Prosecutors are counting on the ongoing trial of the Akasha brothers — Baktash and Ibrahim — to lift the lid on the whereabouts of a missing Indian Bollywood actress.
Mamta Kulkarni, wife to Vijaygiri Goswami who was one of the associates of the brothers was last seen in Kenya in 2016 and later disappeared without a trace.
In 2017, the brothers, sons to the late Ibrahim Akasha, a known drug lord who was shot dead in the Netherlands in 2000, were extradited to the US to face drug-dealing charges.
But Goswami who is currently cooperating with US prosecutor Geoffrey Berman, who is pursuing the case, has been reluctant to speak on the fate of his wife who is said to have been his partner.
Goswami, an Indian drug lord who had links to the Akasha brothers before their (all of them) arrests is suspected to have been involved in the drugs business alongside his wife Kulkarni.
Kulkarni's disappearance followed calls by the Indian government to have her deported back to face similar charges, as was reported by a Qatar online paper Gulf Times on June 18, 2016.
“Police said they would ask the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to get an Interpol Red Corner notice against her to facilitate quick deportation from Kenya, where she is reported to be living since the past few years with her husband and business partner Vicky Goswami, a co-accused in the case,” read the article.
The two have been linked to ephedrine drugs seized after raids in several cities of Maharashtra state, with a street value of about Sh25.7 billion.
Before their arrest, the Akasha's, who are Kenyans, were operating from Mombasa and so did their late father.