Aryan Khan drugs case: Sameer Wankhede's foreign visits, expensive watches under CBI scanner

A Narcotics Control Bureau's Special Enquiry Team (SET) had red-flagged alleged improper explanations and apparent misdeclaration of "the expenditure" given by then NCB Zonal Director Wankhede on his foreign visits.

Officials on Monday (May 15) said that foreign visits undertaken by former NCB officer Sameer Wankhede, who is booked by the CBI over an alleged Rs 25-crore bribe demand from Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's family to spare his son in a drugs case, will be under the scanner of the CBI. 

A Narcotics Control Bureau's Special Enquiry Team (SET) had red-flagged alleged improper explanations and apparent misdeclaration of "the expenditure" given by then NCB Zonal Director Wankhede on his foreign visits.

These findings were referred by the Centre to the CBI which had registered an FIR against the officer and four others on May 11.

"He has also not declared the source of his foreign visits properly. It was also found that Wankhede has indulged himself in sale and purchase of expensive wrist watches with a private entity, Viral Rajan, without intimating the department (present or parent)," the SET said in the findings which are now part of the FIR. 

On Monday, the details of FIR made public and showed that independent witness KP Gosavi and one Prabhakar Sail, now deceased, were included by the NCB in the Cordelia cruise ship drug raid on October 2, 2021, on the directions of Wankhede.

Gosavi in conspiracy with his aide Sanvile D'Souza and others had entered the conspiracy to "extort an amount" of Rs 25 crore from the family members of Aryan, son of Shah Rukh Khan, by "threatening them of the accusation of offences of possession of Narcotics substances".

In order to let him walk free, Gosavi and D'Souza negotiated the amount bringing it down to Rs 18 crore and even collected a token of Rs 50 lakh and returned a part of the amount later, the FIR alleged.

On October 3, 2021, Aryan Khan was formally arrested by the NCB after a raid on the Cordelia cruise ship and was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on October 28 after he had spent 25 days in jail. But his name was not included in the list of accused in the NCB charge sheet for a lack of evidence.

The SET in its findings, now part of the FIR, said Aryan Khan and other suspects in the Cordelia Ship drugs bust case were brought to the NCB office in Gosavi's private vehicle on October 2, 2021. 

Wankhede in the capacity of the immediate supervisory officer "had directed" to take Gosavi and Prabhakar Sail as the independent witness in the proceedings against the accused in the drug bust case, the FIR states.

He had directed then NCB Superintendent VV Singh to let Gosavi "handle the accused" while taking him to the NCB Office thereby "allowing a freehand" to him and others in order to create a visual impression that Gosavi had the custody of the accused, it says.     

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked 2008-batch IRS officer Wankhede and four others -- Vishwa Vijay Singh, Intelligence Officer Ashish Ranjan, and two private persons KP Gosavi and Sanvile D'Souza -- for alleged criminal conspiracy (120-B IPC), and threat of extortion (388 IPC) besides provisions pertaining to bribery under the Prevention of Corruption Act on a complaint from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

(With inputs from PTI)