New Delhi/Aizawl, Jun 4: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday launched searches at multiple locations along the Myanmar international border in Mizoram as part of a money laundering probe against a cross-border Areca nut smuggling racket, officials said.
They said about nine locations of prominent local facilitators of the alleged smuggling network in the border town of Champhai are being raided.
The central agency is targeting a “highly organised” cross-border network involved in the “large-scale” smuggling of illegal Burmese supari (dry Areca nuts) into India, the officials said.
The accused being searched are charged with illegally bringing in Myanmar-origin Areca nuts via the Tiu River, storing them in local godowns and using “fraudulent” e-way bills and “forged” documents to pass them off as legitimate local purchases.
“This illicit pipeline facilitated the generation and systematic layering of hundreds of crores of rupees.
“The accused actively exploited their local tribal status to act as front claimants before Customs authorities, using unrelated historic import documents to secure the release of seized contraband,” as per the ED. (PTI)
