Cruise drugs case: NCB vigilance team reaches Mumbai; visits Lower Parel hotel

The Narcotics Control Bureaus NCB Delhi vigilance team probing the payoff allegations in the Cordelia cruise drugs case in which actor Shah Rukh Khans son Aryan Khan is an accused arrived here on MondayThe team visited a spot outside the Indiana Hotel in Lower Parel area where Shah Rukh Khans manager Pooja Dadlani and NCBs witness K P Gosavi had allegedly metThe team members also visited the Mumbai cruise terminal where the Cordelia cruise ship on which the party was organised on October 2 is dockedThe fourfive member team led by NCBs Deputy Director General northern region Gyaneshwar Singh is also likely to visit a few other places and will also record the statement of Prabhakar Sail an independent witness in the caseAlso Read Rs 18crore deal to release Aryan fell apart because of Gosavis selfie Witness in cruise ship drugs caseThe NCB on Sunday issued summons to Sail who claims to be the bodyguard of GosaviSail had last month claimed in an affidavit that he had heard Gosavi discussing a Rs 25 crore payoff deal after Aryan Khan was arrested by the NCB He claimed that Gosavi had said Rs 8 crore of the deal money was to be given to NCBs Mumbai zonal director Sameer WankhedeSails allegations had prompted the NCB to order a vigilance inquiry against NCB officials and othersWankhede had denied the allegations against himAnother person named Sam DSouza whose name had cropped up in connection with the allegations of payoff in the case in his prearrest bail plea filed before the Bombay High Court last week claimed that Gosavi had taken Rs 50 lakh from Pooja Dadlani to get Aryan Khan releasedThe amount was returned after the NCB arrested Aryan Khan in the case on October 3 DSouza had saidThere were allegations of corruption and extortion against an NCB official and others including himself and a deal of Rs 18 crore was struck for the release of a prominent accused Aryan Khan he had said in his pleaDSouza had also said he contacted Dadlani through a mutual friend and met her in Lower Parel area along with GosaviThis is the second visit of the NCBs Delhi vigilance team to MumbaiLast month the vigilance team headed by Gyaneshwar Singh had come to Mumbai to probe the allegations of extortion but failed to record Sails statement Singh is also the chief vigilance officer CVO of the federal antinarcotics agencyBefore leaving for Delhi the team had recorded statements of eight persons including Wankhede and collected some important documents and recordings related to the cruise drugs case an official had saidOn Sunday the NCBs Delhi SIT questioned Arbaaz Merchant and Achit Kumar in connection with the drugsoncruise case for over nine hours an official earlier saidThe duo was summoned by the Special Investigation Team SIT headed by senior officer Sanjay Kumar Singh which was entrusted with the investigation of six cases including the cruise drugs case involving Aryan KhanAccording to an official Aryan Khan failed to appear before the SIT on Sunday citing feverIt is a routine procedure to summon the accused after a new investigation team takes charge the official had saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever