The Northeast’s India, the country’s gateway to Southeast Asian countries, is evidently becoming a fast-moving emerging new transit route for ‘Methamphetamine Drugs’ (especially Yaba & WY), manufactured from an unknown Myanmar’s New Golden Triangle.
And it has now strongly speculated presence of highly organised, networked new drug syndicates operating in the region, with transit facilitated by a new route carved out in the hilly terrain of Manipur and the porous border of Mizoram that connects with some part of the Myanmar area.
In a recent report by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), in the FY 2024-25, it has caught drugs worth over Rs. 355 crores, including 231 kg methamphetamine tablets, 16 kg heroin, 1,375 kg ganja (cannabis), and 3.7 kg hydroponic weed, wherein 70 people were arrested and 32 vehicles involving 36 cases in the NE Region.
On 19th of Jan, the DRI seized 26 kg methamphetamine tablets smuggled into India through the Indo-Myanmar border in Mizoram. The consignment, worth 26 crores, was being transported in a specially built cavity in an Ashok Leyland truck. On 20th of Jan, the DRI seized 6 kg methamphetamine tablets, having a value of Rs. 6 crores, from a truck on the outskirts of Agartala, Tripura.
DRI has so far booked 36 cases of smuggling and trafficking of contraband drugs in the NE Region since April 2024 and arrested 70 persons, out of which seven are females.
Even with the tough stand taken to crack down against illicit drugs trafficking since 2018 by the Manipur Government, the inflow of drugs still continues, finding a new route from the porous Indo-Myanmar border.
On the 24th, the customs division Imphal destroyed drugs worth 20.62 crores, which includes 41.45 kg of methamphetamine. And on 25th Jan, the Manipur Govt incinerated 314.4 kg of drugs, including 10 kg heroin, at Shija Common Bio-Medical Waste treatment in Lamdeng.
Manipur CM said during the event that the government has been waging war against drugs. Since 2017, over 1,000 acres of poppy plantation in the hill areas have been destroyed, drugs seized amounting to Rs. 7,000 crores have been destroyed, and around 200 people have been convicted.
