A special team of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), probing allegations of extortion in the drugs-on-cruise case in which Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan is one of the accused, left for Delhi on Saturday without recording the statement of witness Prabhakar Sail, who had raised serious charges against Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede and others, an official said.
With this, the anti-drugs agency has so far arrested 17 people in the case, including Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan, and some "high-profile organisers" belonging to a Delhi-based event management company.
Agency sleuths claimed he was arrested after they obtained some "vital leads" into the narcotics case registered against Rajput's live-partner Rhea Chakraborty and others.
The action has been taken on 'administrative grounds', and as these six have 'wider and inter-state ramifications', they have been transferred to the operations unit in Delhi, NCB Deputy Director General (north-west region) Mutha Ashok Jain told PTI.
Besides Aryan Khan, the arrested accused are identified as Munmun Dhamecha, Arbaaz Merchant, Ismeet Singh, Mohak Jaswal, Gomit Chopra, Nupur Sarika, and Vikrant Chhokar.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday said it has arrested Jaffer Sadiq, a Tamil Nadu-based alleged dealer of narcotics, in connection with an international drugs trafficking investigation case.
The ED will probe if money earned from the illicit narcotics trade was laundered to create movable and immovable assets by the accused. The investigation will run parallel to the NCB probe, the sources said.
The Enforcement Directorate made these claims in an official statement issued by the federal agency following its raids in this case at Chennai, Madurai and Tiruchirapalli on April 9.
There has been an "exponential" rise in the seizure of drugs in India in the last five years with the darknet and the maritime route emerging as the most preferred modes of trafficking, NCB director general S N Pradhan said on Tuesday.
The Bombay high court on Monday said no coercive steps shall be taken against IRS officer Sameer Wankhede till April 10 on notices issued to him on the NCB's preliminary inquiry over irregularities in a drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death.
Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre, has moved the Bombay High Court seeking protection from any coercive action by the anti-money laundering agency.
They said various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) have been pressed in the complaint filed by the federal anti-drugs agency on an official reference received from the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Religare Enterprises, a financial services firm, has disclosed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) turned down its application to appoint Rakesh Asthana as its whole-time director in May this year without citing any reasons. Asthana is a former top official of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In a notice to the stock exchanges, Religare said that while the company and Asthana were weighing the options of dealing with the letter of refusal by the RBI, it was also busy in preparing for the "herculean task" of making ready multiple applications to regulators.
In a sea-air coordinated operation, narcotics worth Rs 480 crore were seized from a Pakistani boat with six crew in the Arabian Sea near Porbandar by a multi-agency team led by the Indian Coast Guard, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.
Officials said Gaurav Arya, who runs a hotel in the coastal state, has been asked to depose before the central probe agency at its office in the Ballard Estate area of Mumbai on August 31.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday conducted searches at the premises of former Narcotics Control Bureau officer Sameer Wankhede after filing an FIR against him and four others for allegedly seeking Rs 25 crore bribe for not framing Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan in the drugs-on-cruise case, officials said.
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) zonal director Sameer Wankhede on Friday moved a petition before the Bombay high court seeking quashing of a first information report (FIR) filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly demanding Rs 25 crore bribe from superstar Shah Rukh Khan for not implicating his son Aryan Khan in the Cordelia cruise drug bust case.
Sameer Wankhede claimed that CBI officials took the phone of his wife Kranti Redkar in their possession.
'The decision to arrest Aryan Khan was a consensual decision, not a one-man command.'
The ICG and Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad apprehended the fishing boat in a joint operation in the high seas on Sunday afternoon, the coast guard said in a release in Ahmedabad.
Over 30,000 kg of drugs were incinerated in four locations across India on Saturday in the virtual presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The government has asked the finance ministry to take action against former Narcotics Control Bureau officer Sameer Wankhede for his alleged "shoddy work" while probing a 'drugs-on-cruise' case in which film star Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan was arrested last year, official sources said.
The narcotics substance worth Rs 775 crore in the international market was seized from a house belonging to key drug case accused Raji Haider Zaidi's sister in Muzaffarnagar on Sunday.
Seven people have been arrested after anti-narcotics sleuths and Haryana police busted a suspected Christmas-eve rave party being held at a farmhouse in Mewat district on the outskirts of Delhi.
Shah said there is a need to not only combat terrorism but also dismantle its entire ecosystem, and for this "we must work with the spirit of the whole of government and Team India".
Syed Firdaus Ashraf unravels the chronology of controversy in the Aryan Khan drug bust case.
Wankhede is facing the vigilance probe by NCB after an independent witness in the drugs-on-cruise case, in which Aryan Khan is one of the accused, claimed of overhearing a discussion of a Rs 25 crore pay-off, including Rs 8 crore for Sameer Wankhede.
Wankhede filed a petition and sought an urgent hearing, saying he feared arrest by police over allegations of extortion against him in the case related to alleged drug bust on a cruise ship involving actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan khan.
The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has asked Maharashtra's chief secretary and director general of police, Mumbai police commissioner and the Union home secretary to appear before it on January 31 for an in-person hearing on former Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director Sameer Wankhede's 'harassment' complaint.
The witness has been provided protection by the Mumbai police in the wake of revelations he made in his application.
The role of Rhea's brother Showik and his purported links with the people nabbed by the NCB are under the scanner of the agency and he and Rajput's manager Samuel Miranda are expected to be summoned for questioning soon, the officials said.
The trigger was a Delhi-based TV journalist, who is in Mumbai to cover the NCB probe, coming "in the frame" of the camera of another national news channel.
The Delhi High Court Wednesday asked a news company to "hold its hand" for the time being and not publish any information against a Delhi-based businessman in connection with a drugs case involving the son of a Bollywood actor.
The NCB claimed that the students were both addicts and suppliers of these drugs.
"Is there a rule of law or (a rule of) raids in Maharashtra? This is the question which comes to one's mind considering the record-break raids being conducted through Central investigating agencies," Raut wrote in the weekly column 'Rokhthok' in the Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' of which he is the executive editor.
The actress sought an interim order against the media till the time the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Mumbai, completes the investigation and files an appropriate report before the competent court.
Former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau Sameer Wankhede on Thursday filed an affidavit in a court in Maharashtra's Washim district, stating their family belongs to a Scheduled Caste community and has not embraced any other religion.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances