CHENNAI: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has frozen eight immovable properties valued at approximately Rs 1.3 crore and seized a 100-gram gold bar in a sweeping investigation into the alleged misappropriation of sacred gold from Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.
The action came during coordinated search operations at 21 premises across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka on Tuesday. The seized gold bar was from the Chennai office of Smart Creations.
The raids, conducted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, aim to trace the 'Proceeds of Crime' from a well-planned conspiracy. The ED initiated the investigation based on Kerala Police FIRs that implicated senior officials of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB), former temple administrators, private sponsors, and jewellers.
Preliminary findings reveal that gold-clad sacred artefacts, including Dwarapalaka idol components, pedestals (peedams), and sanctum sanctorum door frames, were falsely recorded as copper plates in official records between 2019 and 2025., which allowed their unauthorised removal and transfer to private facilities - Smart Creations in Chennai and Roddam Jewellers in Karnataka - where they chemically extracted the gold under the guise of repair work.
The seized gold bar was from Smart Creations in Chennai. The frozen properties, linked to a prime accused, were secured under PMLA provisions to prevent the dissipation of illicit assets.
The officials recovered a large volume of evidence, including TDB records perpetuating the 'copper plates' misrepresentation, official correspondence, jewellers' invoices, and documents pointing to wider financial irregularities in temple offerings and rituals.
~ ED raid comes in the wake of the Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge, Kollam, authorising the central agency in early December to open an investigation against the suspects under various provisions of PMLA
~ Other than temple authorities and political leaders, the ED had raided the residence and office of Pankaj Bhandari, owner of Smart Creations, a metal works unit, at Ambattur in Chennai, and the private premises of Govardhan, a jeweller in Karnataka's Bellary
~ The fraud came to light in 2025 after an internal Vigilance inquiry found that the gold content in the panels had diminished significantly when they were returned to the temple after "refurbishment" at Smart Creations, owned by Bhandari
The SIT also booked Govardhan for profiting from the crime by receiving a portion of the gold removed from the original panels via a chemical process, and started an inquiry into whether he replicated the panels in a cheaper copper alloy and sold the originals to a wealthy collector