NIA gets custody of 7 amid security alert

The arrest of seven foreigners by the NIA has unraveled that intelligence agencies had red-flagged as early as 2024 a noticeable surge in “unusual Western visitors” with no apparent tourism purpose moving through a region already on high alert due to escalating violence across the border. 

It has also come to light that 20 suspected mercenaries have allegedly left India undetected after crossing in from Myanmar. 

The rather unusual presence of foreigners in the last few years is now firming up into a pattern indicating a much larger picture with the latest arrests, sources said here on Thursday.

Investigators also point to a suspected foreign mercenary network with links with insurgent activity inside Myanmar.  The NIA, is now probing what sources describe as a suspected foreign mercenary network with links to insurgent activity inside Myanmar. Officials also stated that two US nationals linked to Kuki-Chin networks — a broad ethnolinguistic and militant connection spanning Northeast India (Manipur/Mizoram), Myanmar’s Chin State and the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh — are separately under scanner. The agencies are tracking an alleged funding trail linking VanDyke, the American national in custody, to a network suspected of diverting charitable donations to finance rebel activities along the India-Myanmar border.

Investigators said they have sent the mobile phones of seven arrested foreigners, including a self-styled US mercenary, for data extraction to unearth a larger conspiracy of using Indian ethnic groups to hamper national security. Besides, social media accounts of the accused, six of them Ukrainian nationals, are also being scanned to find out the source of funding, mastermind of the conspiracy and their unknown accomplices, sources said.

According to an FIR filed by the NIA, 14 Ukrainians had entered India on tourist visa on separate dates and flew to Guwahati (Assam) and then to Mizoram without the requisite Restricted Area Permit (RAP)/ Protected Area Permit (PAP).

The group then entered Myanmar “illegally” to conduct a pre-scheduled training for Myanmar-based Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs), known to support terrorist organisations operating in India in the domain of drone warfare and jamming technology, it said.

“These EAGs are also known to be supporting some proscribed Indian insurgent groups by way of supplying weapons and other terrorist hardware and training them, thus affecting national security and the interests of India,” the FIR stated.

The seven arrested include Matthew Aaron VanDyke, a US citizen and international security analyst, who was detained at Kolkata airport. He is the founder of ‘Sons of Liberty International (SOLI)’ and a self-described veteran of the ‘Libyan Revolution’.

Six Ukrainian nationals, identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor, were first detained from Delhi and Lucknow airports. All of them have been charged for engaging in unlawful activities for allegedly helping armed militia in Myanmar, which work closely with anti-India insurgent groups, the officials said.

VanDyke’s organisation SOLI, provides free security consulting, training, supplies, and other services to vulnerable populations to enable them to defend themselves against terrorists and insurgents. It is said to have facilitated “missions” in Ukraine, Venezuela, the Philippines and Iraq.

Through ‘Operation Nineveh Rising’, SOLI aided the deployment of teams of US military veterans to train hundreds of Assyrians (ethnic community) to defeat the terror outfit Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on the battlefield, according to its website.

Security agencies have now sent seized mobile phones of these seven accused persons to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a specialised cyber security agency, for data extraction and its analysis, the officials said, quoting the FIR.

“It is very important to analyse the data of their mobile phones to unearth the conspiracy which was being hatched by the accused persons to use local ethnic groups of India to hamper the national security of India,” the FIR said.

Furthering its probe, the security agencies are questioning the accused about the route they opted by them and to apprehend close unknown associates, who are still at large.  The agencies are also looking at the accused’s social media activities to identify their unknown accomplices, the officials said.  The accused are also alleged to have imported huge consignments of drones from Europe to Myanmar through India for use of the EAGs, they said, adding that the source of their funding and “mastermind” were also being ascertained.