Operation Trident Explained: 38 Raids, 18 Arrests and a Rs 100 Crore Hawala Trail in the Northeast Drug Crackdown
Key Takeaways
- On 23 October 2026, agencies raided 38 locations across Assam, Mizoram and Manipur under Operation Trident, announced on 25 October 2026.
- 18 people were arrested in total, including six arrested by the Enforcement Directorate under the money-laundering law.
- The operation froze 1,424 bank accounts, identified Rs 100 crore in hawala transactions, and attached property worth Rs 17.82 crore.
- Agencies also seized 500 detonators and Rs 12 lakh in cash, alongside the financial action.
- The raids rest on NDPS Act cases for the drug crime and PMLA powers for the money trail; arrests and attachments are interim measures, not convictions.
What happened: 38 raids in one day
On Sunday, 25 October 2026, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that central agencies and the police forces of Assam, Mizoram and Manipur had carried out simultaneous raids at 38 locations across the three states on 23 October under an operation codenamed Operation Trident. The target, Shah said, was an international narcotics trafficking network operating across India, Myanmar and Bangladesh, a route he described as the "Death Triangle Corridor". In total, 18 people were arrested in the coordinated action.
The headline numbers Shah gave were striking. The raids uncovered hawala transactions worth Rs 100 crore, led to the freezing of 1,424 bank accounts, and resulted in the attachment of properties valued at Rs 17.82 crore. Agencies also seized 500 detonators and Rs 12 lakh in cash. Shah described the action as "another lethal blow" against drug cartels and repeated the government's stated goal of dismantling every drug network in India by 31 December 2029.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) gave a more detailed account of its own part in the operation. Its Aizawl and Imphal sub-zonal offices carried out searches in coordination with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Mizoram Police. The ED said it arrested six people under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 — three each in Mizoram and Manipur — and that applications for the formal arrest of four more people already in judicial custody in narcotics cases were being processed before the Special Court in Mizoram. The six ED arrests are part of, not in addition to, the overall figure of 18 arrests announced by the Home Minister, since the operation combined the ED, the NCB and state police action at the same 38 locations.
The money trail: accounts, property and hawala
What sets Operation Trident apart from a routine drug seizure is its focus on money. The ED's searches were conducted under Section 17 of the PMLA at premises in Aizawl, Champhai and Lawngtlai in Mizoram and Churachandpur in Manipur, in three money-laundering cases arising from the cross-border trafficking of heroin, brown sugar and methamphetamine tablets from Myanmar and the hawala settlement of the drug proceeds.
Hawala is an informal system of transferring value outside the formal banking network, typically through a chain of trusted intermediaries who settle accounts between themselves rather than moving money directly across borders. It is difficult to trace precisely because no single bank transfer connects the sender and the receiver, which is why investigators treat the freezing of bank accounts as a central weapon: once accounts are frozen, the network cannot easily pay suppliers, couriers or front businesses.
In this case the ED said it froze 1,424 bank accounts connected to narco-trade and narco-hawala operators in Mizoram and Manipur, and provisionally attached a five-storey commercial building, Hotel JTS at Zion Veng in Champhai, valued at Rs 17.82 crore. The ED said the property stands in the name of Lalliansanga, husband of alleged hawala operator Lalrampari. Together with Rs 8.19 crore secured earlier in frozen bank accounts, the agency said total assets secured in the cases now exceed Rs 26 crore. A provisional attachment under the PMLA is not a final confiscation: it preserves the property while the case proceeds, and its fate ultimately depends on adjudication and trial.
The seizure of 500 detonators alongside the cash and accounts is a further sign of how investigators view this network. Detonators have no role in moving drugs; their presence suggests a group equipped for violence and intimidation, and it underlines why the operation was planned as a joint action by financial investigators, narcotics officers and state police rather than by any single agency.
Why the Northeast route matters
India's Northeast sits at the junction of two major drug-producing and transit regions, and its long, porous borders make it a natural corridor. Myanmar is one of the world's largest producers of methamphetamine and opium-derived drugs, and consignments entering through Mizoram and Manipur can move onward through Assam and the rest of India, with some routes extending towards Bangladesh. That geography explains both the scale of the problem and the choice of a three-state operation: a network that operates across state and national borders cannot be dismantled by action in one state alone.
