Operation Trident: 18 held, 1,424 accounts frozen in Assam, Mizoram, Manipur drug crackdown

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday that a multi-agency anti-narcotics operation carried out two days earlier had broken up an international drug trafficking network operating across India's north-eastern border States, leading to the arrest of 18 people.

The operation, code-named Trident, was conducted on Friday, 23 October 2026, at 38 locations spread across Assam, Mizoram and Manipur, according to the Home Minister's statement. Central agencies and the police forces of the three States took part.

As per the figures released by the government, the operation uncovered hawala transactions worth ₹100 crore, led to the freezing of 1,424 bank accounts and the attachment of properties valued at ₹17.82 crore. Officials also reported the seizure of 500 detonators and ₹12 lakh in cash.

In a post on X, Mr. Shah said the network trafficked narcotics across the borders of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh through a route he described as the "Death Triangle Corridor". He said the operation "attests to India's Himalayan resolve to realise the mission of eradicating every drug network by 31 December 2029", a deadline the government has set for its anti-drug campaign.

Congratulating the teams involved, he said the country would keep up the campaign "until the last nail is driven into the coffin of drug cartels", and thanked the central agencies and the police forces of Assam, Mizoram and Manipur.

The three States lie along or close to India's borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh, a region that anti-narcotics agencies have long identified as a transit route for heroin and methamphetamine produced in the Golden Triangle, the area where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. Officials have periodically linked the flow of drugs through the north-east to the disruption of border trade and local administration in Myanmar after the military takeover there in 2021.

The Home Minister's statement did not disclose the quantity of narcotics seized, the identities of those arrested, or the specific charges filed against them. It was not immediately known whether those arrested have been remanded to custody or whether further arrests are expected. The figures released so far come from the government's account of the operation; independent verification was not immediately available, and it is for the courts to determine guilt in individual cases.

Indian law provides a framework for action of this kind. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, allows authorities to freeze and forfeit assets believed to be proceeds of drug trafficking, while the Prevention of Money Laundering Act is routinely invoked in such investigations. Hawala transactions — the transfer of money outside formal banking channels — are dealt with under the Foreign Exchange Management Act and the money laundering law.

Large, coordinated seizures across State borders have become more common in recent years as central agencies and State police forces conduct joint operations. The north-east, with its porous and difficult terrain, has been a particular focus of the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Assam Rifles, which patrols stretches of the Myanmar border.

The government's stated goal of a drug-free India by 2029 covers both enforcement and de-addiction efforts, with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment running rehabilitation programmes alongside the crackdowns. Experts have noted that sustained results depend as much on treatment infrastructure and alternative livelihoods in trafficking-prone districts as on seizures and arrests.