Myanmar to India: Northeast emerges as the new gold smuggling corridor

ON June 29, the Special trading operations aggroup (SOG) of the Guwahati constabulary Commissionerate and the Latasil constabulary post raided a rented house in the Kharghuli area of the city and recovered 37 kilograms of pure, 24-carat gold bars valued at approximately ₹55 crore. It was the largest single gold seizure ever made by the Assam police.The man arrested at the scene was not a local criminal, insurgent or a known border trader: Akshay Parsuram Bansode, 32, was a resident of Sangli district in Maharashtra.For nearly two months, Bansode had lived in Guwahati’s Gandhibasti area under a bizarre cover, posing as a physically disabled beggar on the city’s streets while allegedly moving highly valuable contraband through Guwahati.The seizure was not merely another major gold recovery. Police said the case could be linked to an international smuggling network with links extending up to Myanmar.New smuggling trends Recent investigations by the Assam police and successive Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) reports indicate that what was once primarily an air-smuggling network has increasingly shifted to land routes through Myanmar and India’s northeastern states.The trend is clear: the Northeast is increasingly emerging as the preferred land corridor for organised gold-smuggling syndicates that move foreign-origin bullion into India.Police said the largest single gold haul ever recorded in Latasil was not an isolated incident of border crime. Instead, they said, it represented a structurally sophisticated pipeline whose target markets are major Indian cities and whose preferred route has increasingly shifted towards the Northeast following tighter surveillance at international airports.After the Guwahati seizure, police said the syndicate might have moved gold from West Asia through Myanmar before smuggling it into India via the Northeast. From Guwahati, the consignments were allegedly meant for onward distribution to major metropolitan markets including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, officials said on June 30.Speaking on the operational updates of the case, the additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP), Guwahati, Viku L. Achumi on Sunday acknowledged the possibility of an expansive cross-border canvas of the racket.“We are thoroughly examining the backward linkages of this syndicate, which track all the way back to Myanmar, as well as the forward linkages that stretch right into many major Indian cities,” Achumi said, declining to share further operational details because of ongoing investigations.Also Read: ₹5 crore gold smuggling racket at Mumbai airport; seven arrested, including airport staffers">DRI busts ₹5 crore gold smuggling racket at Mumbai airport; seven arrested, including airport staffersFrom West Asia to the NE For decades, India’s illegal gold trade followed a blueprint. Mules or couriers flew directly from West Asian aviation hubs such as Dubai into major Indian international airports, concealing gold in checked baggage, electronic appliances or even inside their bodies.However, increased DRI surveillance and Customs field formations at international airports gradually made the air route a far riskier proposition.Faced with stringent airport checks, international syndicates engineered a major logistical shift, increasingly preferring a circuitous land route through neighbouring countries with porous borders instead of flying the gold directly into mainland India.According to the DRI’s Smuggling in India reports, this alternative pathway effectively transformed Myanmar into the primary transit corridor for illicit gold entering India.The agency says investigations have shown that much of the gold entering through Myanmar first reaches the China-Myanmar border before travelling through towns such as Muse, Mandalay and Kalewa. From there, it moves towards India through two principal corridors: Tamu-Moreh in Manipur and Tedim-Zokhawthar in Mizoram.Once inside India, the consignments are transported by road, rail and, in some cases, by air through the Northeast before being distributed to major markets across the country.The DRI described the Northeast as one of India’s most significant gold-smuggling corridors because of its long international borders, rugged terrain and multiple informal crossing points.Arms to Gold The agency also noted that many of the networks currently moving gold appear to have inherited routes once used for trafficking arms during the peak years of insurgency in the region.“As insurgency declined, the routes and carrier networks that had already been established gradually shifted towards transporting gold,” one of the DRI reports observed.India shares a 1,643-kilometre-long, heavily forested and largely inaccessible border with Myanmar across Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. The absence of continuous fencing along large stretches of this frontier provides smugglers with a significant operational advantage.Bansode case as the indicator The June seizure in Guwahati appears to fit that broader pattern. According to the Assam police, Bansode had been staying in a rented accommodation in Guwahati’s Gandhibasti area for nearly two months and was allegedly working only as a transit carrier.Guwahati East deputy commissioner of police Sambhavi Mishra on June 30 said he disguised himself as a physically disabled beggar while transporting the gold through the city to avoid attracting suspicion.Mishra added that during interrogation, Bansode admitted to having successfully moved three earlier consignments over the previous two months and was paid around ₹80,000 for