The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday raided the premises of RJD MLA Alok Kumar Mehta, a close aide to Lalu Prasad and his family, over alleged money laundering in a case related to a cooperative bank in Bihar’s Vaishali district.

The agency raided at least 20 residential and official premises in Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, related to Mehta and others.

Alok Kumar Mehta, 59, who represents the Ujiarpur Assembly seat, is considered close to RJD leaders Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. He is an engineering graduate and served as a Lok Sabha member from 2004 to 2009. He was an international observer in the 2008 US presidential elections.

ED sources said that the searches were being conducted simultaneously at nine places in Bihar, five in Calcutta, four in Uttar Pradesh and two in Delhi.

Mehta’s residence in Patna was one of the locations and he was present there when the central agency’s sleuths arrived early in the morning.

The ED had registered an ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report) on the basis of three Bihar Police FIRs against the cooperative bank and its office-bearers for alleged embezzlement of funds worth around₹100 crore.

Mehta’s father, Tulsi Das Mehta, had founded the cooperative bank in 1989 and obtained a license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate in 1996. The RJD MLA took over as the chairman in 1995 and served till 2012, when it came under scrutiny.

The RBI conducted a probe of the bank and alleged that the funds were diverted. It banned the bank’s operations in 2015.

Various members of the Mehta family also worked at senior positions in the bank. Loans were allegedly procured from the bank by using forged documents, and the role of the bank’s chairman, promoter, chief executive officer, and managing director came under investigation.

Sanjeev Mehta, a nephew of the RJD MLA, is the current chairman of the cooperative bank.

Janata Dal United (JDU) MLC and spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said: “The ED raids have brought shame on politics. RJD’s culture is of corruption. Lalu Prasad and Tejashwi Prasad Yadav are its icons. This is the misfortune of politics. What is more shameful is that the scam occurred at a bank in Vaishali, considered the birthplaceof democracy.”