Cordelia cruise drugs bust case: CBI questions Sanvile D’Souza again

MUMBAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday continued the questioning of Sanvile aka Sam D’Souza, about his alleged role in the conspiracy to extort ₹25 crore from actor Shah Rukh Khan in exchange for not booking his son Aryan in the 2021 Cordellia cruise drugs bust case.

Agency officials said that D’Souza has been asked to join the probe on Thursday as well. He was questioned on Wednesday. D’Souza had arrived at the CBI headquarters in Delhi around 10.30 am and was questioned for around eight hours today, officials said.

The CBI on May 11 booked five people – Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)’s then Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, Vishwa Vijay Singh, then superintendent, NCB, Ashish Ranjan, then intelligence officer of the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit, private persons KP Gosavi and D’Souza – in connection with the case.

CBI sources said D’Souza is being asked to reconstruct the chain of events related to the alleged extortion bid, about the alleged role another accused K P Gosavi played and whether the three then NCB officers were part of the conspiracy.

D’Souza was also asked about the allegations made by a witness, Prabhakar Sail, who is deceased now, that a bribe of ₹50 lakh was obtained from the actor’s family, of which ₹38 lakh was then sent to him by Gosavi via Sail.

The agency asked D’Souza about what had happened thereafter. However, CBI sources said, D’Souza denied all the allegations against him.

The CBI’s case was based on the findings recorded by the NCB’s special enquiry team. CBI officials said their probe is looking at the FIR’s three components related to allegations linked to the bribery conspiracy, misconduct, and disproportionate assets.

“The CBI should also speak to Aryan, his father and his father’s manager, if they are probing the bribery allegations. D’Souza has told the CBI what he had already mentioned in his court submissions. “If the allegations were true then Aryan or his family would have filed a complaint, but they did not,” his lawyer Pankaj Jadhav said.

D’Souza ‘s request for an anticipatory bail in the case was turned down by a Mumbai special court last Wednesday. The court in its order said, “Considering the gravity and seriousness of the offence, for proper investigation, custodial interrogation of the applicant (D’Souza) is necessary and hence, he is not entitled to anticipatory bail.”

A team of the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit had on October 2, 2021, carried out searches at the Goa-bound cruise and arrested Aryan and several others, including two women. It claimed that it had seized some narcotic substance as well. A special investigation team of the NCB in May 2022 gave a clean chit to Aryan and five others.