Reporting on the ministry's account of the operation says investigators believe the network was headed by a Myanmar-based trafficker wanted in more than ten drugs cases, who moved methamphetamine and heroin along a route running from Myanmar through Mizoram, Manipur, Assam and Tripura into the rest of India and on to Bangladesh. The ministry's account also says the Rs 100 crore hawala figure traces back to earlier stages of the investigation, which followed the arrest in August 2024 of the network's main money handler. That history matters because it shows Operation Trident was not a one-day raid built on a single tip: it was the visible peak of an investigation that had been following the money for more than two years.
For the states involved, the stakes go beyond crime statistics. Drug trafficking through the Northeast feeds addiction in local communities, corrupts local economies through large flows of illicit cash, and creates security risks along sensitive border areas. A crackdown that freezes accounts and attaches property aims at all three problems at once: it removes operators from the streets, cuts off the funds that keep the trade running, and signals to front businesses that handling drug money carries a financial cost.
The law behind the raids: NDPS and PMLA
Two laws frame Operation Trident, and understanding the difference between them explains why two kinds of action happened on the same day. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, is the law against drug trafficking itself: it criminalises the production, possession, sale and transport of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, with penalties that rise with the quantity involved. The ED said its investigations in these three cases began on the basis of first information reports (FIRs) under the NDPS Act, which provided the underlying criminal cases — known as predicate offences — for the money-laundering inquiry.
The PMLA, 2002, then deals with the proceeds of that crime. Once a predicate offence exists, the ED can investigate whether its proceeds were laundered, search premises under Section 17, arrest a person under Section 19 if it has reason to believe the person is guilty of money laundering, provisionally attach property, and ultimately seek confiscation. That two-step structure is why the same operation produced both drug-related arrests by the NCB and police and financial arrests, freezes and attachments by the ED. Neither step, on its own, tells the full story: the NDPS cases establish the crime, and the PMLA cases attack the profit that motivates it.
There is also an important limit to keep in mind. Arrests and provisional attachments are allegations and interim measures, not convictions. The accused are entitled to defend themselves, the attachment orders can be challenged, and the frozen accounts and attached property will only be finally dealt with after adjudication and trial. Readers should therefore treat the figures in this article as what the agencies say they found and secured, and watch for court outcomes before drawing final conclusions about any individual.
What it means, and what happens next
Operation Trident fits a shift that the government has described in its narcotics strategy for 2026 to 2029: away from measuring success mainly by the weight of drugs seized, and towards dismantling the networks and the money behind them. Freezing 1,424 accounts in a single coordinated action is a much stronger test of that strategy than a seizure alone, because it attacks the network's ability to operate after the raids end. If the accounts stay frozen and the attachment survives challenge, the network loses both its working capital and a valuable asset; if they are released, the operation's lasting effect will be much smaller.
Three things are worth watching next. First, the court proceedings: whether the six ED arrests lead to charges and remand, whether the four further production-for-arrest applications are granted, and whether the provisional attachment of the Champhai property is confirmed. Second, the follow-through in the other states on the route: the ministry's account describes a corridor running through Assam and Tripura as well as Mizoram and Manipur, so further action beyond the 38 locations of 23 October would show how far the investigation reaches. Third, the effect on the ground: whether drug availability and prices in the region change, and whether local police report a fall in trafficking cases, which are slower but more meaningful measures of success than a single day's headlines.
For now, the verified picture is this: a two-year investigation surfaced on 23 October as 38 simultaneous raids across three states, announced on 25 October with 18 arrests, 1,424 bank accounts frozen, Rs 100 crore in hawala transactions identified, Rs 17.82 crore in property attached and 500 detonators seized. It is a significant enforcement action, but its real significance will be decided in the courts and in the months of investigation that follow, not in the announcement alone.
Conclusion
Operation Trident shows how India's anti-drugs enforcement is increasingly fought on two fronts at once: on the streets, through raids and arrests, and in the financial system, through frozen accounts and attached property. The Northeast's position on a cross-border trafficking corridor makes it a natural focus for that approach, and the coordination between the ED, the NCB and three state police forces shows how a network that crosses borders must be met by agencies that cross jurisdictions too. The operation's numbers are impressive, but they are the beginning of a legal process, not its end — and the test of whether it truly dismantles a cartel will be what survives in court and what changes on the ground in the months ahead.