THE CBI has registered a corruption case against five persons, including former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer Sameer Wankhede, for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 25 crore from family members of those who had been arrested in the 2021 Cordelia cruise ship “drug bust” case, including actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan.
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”.
“We have registered an FIR against Sameer Wankhede, the then Zonal Director of NCB (Mumbai Zone Unit); Vishwa Vijay Singh, then Superintendent (NCB); Ashish Ranjan, then Intelligence Officer of Mumbai Zonal Unit (NCB); K P Gosavi and Sanvile D’Souza (alleged witness) and other unknown persons,” a CBI spokesperson said on Friday.
“It has been alleged that the three officials of NCB Mumbai Zone, in order to obtain undue advantage from the persons/others in the case no 94/2021…, earlier registered and investigated under the supervision of Wankhede, had entered into criminal conspiracy with others and allegedly obtained undue advantage in the form of bribes from the alleged accused….”
“It has also been alleged that the accused persons entered into conspiracy in order to extort an amount of around Rs 25 crore from the family members of the alleged accused… by threatening them of the accusation of offences of possession of narcotics substances as per the alleged directions of Wankhede being the supervisory officer. A token amount of Rs 50 lakh as bribe was allegedly obtained in furtherance of this conspiracy…,” the spokesperson said.
The CBI conducted searches on Friday at 29 locations across Mumbai, Delhi, Ranchi, Lucknow, Chennai and Guwahati, which led to recovery of incriminating material, sources said.
Wankhede and others were booked under Sections 7, 7A, and 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act and Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 388 (extortion by threat of accusation of an offence) of the Indian Penal Code, the CBI said.
When contacted by The Indian Express, Wankhede, who is currently posted in the office of Director General of Taxpayers’ Services (DGTS) in Chennai, refused to comment.
Last week, the NCB terminated the services of Vishwa Vijay Singh, who was also a member of the ship raid team, in connection with a separate case in which he was suspended in April 2022. Singh had also led a team of officers to Shah Rukh Khan’s residence Mannat in connection with the Cordelia probe.
The case against Wankhede and others was registered on the complaint from NCB, Delhi that had conducted an inquiry into the alleged wrongdoings of NCB officers in the Cordelia drugs bust case and other cases.
After the allegations of irregularities, including using witnesses with prior crime records, emerged against Wankhede and other officers, a NCB Special Investigation Team (SIT) carried out an internal inquiry.
The SIT, which last May dropped all charges against Aryan and five others in the Cordelia case, had recorded in an internal note that the probe team headed by Wankhede may have tried to “somehow implicate” Aryan.
The SIT’s internal report said: “It is strange to note that in spite of clear cut denial by Arbaaz (Merchant) – Khan’s friend from whom small amount of charas was seized – regarding involvement of Aryan in procurement or possession of drugs, the Investigating Officer started looking at WhatsApp chats of Aryan without even formally seizing his mobile phone. It appears the IO was motivated to somehow implicate Aryan Khan in the drug case.”
The NCB dropped Aryan and five others from its chargesheet on the basis of “lack of sufficient evidence” and “shortcomings” in the probe — from no video of searches, dodgy witnesses and improper seizure of phones to no medical test for those apprehended. NCB Director-General S N Pradhan had then told reporters, “There were shortcomings in the investigations. There was no corroborative physical evidence to support the allegations.”
The case had also triggered a long-running spat between then Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik and Wankhede over allegations that the NCB’s action was an alleged attempt at extortion — a charge that the latter denied.
Sources alleged that Wankhede was allowed a free hand to deal with his cases in the way he liked. His immediate superior in Mumbai, Deputy Director General Mutha Ashok Jain, proceeded on leave the day the raid was carried out. In fact, until the next day, even the NCB headquarters in Delhi was not aware of the evidence Wankhede’s team had collected.
Once it became clear that no drugs were found on Aryan and questions were raised on the investigation, a senior officer from Delhi was sent to Mumbai to supervise the case. But Wankhede continued to push the envelope, the sources alleged, giving the example of how an NCB team reached Shah Rukh’s bungalow on October 21, 2021 in an ostensible “raid”.
Sources said Wankhede had sought permission to search the actor’s premises, but was refused. “So he prepared summons for recovery of some documents from Mannat and sent a team inside to serve the same. The media had been informed beforehand about an impending ‘raid’. It was finally a call from Delhi that stopped the team from going inside Shah Rukh’s house,” an officer said.
Sameer Wankhede headed the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Mumbai zone during the Cordelia cruise drug bust case of 2021, which allegedly involved actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan along with 19 others. (File) 
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