Aizawl/Imphal, Oct 31 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested four more accused and unearthed details of international hawala transactions from documents seized during searches in Manipur’s Churachandpur district as part of ‘Operation Trident’, a multi-agency coordinated operation across the northeastern states, the central probe agency said on Saturday.
The Aizawl Sub-Zonal Office of the ED, on Friday, formally arrested the four accused – Lalrammuana, Thangcintuang alias Chintuang alias Tluanga, Jabrul Haque, and Abu Saleh Md Saif Uddin.
Lalrammuana is a resident of Champhai district of Mizoram; Thangcintuang alias Chintuang alias Tluanga is a resident of Bulfek village in Myanmar; and Jabrul Haque and Abu Saleh Md Saif Uddin are residents of Assam’s Sribhumi district (formerly Karimganj district).
Saif Uddin was arrested in the Krishiv Enterprise case while the three others were arrested under Section 19 of PMLA in the Jabrul Haque case.
The ED statement said that all four accused were lodged in Central Jail in Aizawl in NCB (Narcotics Control Bureau) narcotics cases and were produced on production warrants before the Additional District & Sessions Judge-I, Aizawl.
The judge, by orders issued on October 29, permitted their formal arrest and granted the ED custody of the accused for 48 hours for interrogation.
Thangcintuang is the Myanmar-based supplier of the 49.101 kg methamphetamine consignment seized on August 21, 2025, while Lalrammuana was its main handler, Jabrul Haque its intended receiver at the Damchhera-Kanhmun border in Tripura, and Abu Saleh the Karimganj-based operator whose account received Rs 11.44 crore, including Rs 6.67 crore in cash, and fed the Champhai hawala accounts.
With these arrests, ten persons have been arrested in the three cases, the statement said.
During the search at the residence of Zenngaihniang alias Taniang, a resident of New Lamka, in Manipur’s Churachandpur district on October 23, cash books, registers and notebooks containing handwritten accounts of her hawala business were recovered and seized. The records reflect a regular currency exchange and hawala operation in which Indian rupees were received in cash and in bank accounts from persons in different parts of India, converted into Myanmar kyat at daily rates of about 42 to 48 kyat per rupee, and paid out to persons in Myanmar.
According to the ED statement, single entries run up to Rs 54.47 lakh in a day (about 26 crore kyat), running totals exceed 43 crore kyat, Rs 1.14 crore was paid to one handler within a week of April 2025, and the books also record transfers through the Myanmar mobile wallet KPay and conversion of US dollars ($10,816 at 4,150 kyat per dollar) between April 2025 and February 2026.
Seven signed Rs 10 currency notes, suspected to have been used as tokens for identifying the recipients of hawala payments, and documents of an immovable property purchased for Rs 60 lakh in the name of Zenngaihniang alias Taniang were also seized, and 991 bank accounts linked to the Churachandpur network have been frozen.
“Goods for drugs”, the ledgers of M/s Go Alpha Trip, the Mini-ATM counter through which accused Zenngaihniang pushed over Rs 175 crore into the banking system, and statements in the connected Mizoram case show that drug money is also converted into ordinary goods.
The counter and the Mizoram mule accounts paid suppliers – a flour mill in West Bengal, an edible oil trader in Assam, filling stations in Mizoram (about Rs 2.61 crore), grocery and medicine wholesalers, and footwear and cloth traders in Delhi- while the invoices were raised on third parties in Aizawl and border towns such as Champhai, Zorinpui, and Tlabung, from where the goods moved into Myanmar.
The drug suppliers across the border are thus paid in kind; the payment in India wears the cover of a GST invoice; and the cross-border leg leaves no money trail.
The ED said that further investigation is actively being conducted to identify cross-border operatives across India and Myanmar named in seized incriminating records, track border-town consignees, and expose suppliers compensated through identical illicit transaction channels, while taking steps to trace and provisionally attach additional Proceeds of Crime.
–IANS
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