each delivery.The case has also highlighted how carriers increasingly come from outside the Northeast while the region functions primarily as a transit zone rather than the final destination.That trend has surfaced repeatedly in recent investigations. On June 13, the DRI arrested 10 people in coordinated operations in Kolkata and Agartala after seizing nearly 17 kilograms of foreign-origin gold worth around ₹25 crore.While seven of those arrested were caught attempting to smuggle 11.6 kilograms of gold from Thailand through Kolkata airport, the remaining three were intercepted in Agartala, in coordination with the Railway Protection Force (RPF), while allegedly transporting around five kilograms of foreign-origin gold through the Tripura sector of the India-Bangladesh border.The India-Bangladesh frontier presents another challenge. Border security agencies have also detected specialised tunnels beneath stretches of the international border that have allegedly been used to move Swiss-origin gold bars and other contraband into India, primarily towards markets in West Bengal.Earlier, in March 2024, the DRI launched Operation Rising Sun, dismantling a major gold-smuggling syndicate operating out of Guwahati.The operation began with the seizure of 22.74 kilograms of gold in Assam before expanding into Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, eventually leading to the recovery of more than 61 kilograms of smuggled gold and the arrest of 12 people.Also Read: ₹4.8 crore haul">Operation Golden Drop: DRI busts airport gold-smuggling racket, seizes ₹4.8 crore haulThe Siliguri Corridor The DRI has also identified the Siliguri Corridor as one of the most critical links in the supply chain, describing the narrow stretch connecting the Northeast with mainland India as a major choke point through which smuggled gold moves towards markets elsewhere in the country.Despite being only around 20-22 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, the corridor remains the only land gateway connecting the Northeast with the rest of India, making it strategically important not only for trade but also for anti-smuggling operations.According to the Assam Police, the ultimate destinations are rarely the border states themselves. Instead, consignments are typically transported onwards to major trading hubs such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, where they are either sold directly or melted and integrated into the legal jewellery market, making their origins difficult to trace.Legitimate gold purchases through the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or authorised agencies require strict documentation, including PAN details, besides attracting customs duties and other taxes. Smuggled gold bypasses these regulatory requirements entirely, allowing syndicates to earn substantial profits.According to DRI field intelligence cited in its Smuggling in India report, syndicates earn an estimated net profit of around ₹4 lakh to ₹5 lakh on every kilogram of smuggled gold successfully integrated into the domestic market. For a consignment such as the 37 kilograms seized in Guwahati, the potential profit margin could exceed ₹1.5 crore.Police said that after the June 29 seizure, they also recovered re-moulded gold bars from Silchar, indicating that the town has also emerged as an important transit point because the highways connecting Manipur and Mizoram with Guwahati pass through it.Officials say consignments entering India through Moreh in Manipur or Zokhawthar in Mizoram often move by road towards Guwahati, with Silchar lying along one of the key road corridors linking both border states with Assam.The DRI also documented increasingly sophisticated concealment methods adopted by organised syndicates.Changing modus operandi According to DRI, instead of relying on a single carrier transporting a large quantity of gold, networks now frequently use multiple couriers carrying smaller consignments, specially modified vehicles fitted with hidden cavities, railway routes and informal financial channels such as hawala to reduce the risk of detection.The changing profile of carriers has also made detection more challenging. In the Guwahati case, police said Bansode deliberately adopted the appearance of a physically disabled beggar while transporting the gold through the city.Earlier investigations across the country have uncovered carriers ranging from tourists and families to foreign nationals and, in some airport cases, even insiders allegedly facilitating the movement of contraband.Officials say the Northeast is no longer viewed merely as a border entry point but as a carefully organised transit network where consignments are temporarily stored, repackaged and then dispatched to markets across the country through road, rail and air routes.The enforcement agencies acknowledge that every interception often represents only one link in a much larger international supply chain.Significance of the Guwahati seizure The Guwahati seizure is therefore significant not only because of the quantity of gold recovered but also because it has once again drawn attention to the evolving geography of gold smuggling into India.As the Assam police continue to examine the backward links towards Myanmar and the onward network within India, the investigation is expected to provide fresh insights into how international syndicates are adapting to tighter enforcement by shifting operations to the country’s porous land borders.For enforcement agencies, the June 29 seizure reinforces what successive DRI reports have indicated over the past few years: the Northeast has increasingly emerged as one of India’s most important transit corridors for organised gold smuggling.