The Income Tax department conducted country-wide searches on nearly 60 properties allegedly owned by former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and claimed to have found evidence of "unaccounted" money transactions during his tenure.

The searches, which began at 9:30 am, were carried out after the Enforcement Directorate registered a case against 38-year-old Koda for alleged money laundering and diversion of state funds.

"It appears there were unaccounted money transactions when Koda was mines minister during the Arjun Munda government and subsequently during (his) chief ministership," IT Director of Investigation Ujjwal Choudhary told reporters in Ranchi after raids on the premises of Koda and his alleged associates Sanjay Choudhary and Binod Sinha.

The Enforcement Directorate had registered the case on October 9 against Koda and three of his ministerial colleagues on charges of making huge illegal investments abroad, including purchase of mines as far as in Liberia. Koda was chief minister between February 2006 and August 2008.

The searches were being conducted by at least 70 teams comprising 400 IT sleuths and assisted by ED men on the properties located in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Lucknow, Nasik, Ranchi, Chaibasa and Jamshedpur, officials said.

The raids were launched on the basis of the IT's own intelligence inputs, Choudhary said.

Koda, who may also face arrest, is the first former chief minister and high-profile politician to have been booked under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Currently an independent member of the Lok Sabha, Koda held the mines portfolio twice in two governments led by Munda between 2003 and 2006. He shot into fame after he clinched a political coup with Congress support by becoming chief minister of the state in 2006 as an independent MLA.

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