The Enforcement Directorate searched the Believers Church’s Kerala headquarters and many affiliated offices. Amidst claims that the families of the chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had smuggled money overseas through the Believers Church, the ED raid occurred.

The church’s headquarter is in Thiruvalla, a hospital run by its medical college, as well as Yohannan’s home where all the targets of simultaneous raids on offices and residences. During the raids, other documents pertaining to the religious institution’s financial operations were also seized. The Church’s spokesperson declined to comment and was unavailable to the media.

Following the revelation about the involvement of the Believers Church by Swapna Suresh, a Kerala gold smuggling case suspect, and her friend Shaj Kiran, the raid took place. Swapna claimed that Kiran had threatened to retract the claims she had made regarding the Vijayan family, the chief minister, and the gold smuggling case.

Kiran identified himself as a middleman for the church in a telephone conversation that Swapna produced to support her claim. In accordance with Section 164 of the CrPC, Swapna Suresh gave her statement regarding the case of gold smuggling to the Magistrate court last month. She claimed that Vijayan was involved and that he and his family were smuggling money to America via Yohannan and his church.

Kiran is one of the directors on the board of the Believers Church Hospital in Tiruvalla. According to Swapna, ADGP Vijay Sakhare spoke with Kiran for more than four hours in an effort to convince her to retract her criticism of Vijayan and his family.

Soon after their name came into the probe, both Kiran and his friend Ibrahim disappeared. Meanwhile, Swapna released an audio clip of their chat. After purportedly erasing significant evidence from his cell phone, Kiran reappeared.

According to allegations, the conversion mafia transferred money from various local sources and additional overseas donations totalling about Rs. 6,000 crores to Believers Church. Yohannan was charged with investing in the real estate sector using foreign donations.

According to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Act, the Believers Church’s financial operations at the time were deemed by the Income Tax Department to be the biggest scam in the country (FCRA).

The Income Tax division raided the church at 66 of its offices across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Delhi in November 2020. 15 crores of rupees in cash were confiscated by IT inspectors from several Believers Church locations. During that raid, possession certificates and title deeds for substantial parcels of land Yohannan had bought around India were seized.

The Deputy Director-General of Income Tax sent Yohannan notifications to appear before it and explain the transactions of such huge amounts and their use. Yohannan ordered the IT department to wait and stated that he could not travel from the Gospel For Asia (another US-based sect) headquarters in Texas, US. Nothing else was done after that.

The church and three NGOs connected to it were prohibited from receiving foreign funds by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2017, and their registrations under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Act were revoked as a result (FCRA).

Earlier, the 2000-acre Cheruvally Estate in Kerala that belonged to Yohannan was attached by the IT Department in March 2021. The region comprises the proposed location for another divisive project of the communist government in Kerala, which seeks to further disrupt the Sabarimala shrine’s traditions by building an airport nearby.

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