortion, debt collection and money laundering are his main job and he travels extensively and conducts meetings on behalf of Dawood who cannot travel,” Hardy said.Motiwala, who lives in Karachi and has a 10-year visa to the UK, appeared in the dock at Westminster magistrates’ court and kept his eyes cast on the ground.One of the FBI informants, a Pakistan-born US citizen, attempting to facilitate criminal dealings with the D-Company, met Motiwala, a “top lieutenant in the Dawood empire”, in the US in 2011, and in Pakistan in 2011 and 2012, Hardy said.Motiwala introduced the source to a co-conspirator who is the lead money launderer for D-Company, he said.The US agent then laundered more than $1 billion of narcotics proceeds from D-Company and made cash deposits in the US, making them appear to come from legitimate transactions, Hardy said.“During the meetings in Pakistan in 2011 the FBI source and Motiwala discussed debt collection and extortion by D-Company in the US and abroad and how D-Company uses its reputation for violence and the ability to reach family members in Pakistan and India to resolve business disputes and pressure them to pay up. On one occasion, $80,000 was collected from two lower level D-Company associates in New Jersey and Motiwala demanded 40% of the payment for having helped collect the debt.“The D-Company collects fees of up to 50% for collecting the money in a dispute,” Hardy added.The court heard that on the US agent’s first trip to Pakistan, in September 2011, he inquired about importing heroin and was introduced by Motiwala’s co-conspirator to a heroin and hash supplier.In 2014 a 4-kg sample of heroin was shipped from Pakistan to New York via Toronto where it was seized. The FBI informant told Motiwala the quality was “so bad so he could not sell it” and could not pay off the drugs debt. “Motiwala responded in traditional fashion by invoking Dawood and threatening his life,” Hardy said.The US agent then made a partial payment of £19,500 (Rs 16 lakh) into a bank account controlled by Motiwala. “He plays the role of facilitator and debt collector,” he said.Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Motiwala, said “evidence was obtained in Pakistan without authority”, which was a breach of international law and sovereignty which renders prosecution that results from that “an abuse of power and process”.Citing the case of alleged computer hacker Lauri Love, whose extradition to the US was turned down by the London high court in 2018 because it would put him at high risk of suicide, Fitzgerald said Motiwala suffered from severe depression, as did his whole family in Pakistan, that he had attempted suicide three times, and extraditing him to the US would “be oppressive”.He added a life sentence without parole — which Motiwala was likely to receive — was “inhuman” and a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR.)In 2003, the US government declared Dawood Ibrahim a specially designated global terrorist having links with Al-Qaeda and financing the activities of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other terrorist organisations. Dawood is widely believed to have masterminded the March 1993 Mumbai bombings.