The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested six people, froze 1,424 bank accounts and attached a five-storey hotel worth Rs 17.82 crore in coordinated raids across Mizoram and Manipur on October 23. The action targeted a cross-border syndicate that laundered the proceeds of heroin, brown sugar and methamphetamine smuggled in from Myanmar.
The agency's Aizawl and Imphal sub-zonal offices searched premises in Aizawl, Champhai, Lawngtlai and Churachandpur under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, while the Narcotics Control Bureau and Mizoram Police ran parallel operations. Those arrested were Kashyap G Thakkar, Thangkhuala and T Chatuan Vanlalgakha from Mizoram, and Zenngaihniang alias Taniang, Nengzatuan Valte alias Tuanpi and H Gouzalal from Manipur.
Taniang and Tuanpi, already in judicial custody in narcotics cases, were formally arrested with a special judge's permission. The ED is seeking to arrest four more accused. The attached Hotel JTS at Zion Veng, Champhai, stands in the name of Lalliansanga, husband of hawala operator Lalrampari. With Rs 8.19 crore secured earlier, assets secured in the case now exceed Rs 26 crore.
Three narcotics seizures, made on March 14, 2025, August 21, 2025 and July 2, 2026, led investigators to a single network in which the same Champhai, Aizawl and Lawngtlai accounts absorbed drug money from Manipur, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura and settled it with suppliers in Myanmar. The trade ran both ways. Krishiv Enterprises, a Mizoram firm with no manufacturing facility, sent about 32 tonnes of caffeine anhydrous and 10 tonnes of aluminium chloride anhydrous across the border, where the former was used to cut methamphetamine into "Yaba" tablets.
The cash was fed into the banking system through a Churachandpur Mini-ATM counter run by Gouzalal, which made 2,947 transfers worth Rs 175.03 crore between 2024 and June 2026. Mizoram account holders rented out their accounts at Rs 500 per lakh and passed the money on within days.
Only Rs 17 lakh of the Rs 11.98 crore received in seven accounts was withdrawn in cash, and one Champhai homemaker's account received Rs 15.48 crore against a family income of about Rs 27,000 a month. The funds ended with unlicensed Rupee-Kyat exchangers in Champhai, whose accounts recorded credits of about Rs 268.80 crore, including Rs 125 crore in cash from Assam, Nagaland, West Bengal, Tripura and Delhi. They settled suppliers' dues in Kyat for Rs 250 to Rs 500 per lakh.
Investigators are now tracing other customers of the Churachandpur counters, the Myanmar-based recipients and the end users of the chemicals, and examining the role of bank officials. The ED said further proceeds of crime would be traced and attached.