The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday raided 21 locations across Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in connection with the ongoing probe into the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple gold theft case and possible laundering of illicit proceeds from the misappropriation of gold-plated copper artefacts.

Sources said among the premises raided are the headquarters of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) in Thiruvananthapuram, the residence of former TDB president and CPM leader A. Padmakumar at Aranmula in Alappuzha and the premises linked to the main accused, Unnikrishnan Potti, in Bengaluru, besides several jewellers.

The searches were also conducted at the premises of Govardhan, the owner of Ballari’s Roddam Jewellers, who has been accused of buying gold from the Sabarimala temple. The special investigation team-crime branch, appointed by Kerala High Court, had earlier retrieved over 470gm of gold from his jewellery shop.

The gold theft case surfaced in 2019 amid allegations that gold plating from temple idols and structural components was removed and siphoned off during repair and re-gold plating works. An internal vigilance inquiry last year found that the gold content in the panels had diminished significantly when they were returned to the temple after “refurbishment”.