Probe flags irregularities by Wankhede’s team, loopholes in drugs-on-cruise case
MUMBAI: The vigilance department of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has found irregularities in the Cordelia cruise ship drug bust probe led by former zonal head of the bureau Sameer Wankhede in October last year, in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan (24) was arrested along with 19 others, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Deputy director general Gyaneshwar Singh, chief vigilance officer of the bureau, said a 3,000-page internal vigilance report “has been submitted to NCB director general Satya Narayan Pradhan”. He, however, refused to divulge details of the inquiry or its conclusions.
A senior bureau official, asking not to be named, said the report has “recommended
departmental action against at least seven NCB officials”.
A second official said the vigilance department’s report was compiled after recording the statements of around 65 people, including Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani. The report found several procedural lapses in the drug bust investigation as well as other cases probed by Wankhede, who headed the Mumbai zonal office of the agency.
The raid on the Cordelia cruise ship was conducted on October 2, 2021. Aryan spent 28 days in jail before he was given bail by the Bombay high court.
In May, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Wankhede’s parent cadre, transferred him to the office of director general of taxpayers’ services in Chennai.
A special investigation team under NCB’S then DDG, Sanjay Kumar Singh, reinvestigated the case and initial arrests made by Wankhede’s team after allegations surfaced that attempts were made to extort money from Aryan. The SIT said it found that the Mumbai NCB team’s action had many “grave irregularities” and that they were allegedly just trying to “implicate” Aryan.
In an exclusive report in March, HT reported that contrary to the allegations of NCB’S Mumbai unit, some of the key findings of the SIT included that Aryan was never in possession of drugs. Hence, there was no need to take his phone and check his chats. The chats did not suggest Khan was part of any international syndicate.
The raid on the yacht was not video-recorded, as mandated, and the drugs recovered from multiple accused in the case were shown as single recovery.
On October 2, Wankhede led a team of officers and some witnesses to raid the cruise ship at International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate in Mumbai. It seized 13 grams of cocaine, five grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of marijuana, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), and ₹1.33 lakh in cash from the vessel.
Seven months after arresting 20 people, the NCB exonerated Aryan Khan and five others and charged 14 people in case.