Mizoram Police seizes crystal meth and heroin worth over 350 crores, how these drugs regularly come to India from Myanmar
In one of the biggest drug hauls in the Indian state of Mizoram, police have seized crystal methamphetamine and heroin worth around Rs 350 crore and arrested one person, a senior officer said on Sunday, 1st August.
Acting on a tip-off, a team comprising personnel of the Criminal Investigation Department (Special Branch) and the Special Narcotic police station in Aizawl conducted an operation near the state capital.
After a thorough search, officials recovered 20.304 kg of crystal meth, valued at approximately Rs 300 crore, and 1.652 kg of heroin in 128 soap cases, valued at approximately Rs 49.56 lakh. These drugs were concealed in a hidden compartment within a car. The driver, 45-year-old B Lalthazuala of Republic Mual Veng, Aizawl, was arrested and charged under several sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. Investigations are in progress.
This is not the first incident. Within a few weeks, another such big drug haul was seized in Zokhawthar village on 10th July, 2025. The local police had carried out a foot march in the region on the basis of a reliable tip and seized an abandoned green nylon bag near Kudamsen Kai. A 20-year-old Myanmar man, Lalnuntluanga, who now lives in Zokhawthar, was arrested near the location. He admitted to having smuggled the consignment from Khawmawi, Myanmar.
Within the sack, police seized 20 bricks of heroin, each carefully wrapped in clear polythene and sealed with yellow sticky tape, brown paper, and aluminium foil. Each of the bricks had the stamp of “DOUBLE UOGLOBE BRAND,” which historically represents ultra-pure (99.9%) heroin in the Asia-Pacific market. The aggregate weight of the recovered heroin was 7.422 kilograms, valued at over Rs 2.22 crore in the streets.
After his confession, four individuals were arrested, namely three Zokhawthar residents and one from Aizawl. The operation was the biggest-ever heroin seizure by Mizoram Police in terms of purity and amount. A case has been registered formally under the NDPS Act as well as the Foreigners Act.
Meth tablets worth over 9 crores seized by DRI
Adding to this increasing alarm, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) confiscated 9.72 kg of methamphetamine tablets from a Mahindra XUV500 on 30th May, 2025. The seizure was made near Seling on the Aizawl-Champhai road (NH-6). The drug was concealed in an ingenious cavity at the back of the rear seat of the vehicle.
The tablets are valued at Rs 9.72 crore in the global market. One individual was apprehended on the spot. During investigations, it was found that the consignment was smuggled into Mizoram from Myanmar through the Zokhawthar border. Since January 2025, DRI has seized more than Rs 72 crore worth of meth and heroin from Mizoram and made seven arrests about these seizures.
Myanmar: The primary portal to India’s drug trafficking route
These instances highlight a more expansive, more concerning trend. Myanmar has turned into a leading gateway for drug smuggling into northeast India. Mizoram, which also shares an open 500 km-long border with Myanmar, is now a key path for smuggling yaba tablets (methamphetamine), heroin, and other synthetic drugs.
According to a report by The Economic Times, some NGOs in Mizoram have expressed alarm at the increasing control of drug syndicates that move drugs through the Myanmar border.
Drugs recovered in two months of 2020 were worth more than USD 136,000. Security experts noted that the Shan state in Myanmar, part of the notorious Golden Triangle (where the borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand converge), contains so-called makeshift labs churning out billions of meth tablets every year.
India has also seen a remarkable spike in amphetamine-type stimulant (ATS) seizures, 431 kg in 2018 to more than 2.2 tons in 2019, as per a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
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