Organised crime and terrorism

The first principle

An organised criminal wants money and a terrorist wants power, so in theory they are different creatures; in practice both need the same things, which are secret routes across borders, weapons, forged papers, laundered cash and officials who look away. Whoever controls those services can sell them to either, and so the two meet wherever the state is weak, especially on borders. Breaking the link means attacking the shared services, not only the groups.

The core

What organised crime is

• A definition in Indian law. Section 111 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), in force from 1 July 2024, defines organised crime for the first time in a national criminal law: continuing unlawful activity such as kidnapping, robbery, extortion, contract killing, land grabbing, economic offences, cyber crime, and trafficking in people, drugs or weapons, carried out by a group using violence, threats or coercion for material benefit. Section 112 covers petty organised crime and Section 113 defines a terrorist act. Before this, only some States had such laws, led by the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) 1999.
• The international frame. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) of 2000, with protocols on trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and firearms, is the global treaty; India ratified it in 2011.

How it links with terrorism

• The continuum. Tamara Makarenko's crime and terror continuum (2004) places groups on a line: at one end pure crime for profit, then alliances in which one sells a service to the other, then each using the other's methods, then convergence, where one group pursues both money and a cause, and at the other end pure terrorism.
• Why they meet. Terrorist groups need steady money once state sponsors are watched, and crime gives it; criminal networks gain protection and new markets from armed groups; and both prosper in the same places, such as poorly governed borders, conflict zones and big port cities.
• What flows between them. Drugs, arms, counterfeit currency and trafficked people are the four main trades, and the money moves through hawala and laundering, which the note on money laundering and terror financing covers.

Dimensions

• Security. Drug and arms money keeps militancy alive in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and the North East, and the same routes that carry heroin can carry weapons or men.
• Economic. Counterfeit currency undermines trust in money, smuggling cheats the revenue, and laundered profits distort land and gold markets.
• Social and health. Drug use has spread among the young in border States such as Punjab, Manipur and Mizoram, and addiction feeds petty crime and recruitment into the trade.
• Governance. Organised crime survives through corruption of police, customs and politicians, which weakens the rule of law far beyond the crime itself.
• International. India sits between the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan) and the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that Myanmar became the world's largest producer of opium in 2023 after the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2022.

In practice

Cases that teach

• The 1993 Bombay blasts. The serial blasts of March 1993 were carried out through a smuggling network, which landed explosives on the Raigad coast; the lesson was that a gang built for gold smuggling could become an instrument of terror, and the network's leader, Dawood Ibrahim, is on the United Nations sanctions list.
• Narco terror in Punjab. Heroin and arms dropped by drones from across the border in Punjab are tied by Indian agencies to groups based in Pakistan; the drug money funds militancy and the drugs damage a generation, so one route does two kinds of harm.
• The sea route. In September 2021 about 3,000 kg of heroin from Afghanistan was seized in containers at Mundra port in Gujarat, and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case because of a suspected terror funding link; in November 2024 the Coast Guard seized about six tonnes of methamphetamine from a boat off the Andaman Islands.
• The eastern route. Heroin and methamphetamine tablets from Myanmar enter through Manipur and Mizoram, and insurgent groups in the region have long taxed or protected this trade, as they have the flow of small arms.
• Trafficking into cyber crime. Indians lured by fake job offers were held in scam compounds near Myawaddy in Myanmar and forced to run online frauds, and in March 2025 the Government flew 549 of them home from Thailand; here human trafficking, cyber crime and armed groups that control the border area meet.

Laws, bodies and programmes

• Drugs. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act 1985, amended in 1989, 2001, 2014 and 2021, punishes drug offences by quantity and allows the death penalty for some repeat offences; the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), set up in 1986, coordinates enforcement; and the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in NDPS Act 1988 allows preventive detention of traffickers.
• Coordination. The Narco Coordination Centre (NCORD), set up in 2016 and strengthened into a four tier structure from district to national level, brings the Centre and States together; the MANAS helpline (1933), launched in 2024, lets citizens report drug trafficking; and the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan of the Ministry of Social Justice, launched in August 2020, works on the demand side.
• Counterfeit currency. A 2012 amendment to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) made producing, smuggling or circulating high quality counterfeit Indian currency a terrorist act, and the NIA runs a Terror Funding and Fake Currency cell.
• Arms and trafficking. The Arms Act 1959 was amended in 2019 to raise punishments for illegal manufacture and trafficking of firearms, and the NIA (Amendment) Act 2019 let the NIA investigate human trafficking, counterfeit currency and illegal arms manufacture and sale, besides terrorism. Human trafficking is punished under Section 143 of the BNS and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956, with Anti Human Trafficking Units in the districts.

Issues and way forward

• Many agencies, little sharing. The NCB, State police, customs, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the NIA, the Enforcement Directorate and the border forces each hold part of the picture; linking their databases through the National Intelligence Grid and NCORD, and running joint cases, is the remedy.
• Following the money is slow. Most cases end with couriers arrested and kingpins abroad, because tracing hawala and crypto payments takes skills few police forces have; financial investigation units in State police and use of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against drug proceeds would hit the business, not only its foot soldiers.
• New tools of crime. Drones, encrypted apps, the dark web and cryptocurrency let networks work without meeting; counter drone systems on the border and cyber forensic capacity in every State are needed.
• Demand at home. As long as there is a market for drugs in India, supply will find a way, so treatment, deaddiction centres and school programmes are part of security, not only of health.
• Weak conviction rates. Long trials, missing forensic evidence and threats to witnesses let organised criminals go free; witness protection, fast track courts and better forensic laboratories would raise convictions.
• Regional cooperation. Routes cross Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal, so intelligence sharing with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and the Gulf countries, and use of UNTOC for extradition and mutual legal assistance, are essential.

Common confusions

• Organised crime and terrorism. Organised crime seeks profit and wants the state weak but standing, while terrorism seeks political or ideological change and uses violence to frighten a wider audience; a group can move between the two.
• Golden Crescent and Golden Triangle. The Golden Crescent is Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan to India's west, and the Golden Triangle is Myanmar, Laos and Thailand to India's east, where the Ruak river meets the Mekong.
• Narco terrorism and drug trafficking. Drug trafficking is a crime for profit, while narco terrorism is the use of drug money, or of drugs themselves, by armed groups to fund or wage their campaign.
• NCB and NCORD. The NCB is an enforcement agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs, while NCORD is a coordination mechanism that brings Central and State agencies to one table.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: crime and terror continuum, narco terrorism, Golden Crescent, Golden Triangle, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Section 111, NDPS Act 1985, Narcotics Control Bureau, NCORD, counterfeit currency, hawala, drone drops, UNTOC, MCOCA, scam compounds, Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction with data: In September 2021 about 3,000 kg of heroin from Afghanistan was seized at Mundra port, and the NIA's takeover of the case showed how closely drug money and terror funding can be linked.
  • Introduction with a law: Section 111 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, in force from July 2024, defines organised crime in a national law for the first time, while Section 113 defines a terrorist act.
  • Conclusion: Organised crime and terrorism share routes, money and corrupt officials, so cutting those shared services through financial investigation, border technology and coordinated agencies weakens both at once.
  • Conclusion: India sits between the Golden Crescent and the Golden Triangle, so its fight against narco terror must combine tight borders and sea lanes with regional cooperation and serious work to cut demand at home.