NEW DELHI: Red flags were raised as early as 2024, when intelligence officials in Mizoram flagged a 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, India’s intelligence agencies said on Thursday. More than 20 suspected mercenaries are believed to have left Indian territory undetected after crossing in from Myanmar.
“At the time, the pattern was considered anomalous, and a probe was initiated. Eventually, the pattern pointed to a much larger picture,” said a senior official.
India’s premier anti-terror agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), is now probing what sources describe as a suspected foreign mercenary network with links to insurgent activity inside Myanmar.
Seven “unusual Western visitors” who were arrested had allegedly been moving through the Northeast, a region sharing a 1,643-kilometre unfenced border with Myanmar, either before or after entering conflict zones.
Seven foreign nationals, six Ukrainian citizens and one American, are currently in custody following coordinated operations by central security agencies, officials confirmed.
Matthew Aaron VanDyke, a US citizen and international security analyst, was detained at Kolkata Airport. He is the founder of Sons of Liberty International and a self-described veteran of the Libyan Revolution.
Six Ukrainian nationals, Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim and Kaminskyi Viktor, were detained at airports in Delhi and Lucknow.
Intelligence agencies have indicated that the arrested individuals were part of a wider network providing combat training, tactical support and drone warfare assistance to anti-junta armed formations inside Myanmar, including the People's Defence Force (PDF) and various Ethnic Armed Groups (EAGs).
Agency officials stated that between February and May 2024, approximately 1,240 foreign nationals passed through the Mizoram route, a pattern described as “anomalous” given the region’s typical tourism profile.
“At least four separate batches of foreign fighters may have trained insurgent groups before exiting through Indian cities. More than 20 suspected mercenaries are believed to have already left Indian territory undetected after crossing in from Myanmar,” the official said.
The agency also stated that two US nationals linked to Kuki-Chin networks, a broad ethnolinguistic and militant linkage spanning Northeast India (Manipur and Mizoram), Myanmar’s Chin State and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, are under scrutiny.
Investigators are tracking an alleged funding trail linking VanDyke to a network suspected of diverting charitable donations to finance rebel activities along the India–Myanmar border. “VanDyke is suspected of collecting funds from Christian organisations and faith-based groups abroad by presenting them as social and humanitarian aid,” officials said. Intelligence inputs suggest that a portion of those funds was redirected to armed groups operating in the border region.
Agencies are also examining whether VanDyke coordinated with another individual identified as Daniel Stephen Corney.
It is further suspected that the accused, through their associates, illegally imported large consignments of drones from Europe into Myanmar via India. Security agencies are investigating the alleged transfer of drones to EAGs in the neighbouring country.
VanDyke’s organisation, SOLI, provides free security consulting, training, supplies and other services to vulnerable populations to help them defend themselves against terrorists and insurgents. It is said to have facilitated “missions” in Ukraine, Venezuela, Philippines and Iraq.
Through “Operation Nineveh Rising”, SOLI reportedly aided the deployment of teams of US military veterans to train hundreds of Assyrians to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, according to its website.
NIA officials said the case is in its initial stages of investigation and declined to share further details. “The same will be shared at an appropriate time,” an NIA spokesperson said.