From Drone Networks to Extortion Rackets Worth ₹170 Crore — How Shadow Governments and Invisible Foreign Forces Are Bleeding India’s Northeast
By NIRENDRA DEV
New Delhi, March 18, 2026 — The National Investigation Agency’s arrest of seven foreign nationals — one American and six Ukrainians — has pulled back the curtain on a deepening conspiracy targeting India’s most strategically sensitive frontier. The arrests expose what security agencies describe as a calculated, externally aided effort to fuel ethnic conflict, sustain insurgent networks, and sabotage India’s long-term interests in the northeast.
Ukraine has since lodged a formal protest with New Delhi. Ambassador Oleksandr Polishchuk met External Affairs Ministry Secretary (West) Sibi George, demanding consular access to the six detained Ukrainian nationals and their immediate release — a move that has added a sharp diplomatic edge to what was already a complex security crisis.
Foreign Hands in the Misty Hills
The arrests are part of an ongoing NIA investigation into foreign involvement in ethnic conflicts and insurgent activities across northeast India. Security agencies say the pattern is deliberate: forces inimical to India understand that sustained violence and instability in Manipur — and spreading unrest in Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Mizoram — directly harm India’s strategic interests, both immediate and long-term.
The detention of the American national Matthew VanDyke from Kolkata is particularly significant. It signals that these networks are not confined to the hills of the northeast — they are active across India’s eastern corridor. The Mizoram-Myanmar axis, analysts say, is impossible to ignore.
At stake is nothing less than India’s ambitious Act East Policy — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship framework for deepening economic, cultural, and strategic ties with Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific. Multiple security agencies warn the policy’s foundations are being systematically undermined from within.
Shadow Governments and a Taxation Tyranny
Beyond the foreign interference lies an equally corrosive domestic challenge. In parts of Nagaland and Manipur, India’s constitutional authority runs headlong into the unyielding grip of insurgent parallel administrations.
More than 28 Naga groups are currently active in the region, including the dominant NSCN-IM and multiple NSCN factions operating across Nagaland and into Myanmar. According to sources closely tracking the situation, these groups function as de facto governments — complete with their own tax collection, enforcement, and quasi-judicial systems.
“Often they operate as de facto governments and think tanks, extracting taxes that strangle businesses, erode livelihoods, and mock the authority of law enforcing agencies and the politico-civil governments,” one well-placed source said.
The financial scale is staggering. Annual extortion collections for one particular Naga faction alone are estimated at ₹170 crore — funds that sustain cadres while crippling legitimate commerce. The source noted that Prime Minister Modi’s 2016 demonetisation had briefly exposed the cash-dependent nature of this racket, but the networks have since adapted.
As of March 2026, the source confirmed, the nexus “shows no signs of abating” and peace talks remain stalled. “The public outrage is simmering and everyone wants an early solution,” the source added.
Manipur: Three Years of Bleeding
The Kuki-Meitei clashes that erupted in 2023 have inflicted lasting damage — political, economic, and strategic. Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament on August 9, 2023, that “people crossing over from Myanmar” were responsible for triggering the crisis. But three years on, the situation has not stabilised.
The Kuki-Zo community now demands a separate homeland — either a Union Territory or a full state carved out of Manipur. Meanwhile, fresh violence has broken out between Kukis and Nagas within the state, adding a dangerous new layer to an already fractured situation.
Political opponents, including the Congress and Trinamool Congress, have sought to frame the conflict in religious terms — Hindu Meiteis versus Christian Kukis — a narrative that security analysts and neutral observers say is a deliberate distortion designed to deepen divisions and embarrass the BJP-led government.
The unrest has undeniably set back the considerable gains Manipur had made since 2017, when the BJP first came to power in the state. Prior to 2023, Manipur’s development trajectory was being held up as a model for the region.
Mizoram Cracks Down — But the Challenge Persists
In Mizoram, authorities have taken strong enforcement action. During 2025–26, the state’s Excise and Narcotics Department arrested and prosecuted 611 offenders, seized nearly 474 kilograms of contraband drugs, and destroyed illegal ganja plantations. The Mizoram Liquor (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2025, notified in October, has led to over 4,000 arrests for violations.
The enforcement drive reflects the scale of the challenge on India’s most porous frontier — a border with Myanmar that has long served as a conduit for drugs, arms, and now, apparently, foreign operatives.
The arrests of seven foreign nationals are a reminder that the games being played in India’s northeast are not local. The money, the drones, and the invisible hands — they come from further afield. And they are playing for keeps.
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