The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has frozen 1,424 bank accounts linked to narco-trade and narco-hawala operators in Mizoram and Manipur, under a joint push called Operation Trident, involving the ED, the Narcotics Control Bureau and state police. The action took place on October 23, with ED searches run under Section 17 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, at multiple premises in Aizawl, Champhai and Lawngtlai in Mizoram and Churachandpur in Manipur. ED arrested six people and provisionally attached property worth Rs 17.82 crore. It also said it had earlier secured assets worth Rs 8.19 crore, taking the total secured to over Rs 26 crore. ED’s case relates to money laundering tied to cross-border trafficking of heroin, brown sugar and methamphetamine tablets from Myanmar, and the hawala settlement of proceeds. The ED said it used three money-laundering cases registered on FIRs under the NDPS Act. An Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) was filed after 4.722 kg of heroin, seized as 440 soap cases by Zokhawthar Police in Champhai on March 14, 2025, was carried from Zokhawthar to Aizawl for a Myanmar-based supplier. Another ECIR followed after NCB, Agartala seized 49.101 kg of methamphetamine tablets and 40 grams of heroin from a convoy on NH-06A near Seling in Mizoram on August 21, 2025. A third ECIR was triggered by a seizure in Manipur on July 2, when Churachandpur Police recovered 2.413 kg of brown sugar and cash of Rs 31.43 lakh, described as sale proceeds collected in Manipur for remittance to Myanmar-based suppliers. ED said its probe points to an interconnected narco-hawala ecosystem, where drug money generated across Manipur, Mizoram, Assam and Tripura is routed through bank accounts in Champhai, Aizawl and Lawngtlai, then settled with suppliers in Myanmar. In parallel, NCB and state forces carried out action at 38 locations in Assam, Mizoram and Manipur the same day. Six people were arrested under Section 19 of the PMLA during the searches, three from Mizoram and three from Manipur. The ED said production-for-arrest applications against four more accused in judicial custody in narcotics cases are being processed before the Special Court in Mizoram.