The NCB probe revealed that the independent witness who allegedly asked for the Rs 25 crore, K P Gosavi, was made to seem like an NCB official, and that the team led by Sameer Wankhede allegedly dropped the name of 17 persons as suspects during the Cordelia raid.
Days after lodging a corruption case against five persons, including Sameer Wankhede for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 25 crore from the family of Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, and others, the Central Bureau of Investigation has summoned the former NCB officer for questioning on Thursday in Mumbai.
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An investigation by the special enquiry team (SET) of the Narcotics Control Bureau had revealed that an independent witness in the 2021 Cordelia cruise ship “drug bust” case allegedly demanded Rs 25 crore from Aryan Khan by threatening to falsely implicate him in the case.
The SET probe also revealed that the independent witness who allegedly asked for the Rs 25 crore, K P Gosavi, was made to seem like an NCB official, and that the team led by Wankhede allegedly dropped the name of 17 persons as suspects during the Cordelia raid.
On the basis of the investigation, the CBI filed an FIR against members of the NCB team, including its former zonal director Sameer Wankhede.
A 2008-batch IRS officer, Wankhede, who then headed the NCB Mumbai zone, had led a team of officers to raid the ship off the Mumbai coast on the night of October 2, 2021. The NCB had claimed to have seized 13 gm of cocaine, 5 gm of mephedrone, 21 gm of marijuana, 22 pills of MDMA and Rs 1.33 lakh cash in the raid, and arrested 17 people, including Aryan.
Aryan was released on bail by the Bombay High Court 26 days after the raid. Eventually, another NCB team, which investigated the matter, dropped his name from the chargesheet, citing insufficient evidence. Wankhede was later accused of “shoddy investigation”.
First published on: 17-05-2023 at 19:17 IST
