Overview

• Tariro Mangwana, a Zimbabwe national, was arrested under Section 19 of the PMLA and remanded to Enforcement Directorate custody for three days by a Goa special court.
• The ED’s Panaji zonal office carried out coordinated searches on August 19 across Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
• Investigators seized digital devices, electronic storage media and documents, and froze multiple bank accounts allegedly used to launder drug proceeds.
• The case stems from a Goa Crime Branch FIR after a 4.3 kg cocaine haul in April concealed in wafer and coffee packets, which police valued at about Rs 43 crore and suspected was smuggled from Thailand.
• ED findings point to shell and benami conduits, layering of funds, foreign facilitators arranging travel for Indian ‘mules,’ and eight identified Indian nationals, of whom four have been arrested in India or abroad.