Shan Labs to India’s Northeast: The New Golden Triangle Threat

Examining Links Between Organised Crime and Weak Borderland Governance

Myanmar's 2021 coup continues to destabilize Southeast Asian borderlands, driving explosive growth in synthetic drug production. State collapse in frontier areas has enabled industrial-scale overproduction, reflected in record seizures along the Thai–Laos border. The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that a staggering 236 tons of methamphetamine were seized in East and Southeast Asia in 2024 alone. 

Myanmar’s Shan state remains the “epicentre of synthetic drug production.” Last month, Myanmar's junta raided three record-sized jungle laboratories in Shan–village sized, with living spaces and supporting infrastructure. The state has increasingly taken on the characteristics of a war economy, where illicit narcotics fund Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) such as the United Wa State Army and Kachin Independence Army. 

Low-intensity conflict and weak borderland governance have combined to regionalise this crisis, with spillover effects that now pose a national security concern for India, particularly in Northeast states such as Mizoram. 

Mechanisms of Hyper-Productive Criminal Borderlands

Three mechanisms explain how Myanmar’s borderlands have evolved into hyper-productive criminal spaces.

First, political collapse erodes territorial control. The coup dismantled what little civilian oversight remained, producing fragmented sovereignty across Shan, Kachin, and Karen areas. The resulting humanitarian crises have pushed resistance movements toward sustained armed struggle. These low-intensity conflicts generate political vacuums, which are filled by armed groups, militias, and traffickers requiring continuous revenue streams to sustain operations. Over time, illicit economies become embedded within formal governance structures, blurring lines between licit and illicit economies.

Secondly, corruption pipelines connect the heartland to the peripheries. Corruption explains how even though on paper Myanmar’s policies on organized crime seem robust, the situation only seems to get worse. The state’s reliance on coercion creates a dual reality in which drug trafficking is publicly condemned while informal networks and private policing enable its continuation for elite benefit.

Finally, illicit markets converge. Post-coup Myanmar reveals not just a drugs–conflict nexus but a broader criminal ecosystem in which narcotics intersect with human trafficking, money laundering, and cyber-enabled fraud.

As Alex Schmid, former Officer-in-Charge of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the UNODC, has cautioned, the challenge lies less in cartel–terrorist fusion than in the in-house expansion of organised crime by armed groups themselves. In Myanmar’s borderlands, this logic now extends beyond drugs.

Spillovers into India’s Northeast

Spillovers of organized criminal activity into Northeast India underscore the broader implications of Myanmar’s collapse for stability of a critical region touted as India’s gateway to the Indo-Pacific. States such as Manipur and Mizoram, which have histories of ethnic tension and insurgency, face surging meth inflows. Drug revenues have the possibility of being embedded into local conflict economies, reproducing the same economic nexus observed in Shan and Kachin States. Chinese syndicates, Rohingya-linked cartels, and Myanmar EAOs exploit porous borders to flood the region with Yaba ("crazy pill") and crystal meth, integrating the region into an expanded "New Golden Triangle" criminal economy also spanning Bangladesh.

Policy Implications

Targeted investment into border administration, civilian policing and judicial presence in Shan, Karen and Northeast Indian frontier zones is critical. These areas must be treated  as governance deficits rather than security outposts. Precursor chemical control must be the centrepiece of regional cooperation. UNODC estimates suggest that Myanmar likely required up to 98,000 litres of acetic anhydride but a mere 40 litres were seized nationwide. Criminal innovation flourishes where regulatory regimes fail to keep pace with evolving chemical supply chains.

Dismantling of corruption pipelines remains equally crucial, since insurgent groups and EAOs engage most frequently in environments characterized by weak oversight and endemic corruption. 

These interventions must be overseen by an independent  investigative judicial body. A regional tribunal tasked with monitoring chemical controls, alongside regional multi-party narcotics policies would allow for a more durable approach. However, such a body cannot function without fast, predictable legal cooperation. Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties are essential for converting judicial authority into operational outcomes, particularly in transnational crime cases where evidence and assets lie across borders. Empirical studies show that MLATs are most effective against organised crime when embedded into an institutionalised regional framework. These lessons may be combined into a Southeast Asian Border Crimes Tribunal, where non compliance would draw material, legal, and reputational costs. The strategic payoff lies in norm internalisation, harmonised investigative standards, asset-forfeiture laws, and evidentiary regulations. Tribunals constituted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter would carry binding authority across member states, enabling enforcement rather than voluntary compliance.

The situation in Myanmar necessitates a shift borderland governance from ad hoc security to obligatory frameworks.

Siddhant is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a B.A. (Hons.) in Global Affairs at the Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University. His research interests centre on Southeast Asian studies, international law, maritime geopolitics, and security. He was enrolled in the Closed Door Young Scholars Programme 2025-26.

The views expressed above belong to the author(s).