NEW DELHI: International illicit drug syndicates operating out of the Golden Triangle of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos have turned to age-old barter trade, under which drugs like heroin and methamphetamine are smuggled into India through the porous borders of Northeastern states and payments are made in kind through supplies of petrol, diesel, flour, edible oil, groceries, medicines, footwear and clothing from their Indian network.Drug lords across border ensure transactions are made without any money actually crossing border, according to an investigation report compiled by the ED after week-long searches at 38 locations across the Northeast last week.Myanmar has already replaced Afghanistan as world’s largest illicit opium-producing region. With precursor chemicals moved from India to Myanmar, where drug manufacturing units are located, finished heroin, brown sugar and synthetic drug methamphetamine tablets are produced and carried across the Tiau river at Zokhawthar, the border crossing opposite Khawmawi in Myanmar. Consignments are staged at Champhai, from where they travel down the Champhai-Aizawl road and NH-06A to Aizawl, Vairengte and then to Assam and the rest of India, the ED report said.ED has traced intermediaries who procured and supplied goods to syndicates in Myanmar. Over 1,400 mule bank accounts, mostly belonging to traders who procured these goods and supplied them to the network, have been frozen. Transactions involving goods worth over Rs 270 crore have been identified so far and six persons arrested. These transactions were handled by illicit money exchangers, or hawala networks, in Champhai, including Rs 125 crore in cash received from Assam, Nagaland, WB, Tripura & Delhi, ED said.Significantly, drug money reaching hawala accounts in Aizawl and Champhai came substantially from Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, ED added. Illegal money is converted into ordinary, commercially marketable goods, which are sent to border towns of Mizoram and onward to Myanmar.
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“The banking system is thus used only for Indian leg of the transaction, where the payment looks like an ordinary trade payment backed by a GST invoice. The cross-border leg moves as goods and leaves no money trail. In effect, fuel, flour and groceries have become currency in which Myanmar-based drug suppliers are paid,” ED said.The probe is in progress to identify consignees in border towns, those who move goods across border, Myanmar-based recipients, petrol pumps, shops and suppliers paid in the same manner, and money exchangers directing the accounts. ED is also tracing and attaching further proceeds of crime as it works to dismantle the financial networks sustaining narcotics trafficking.
