Wankhede abused his position as NCB officer in Aryan Khan drugs case: Enquiry

The irregularities found “are a wrong committed by the applicant (Wankhede) and his team which constitutes an abuse of his position as a zonal director.”

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had recently raided Sameer Wankhede who is accused of demanding ₹25 crore for not framing Aryan Khan in the Cordelia drugs case. The CBI also registered an FIR against him for corruption and alleged violation of the rules during the raids on the Cordelia cruise in October 2021.

Aryan Khan was arrested onboard the cruise and spent about a month in jail. He was later released after the Special Investigation Team (SIT) found that there was no evidence against him.

Sameer Wankhede has denied the SET findings and approached the Bombay High Court to quash the FIR against him. Sameer Wankhede has alleged that the NCB deputy director general (DDG), Gyaneshwar Singh, who is also the SET chief, was “acting as judge of his own cause and conduct”. Gyaneshwar Singh has said there was no biases in the inquiry.

The investigating agency said the assets to Sameer Wankhede were not proportionate to his known sources of income and he wasn’t able to justify the expenses that he made during his foreign visits. Sameer Wankhede, the CBI said, has been selling and purchasing expensive wristwatches with a private entity.

The SET report said Sameer Wankhede, “in a span of about 5 years from 2017-21 made six private foreign visits with family to the UK, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa and the Maldives spanning over 55 days of foreign stay with declared amount of ₹8.75 lakh only which barely can cover the cost of air travel.”

The air travels were also misreported by Sameer Wankhede, the SET said in the report.

The SET alleged that Sameer Wankhede and his friend Viral Jamaluddin Rajan “stayed in Taj Exotica Maldives Beach suits with their families and maid in July 2021 on credit basis/cash payments (about ₹7.5 lakh for Sameer’s family).”

“They paid the amount to the hotel only on 18-12-2021 through credit card of Viral when the SET started the inquiry and there is non-intimation/misreporting hence CCS conduct rule violation has been reported to his parent department for further action,” the report said.

The SET has also found that Sameer Wankhede purchased a Rolex Gold watch which was invoiced at ₹17.40 lakh. The watch originally costs ₹22.05 lakh.

“There are multiple invoices/quoted of Rolex watch. There is non-intimation/mis-reporting hence CCS Conduct Rule violation…,” the SET said. The “facts also emerged regarding mis-declarations of his foreign visits and his unexplained expenditure regarding expensive watches.”

“The inquiry revealed that Sameer Wankhede visited abroad several times on private trips and details of his previous visits have been mis-declared in the prescribed pro-forma. The stay during these trips is also not known,” it alleged.