India Operation Trident has frozen 1,424 bank accounts and attached properties worth 17.82 crore rupees in coordinated raids on a cross-border narcotics and hawala network operating across India’s northeast, officials said on Sunday.
The Enforcement Directorate said its Aizawl and Imphal sub-zonal offices conducted coordinated search operations on October 23 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act at premises in Aizawl, Champhai and Lawngtlai in Mizoram, and Churachandpur in Manipur, according to IANS. The operation was conducted in coordination with the Narcotics Control Bureau and Mizoram Police.
Six accused were arrested under Section 19 of the money-laundering law, three each in Mizoram and Manipur, while proceedings for the arrest of four more are under way, the agency said.
How the network worked
The operation targeted three cases of money laundering arising from cross-border trafficking of heroin, brown sugar and methamphetamine tablets from Myanmar and the hawala settlement of the drug proceeds, according to the Enforcement Directorate. Proceeds were moved through bank accounts, mini-ATM outlets, customer service centres and hawala channels across several states before reaching alleged suppliers in Myanmar.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the raids, codenamed Operation Trident, were carried out at 38 locations across Assam, Mizoram and Manipur, uncovering hawala transactions worth 100 crore rupees, with 500 detonators and 12 lakh rupees in cash seized, according to reports. The wider operation led to 18 arrests in total across the agencies involved.
Assets secured
The agency provisionally attached Hotel JTS, a five-storey commercial building at Zion Veng in Champhai valued at 17.82 crore rupees, according to reports. With 8.19 crore rupees secured earlier in frozen bank accounts, total assets secured in the cases now exceed 26 crore rupees.
The Enforcement Directorate said its investigation is continuing to identify other customers of the Churachandpur cluster of mini-ATMs and customer service points, beneficiary account operators, Myanmar-based recipients and the role of bank officials. Officials present the crackdown as part of a government drive to dismantle major drug networks by December 31, 2029.
The investigation is far from over. Officials say they are still tracing beneficiary accounts, Myanmar-based recipients and the role of bank and customer-service staff, meaning further arrests and attachments could follow as the financial trail is unravelled.
