Sabarimala Gold Theft: ED Raids TDB Headquarters & 21 Locations in Multi-State Money Laundering Probe

It’s Tuesday, January 20, 2026, and if you thought the Sabarimala case was just a local police matter, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) just blew the lid off the “money trail.”¹

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Starting at dawn today, the ED launched coordinated raids at 21 locations across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka.² The thing is, this isn’t just about “missing gold”—it’s a massive money-laundering probe into what the High Court called an “organised pilferage” of sacred temple valuables.³ Or nothing. Let’s be real, raiding the headquarters of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) is a huge statement. Those too.

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The “Sabarimala Scrape”: Field Notes

It’s an ongoing situation where the “heist” was allegedly hidden in plain sight for years.

• The “Chemical” Extraction: The thing is, the ED’s preliminary probe found that sacred gold-clad artefacts were deliberately labeled as “copper plates” in official files so they could be sneaked out.⁴ They were sent to private facilities in Chennai and Karnataka where the gold was chemically “stripped off” and replaced with cheap acrylic-layered plating.

• The High Court “Pandora’s Box”: Just yesterday, the Kerala High Court saw a bombshell report from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC).⁵ The thing is, the scientific tests confirmed the 2019 “repairs” used low-quality gold, while the original 1998 gold (donated by Vijay Mallya) has vanished.

• Who’s Under the Scanner? The raids hit the homes of the “Big Three”: prime accused Unnikrishnan Potti, former TDB President A.⁶ Padmakumar, and former member N. Vasu. The thing is, even the current Chief Priest (Tantri Kandararu Rajeevaru) is named in the ED’s case, although they haven’t raided his house yet.

• The Ballari Link: Investigators found that a lot of the “melted” gold eventually ended up with a jeweller in Ballari, Karnataka. And here’s the kicker—the ED is looking into whether some of this money was funneled into benami real estate deals. Those too.

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Sabarimala Gold Case: Raid & Arrest Tracker (Jan 20, 2026)

And Here’s the Kicker…

The thing is, the ED is now looking at a potential “Antiquities Heist” too. Or nothing. There’s a theory that the old relics were worth 10 times their weight in gold on the international black market, and the “theft” was just a cover to swap them with modern replicas.¹³

It’s an ongoing situation where the Kerala government is under immense pressure. The thing is, the ED took over the case only after a Vigilance Court overruled the state’s objections.¹⁴ Now that the PMLA (Money Laundering) hammer has dropped, we might see some high-profile assets being attached in the next few days. Those too.

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End…

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