New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has traced four transactions carried out by a mini-Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and money-transfer counter in Manipur’s Churachandpur district for unusual purposes, like the purchase of essential and daily-use food items from far-off places such as West Bengal, ThePrint has learnt. Churachandpur is a key node of the cross-border drugs trade.
Days after these transactions for items like maida, edible oil and flour, amounting to over Rs 30 lakh, the receivers allegedly shipped the goods to Mizoram capital Aizawl, while issuing invoices in the name of a Churachandpur-based money-transfer counter named Go Alpha Trip.
Additionally, the agency traced drug money collected in bank accounts in the names of Aizawl residents and sent onward to four categories of beneficiaries—petrol pumps, grocery shops, footwear and cloth traders, medicine wholesalers, and money exchangers. Two such filling stations in Mizoram allegedly acknowledged before the agency to receiving payments of Rs 2.21 crore and Rs 40.25 lakh and selling diesel to unidentified drivers, claiming to be aware that the fuel was resold in Myanmar.
Based on these findings, the agency officials have concluded that the illegal cross-border trade flourishing between India and Myanmar through border states of Manipur and Mizoram has featured an alleged barter system, where payments to suppliers in Myanmar were made indirectly in the form of essential commodities, not easily detectable by the law enforcement agencies. These commodities were then allegedly sold in Myanmar, and the proceeds were used to settle payments to the suppliers.
These barter-based drug trades were in addition to the estimated Rs 175 crore of funds generated from the sale of drugs routed to Myanmar through mule accounts from Manipur and Mizoram before transfer through money-exchangers in the border district.
“Statements recorded under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002, the ledgers of Go Alpha Trip, the Mini-ATM/Customer Service Point counter at Churachandpur, bank records and documents furnished by the account holders have revealed that drug money is not only remitted to hawala accounts in Mizoram but is also converted into ordinary, commercially marketable goods—petrol and diesel, wheat flour, edible oil, groceries, medicines, footwear and clothing—which are sent to Aizawl and the border towns of Mizoram and onward into Myanmar,” an agency official explained.
“The drug suppliers across the border are thus being paid in kind, and the dues for the drugs are settled without any money crossing the border.”
The findings have come after the culmination of sweeping raids across the country by the ED, in company with the Narcotics Control Bureau and Mizoram Police, as part of ‘Operation Trident’ last week. The raids had led to the freezing of more than 1,400 bank accounts, the attachment of properties worth Rs 17.82 crore, and the seizure of 500 detonators and Rs 12 lakh in cash. A total of 18 arrests were made across the country by the three agencies.
Explaining the suspicious transactions from the Churachandpur-based counter, Go Alpha Trip, an official highlighted that Rs 13.19 lakh was transferred into the bank account of a flour mill in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri on 14 December 2024. Just four days later, the flour mill raised an invoice for Go Alpha Trip for 32,535 kg of flour. The consignment was despatched to Aizawl on 27 December.
Similarly, the counter made two transfers of Rs 5 lakh each on 27 April this year to an edible oil trader in Guwahati, who raised an invoice and an e-way bill the very next day for 631 cases of refined soyabean oil valued at Rs 10 lakh.
The consignment was dispatched to a store in Mizoram’s Champhai district about 400 km away, raising suspicions that the transactions were not genuine, according to ED officials. The same cash counter transferred Rs 10 lakh to a filling station at Mizoram’s Tlabung, which raised an invoice for an Aizawl-based trader for 14 kilolitres of diesel, which was subsequently delivered at Zorinpui, Lawngtlai District, on the India–Myanmar border. The station owner has said that he has no dealings with the counter that paid him.
In addition to these transactions, the ED also flagged another suspicious transaction in March this year, when the same money trader had allegedly paid Rs 85,983 to a cloth trader in New Delhi for clothing that investigators claimed was sent to Myanmar.
The ED allegedly found a similar pattern in Mizoram where two filling stations received Rs 2.21 crore and Rs 40.25 lakh from the accounts of three creditors—H. Khawlianthangi, K&H Store, and Numami against bulk sales of petrol and diesel to unidentified drivers and to one ‘Chunga’.
Agency officials claimed, however, that the filling station managers reported no awareness of the payee, and that their awareness was limited to the information that fuel was being transported to Myanmar for resale.
Similarly, a grocery store had allegedly received Rs 13.96 crore for the bulk sale of biscuits, noodles, edible oil, milk, and cold drinks to people based in Myanmar, with payments arranged through money exchangers in Siaha and Champhai, so that the money reaching the account came from persons other than the purchasers.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)