6 arrested, over 1,400 bank accounts frozen in Manipur, Mizoram as ED busts cross-border ‘narco-hawala’ scam

The bank accounts that the ED froze belong to alleged narco-trade and narco-hawala operators and their mule and beneficiary account holders in Manipur, Mizoram.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested six people and froze 1,424 bank accounts in Mizoram and Manipur on Friday in connection with a cross-border drug and money laundering case.

The probe agency, in a statement on Sunday, noted that searches in three money laundering cases exposed a single “narco-hawala ecosystem” that sends drug proceeds from across India back to suppliers in Myanmar.

The 1,424 bank accounts that the ED froze under Section 17(1A) of the PMLA belong to alleged narco-trade and narco-hawala operators and their mule and beneficiary account holders in Manipur and Mizoram.

The Northeast shares a 1,643 km porous border with Myanmar and has reportedly emerged as the main land corridor for drugs produced in the Golden Triangle. According to ED, heroin and methamphetamine tablets entering Mizoram and Manipur are consumed locally and moved on through Assam to the rest of India and Bangladesh. The cash then flows back to border towns in Mizoram.

The probe agency did not give details on the identity of the six accused, who will be produced before the special courts under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

On October 23, ED’s Aizawl and Imphal sub-zonal offices carried out the searches at multiple locations in Manipur and Mizoram under Section 17 of the PMLA, while the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Mizoram Police ran parallel action against the trafficking network.

The three money laundering cases that led the probe agencies to the cross-border narco network were busted between March 2025 and July 2026.

The three cases were filed on the basis of FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. On March 14, 2025, police seized 4.722 kg of heroin packed in 440 soap cases in Mizoram in Krishiv Enterprise case. The consignment was being carried to Aizawl for a Myanmar-based supplier.

The second case, called the Jabrul Haque case in Mizoram, was busted when Agartala NCB seized 49.101 kg of methamphetamine tablets and 40 grams of heroin from a convoy on NH-06A near Seling on August 21, 2025. The drugs were sourced from Chintuang in Myanmar for delivery at the Damchhera-Kanhmun border.

In the third case, the Zenngaihniang case in Manipur, police seized 2.413 kg of brown sugar and ₹31.43 lakh on July 2, 2026. ED said the cash was drug sale money collected at Churachandpur for remittance to suppliers in Myanmar.

The investigators subsequently arrested three people in Mizoram and three in Manipur under Section 19 of the PMLA.

ED said the drug trade runs as a “two-way street” through the Champhai-Zokhawthar sector of Mizoram. Chemicals used to make drugs move from India into Myanmar, while finished drugs move from Myanmar into India.

According to ED, M/s Krishiv Enterprises sent about 32 tonnes of Caffeine Anhydrous in 15 consignments between March and November 2024, an average of roughly 2.1 tonnes a consignment. It also sent 10 tonnes of Aluminium Chloride Anhydrous. The goods moved on regular E-way bills and GST invoices to small pharmacies and a general store in Aizawl and the border belt, none of which has its own manufacturing or processing facility.

ED said the chemicals were then moved across the border to tablet-pressing units in Myanmar, where Caffeine Anhydrous is used to bulk and cut methamphetamine into “Yaba” tablets.

In the other direction, heroin, brown sugar and methamphetamine tablets are carried across the Tiau river at Zokhawthar and staged at Champhai. From there they travel down the Champhai-Aizawl road and NH-06A to Aizawl, Vairengte and the Assam and Tripura borders. Myanmar-based organisers hire local carriers and use soap cases, taxis, motorcycles and truck convoys with escort vehicles.