Sameer Wankhede's team stole Rs 30 lakh Rolex watch, claims drugs case accused

Just days after the CBI booked former NCB officer Sameer Wankhede for allegedly trying to extort money from Aryan Khan's family, a British citizen has claimed that Wankhede's close aide and an intelligence officer Ashish Ranjan stole his Rolex Daytona Wrost watch worth Rs 30 lakh while he was in custody, India Today reported on Wednesday.

The British citizen, Karan Sajnani, was arrested by Sameer Wankhede in a drug seizure case in January 2021. "The IO of the case took away my Daytona Rolex watch worth Rs 30 lacs and this wasn't shown in the seized items list. The IO of the case was Ashish Ranjan," he told India Today.

Sajnani was taken into custody with seizure shown of around 125 kgs of imported Marijuana. He, however, claimed that the seized drug was only 7.5 grams of Marijuana while the other items seized items were flavoured tobacco. He was arrested along with NCP leader Nawab Malik's son-in-law Sameer Khan in the case.

This comes just two days after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked Sameer Wankhede and four others — Vishwa Vijay Singh, Ashish Ranjan, and two private persons KP Gosavi and Sanvile D'Souza — in an alleged extortion case. The central agency said that they allegedly entered into a conspiracy in order to extort an amount of Rs 25 crore from Aryan Khan's family. Aryan Khan, son of Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested in October 2021 after a drug raid on the Cordelia cruise ship.

NCB's Special Enquiry Team (SET) had red-flagged alleged improper explanations and apparent misdeclaration of “the expenditure” given by Wankhede on his foreign visits. These findings were referred by the Centre to the CBI which registered an FIR against the officer and four others on May 11.

The SET said Wankhede had also not declared the source of his foreign visits properly. "It was also found that Wankhede has indulged himself in the sale and purchase of expensive wrist watches with a private entity, Viral Rajan, without intimating the department (present or parent),” the SET said in the findings which are now part of the FIR.

According to the FIR, independent witness KP Gosavi and one Prabhakar Sail, now deceased, were included by the NCB on the directions of Wankhede. Gosavi in conspiracy with his aide Sanvile D’Souza and others had entered into the conspiracy to "extort an amount" of Rs 25 crore from the family members of Aryan, son of Shah Rukh Khan, by "threatening them of the accusation of offences of possession of Narcotics substances as per the alleged directions of then Zonal Director", the CBI said.

In order to let him walk free, Gosavi and D’Souza negotiated the amount and brought the demand down from Rs 25 crore to Rs 18 crore, the FIR said. They allegedly collected a token of Rs 50 lakh and returned a part of the amount later.

The SET in its findings said Aryan Khan and other suspects in the Cordelia Ship drugs bust case were brought to the NCB office in Gosavi's private vehicle on October 2, 2021. Wankhede "had directed" to take Gosavi and Prabhakar Sail as the independent witness in the proceedings against the accused in the drug bust case, the FIR states.

According to the FIR, Wankhede had directed then NCB Superintendent VV Singh to let Gosavi "handle the accused" while taking him to the NCB Office thereby "allowing a freehand" to him and others in order to create a visual impression that Gosavi had the custody of the accused.

(With inputs from Divyesh Singh)