'India will hammer drug cartels': Amit Shah hails Operation Trident that unearthed hawala network

Simultaneous raids across Assam, Mizoram and Manipur have led to the arrest of 18 people and the freezing of 1,424 bank accounts, exposing hawala transactions worth Rs 100 crore and rupturing the finances of a narcotics cartel led by a Myanmar-based drug lord arrested earlier this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday.

In a post on X, Shah said Operation Trident was carried out on October 23 to dismantle an international narcotics cartel operating across India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. "The operation unearthed hawala transactions worth Rs 100 crore, led to the attachment of properties worth Rs 17.82 crore and resulted in the seizure of 500 detonators and Rs 12 lakh in cash," he said.

Shah said the network trafficked narcotics across the borders of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh through the "Death Triangle Corridor". Congratulating the anti-narcotics team drawn from central agencies and the police forces of the three states, Shah said the operation reflected the government's resolve to eradicate every drug network by December 31, 2029. "India will hammer until the last nail is driven into the coffin of drug cartels," he said in the post.

Under "Operation Trident", the Narcotics Control Bureau, with 38 teams, raided 38 locations simultaneously across the three states, Assam, Mizoram, and Manipur against transnational narco-financial syndicates, aiming to dismantle the operational and financial backbone of the cartel.

The raids followed days of covert intelligence fusion, joint target-mapping and high-level tactical briefings among central and state agencies, a government statement said, and were designed to strike the syndicates logistics nodes and illicit financial arteries at the same time.

The multi-state operation followed intelligence-led investigations by the NCB, Mizoram Police and Enforcement Directorate, tracing backward and forward links in cases selected for a 360-degree probe, it said.

"The cartel was led by Myanmar-based kingpin Thangcintuang alias Chintuang alias Tluanga who orchestrated the cross-border routing of methamphetamine and heroin across Myanmar-Mizoram-Manipur-Assam-Tripura corridor into mainland India and Bangladesh. He was arrested in May this year," it said.

Acting under a unified command structure, 38 multi-agency composite teams were mobilised concurrently across 38 pre-identified locations in the three states. "The strikes covered key urban hubs and sensitive border corridors, including Aizawl, Champhai and the Indo-Myanmar border trading town of Zokhawthar in Mizoram, along with linked operative bases in Churachandpur, Manipur, and the Cachar transit corridor in Assam," it said.

Despite challenging terrain and vast geographical spread, exceptional inter-departmental coordination ensured all searches, enquiries, and financial audits were executed simultaneously, preventing the flight of suspects or concealment of illicit assets, the statement said.

"Earlier phases of the probe dismantled key parts of the cartel, including kingpin Thangcintuang, alias Chintuang or Tluanga, who was arrested in Delhi after inter-state surveillance and intelligence-led operations," the statement said.