According to a CBI complaint against Sameer Wankhede, the former zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the actor Shahrukh Khan’s family was told that his son Aryan would be implicated in a drug case unless he paid 25 crores.
Accusations of corruption and criminal misbehavior have been leveled against Mr. Wankhede, who gained notoriety following the arrest of Aryan Khan and others in an alleged cocaine seizure on a cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai in October 2021 and demanded Rs 25 crore from Shahrukh Khan’s family, according to CBI.
The CBI has noted the officer’s international travels as well as the sale and purchase of pricey wristwatches in its FIR.
The FIR states that investigations into the accusations against Mr. Wankhede and Ashish Ranjan, a former intelligence officer with NCB, “could not sufficiently justify their acquired assets as per their declared income.” It continues by saying that Mr. Wankhede “had not adequately explained his foreign visits and had seemingly mis-declared the expenditure on his foreign travels.”
Other than Mr. Wankhede, the FIR cites four other defendants. These people include KP Gosavi and his assistant Sanvile D’Souza, as well as Vishwa Vijay Singh and Ashish Ranjan, who were then senior officers with the NCB.
Following Aryan Khan’s arrest, a witness in the drugs-on-cruise case named KP Gosavi took a selfie with him, raising concerns about how someone who wasn’t working for NCB was given access to the accused.
The CBI’s FIR notes that Gosavi “was allowed to be present in the company of accused persons and even allowed to come to the NCB office after the raid which is against the norms for an independent witness”. “In this manner, KP Gosavi took the freedom and clicked selfies and recorded the voice note of an accused,” it adds.
The FIR flags a conspiracy “to extort a sum of ₹ 25 crore from the family members of the alleged ‘accused’ Aryan Khan by threatening them of the accusation of offences of possession of Narcotics substances”. “This amount was finally settled for ₹ 18 crore. A token amount of ₹ 50 lakhs as bribe money was also taken by KP Gosavi and his aide Sanville D’Souza but later a part of this amount of ₹ 50 lakhs bribe money was returned back by them,” the FIR says.
Wankhede, the CBI has alleged, had asked Vishwa Vijay Singh, the superintendent of NCB, “to let KP Gosavi handle the accused while taking him to NCB office thereby allowing a freehand to KP Gosavi and others in order to create a visual impression of KP Gosavi having the custody of the accused and escorting/dragging him towards NCB Mumbai office”.
Many of these allegations were earlier made by former Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik, currently in jail on corruption charges, and Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the drugs-on-cruise case who died of a heart attack last year.
Wankhede was transferred to the Directorate General of Taxpayer Services in Chennai last year. Following the recent CBI raids at his home, he said he “was being punished for being a patriot”. “I am getting rewarded for being a patriot, yesterday 18 CBI officials raided my residence and searched it for more than 12 hours while my wife and children were present in the house. They found ₹ 23,000 and four property papers. These assets were acquired before I joined the service,” he said.
Aryan Khan was detained for 22 days after his arrest before the NCB dropped the accusations against him, citing a “lack of sufficient evidence”. A second investigation into the accusations against Wankhede and his staff was started in the midst of the tremendous controversy.
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