Mumbai, Mar 23 (IANS): The Mumbai Police has brought back notorious gangster Prasad Vitthal Poojary - who was arrested in February 2023 following an Interpol notice - in what is a first-ever deportation of a wanted fugitive by China, officials said here on Saturday.

A resident of Vikhroli suburb in north-east Mumbai, Poojary, 44, along with a team of Mumbai Police sleuths, arrived here by an early morning flight and he has been taken to a police lock-up.

A member of the Kumar Pillai gang, Poojary had been on the run for over five years for various serious crimes, his name had figured in the failed assassination bid on a Shiv Sena activist, kidnappings, death threats, plus extortion rackets targeting builders and prominent people in Mumbai and other places.

Earlier in 2020, Poojary, along with his mother Indira Vitthal Poojary and two others, had masterminded the abduction of a builder to extort Rs 10 lakh, but the Mumbai Police had arrested Indira Vitthal Poojary, while her son remained out of their grasp.

As per investigations, Poojary was living on a temporary residence visa in China since 2008 and after the country agreed to hand him over, the Mumbai Police had been pursuing the matter for several years before netting him on Saturday.