ED searched 15 locations, seized ₹60 lakh cash, and traced ₹45 crore in assets tied to suppliers accused of selling adulterated ghee to TTD temples.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Hyderabad Zonal Office, identified investments worth more than ₹45 crore allegedly made from proceeds of crime during searches conducted on June 3, 2026, in the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams adulterated ghee case. The agency also seized ₹60 lakh in cash on the same day.
TTD is the Hindu religious trust that administers the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world. The trust procures large quantities of cow ghee for use in religious rituals, including the famous laddu prasadam. The underlying FIR alleges that suppliers delivered adulterated ghee to TTD, causing wrongful financial loss to the temple body. The ED opened its money-laundering investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of that FIR.
What the searches found
ED teams fanned out across 15 locations in eight cities: Ahilyanagar, Bikaner, Dehradun, Delhi, Dindigul, Guntur, Mumbai, and Roorkee. The searches covered residential and office premises of nine named accused: Pomil Jain, Vipin Jain, Raju Rajasekaran, Rajesh Mansukhlal Chavda, Apurva Vinaykanth Chavda, Machindra Shantaram Lanke, Ajay Kumar Sugandh, Mahesh Kumar Rohira, and Ashish Agarwal.
Investigators also searched dairy plants operated by three companies: A.R. Dairy Food Pvt. Ltd., Malganga Milk and Agro Products Pvt. Ltd., and Bhole Baba Organic Dairy Milk Pvt. Ltd. The ED says incriminating documents recovered from these premises point to the use of multiple business entities to conceal and layer proceeds of crime, a classic structuring pattern in PMLA cases.
Beyond the ₹60 lakh cash seizure, investigators mapped immovable properties held in the names of the accused and their family members. The ₹45 crore figure refers to the estimated value of those assets, not a final attachment order. Attachment proceedings under PMLA typically follow after the agency completes its asset-tracing work.
Why this matters for food integrity
Adulterated ghee is not a new problem in India. FSSAI's Food Safety and Standards (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Regulations define permissible limits for ghee, and the agency periodically publishes surveillance data showing adulteration with vegetable fat, animal body fat, and starch. What makes the TTD case different is scale and institutional trust: ghee supplied to a major temple body is consumed as prasadam by millions of pilgrims who have no realistic way to verify what they are eating.
The 2024 controversy began when TTD officials flagged quality concerns about ghee supplied by certain vendors. Laboratory tests reportedly detected animal fat in samples, a finding that caused widespread public outrage given the religious significance of the prasadam. The Andhra Pradesh government ordered a CBI inquiry at the time. The ED's PMLA action is a parallel financial investigation, not a replacement for the criminal case.
For the clean-label and food-safety community, the case illustrates a structural gap: India's institutional buyers, including government bodies and religious trusts, often rely on vendor self-declaration and periodic spot-testing rather than continuous third-party audits. When a vendor network is large and geographically dispersed (the accused here span cities from Bikaner to Dindigul), a single lab test at the point of delivery may not catch systematic substitution happening upstream at the dairy plant level.
FSSAI has not, as of this writing, issued a specific advisory or regulatory update directly tied to the TTD case. Whether the agency will tighten procurement audit requirements for institutional ghee buyers remains unclear.
What buyers and cooks should do
For households and small food businesses buying ghee, the TTD case is a reminder that brand name and price point are not reliable proxies for purity.
FSSAI's Food Safety Connect portal lets consumers check whether a manufacturer's licence is active. A valid FSSAI licence number on the pack is a minimum requirement, not a quality guarantee, but an absent or expired licence is an immediate red flag.
For ghee specifically, look for products that carry a third-party certification such as AGMARK (administered by the Directorate of Marketing and Inspection under the Ministry of Agriculture). AGMARK-certified ghee is tested for Reichert-Meissl value, Polenske value, and Baudouin test results, which together detect common adulterants including vegetable fat. The certification mark should include a grade (Special, General) and a licence number you can cross-check.
If you buy ghee from a local dairy or small producer, ask for a recent lab report. Accredited labs under NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) can run a standard ghee adulteration panel for a few hundred rupees. This is a reasonable ask for anyone buying in bulk for a restaurant, catering operation, or community kitchen.
For pilgrims and devotees: the TTD itself has stated it is tightening its vendor empanelment and testing protocols following the 2024 controversy. The trust's official communications are the most reliable source for updates on prasadam quality assurance. Claims circulating on social media about which brands were involved should be treated with caution until confirmed by the CBI charge sheet or ED attachment orders, neither of which has been made fully public yet.
The ED's investigation is ongoing. Further searches, arrests, or attachment orders may follow as the agency completes its asset-tracing work across the nine accused and the three dairy companies named so far.