Money laundering case against Sameer Wankhede transferred to Delhi: ED to HC

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday informed the Bombay high court that it had transferred the probe in a money laundering case involving Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)’s former Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede to the agency’s Delhi office on account of administrative reasons.

The ED’s case, registered in July 2023, is based on an FIR by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on May 11 that year. The FIR alleged that Wankhede and some other persons had tried to extort ₹25 crore from actor Shah Rukh Khan in exchange for not booking his son, Aryan, in the Cordelia cruise drugs bust case.

Wankhede on February 6 approached the Bombay high court seeking directions to the ED to maintain the status quo and to restrain it from transferring the case to Delhi. He also sought to have the ED case against him quashed.

During Tuesday’s hearing, chief public prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar, who represented the ED, said the case had already been transferred to Delhi as the scheduled offence was registered there and a special investigation team was formed by the NCB also in Delhi.

However, senior advocate Aabad Ponda, representing Wankhede, argued that the entire case had originated in Mumbai and should be investigated by the Mumbai wing of the ED. He raised concerns about the transfer being motivated by “mala-fide intentions” to undermine Wankhede’s petition. “The transfer had been made to dislodge my (Wankhede) petition before the Bombay high court.”

“Till Friday, the ED was sending summons to persons and asking them to appear before its Mumbai office. But after this petition was filed by Wankhede for quashing of the money laundering case against him, the probe was transferred to Delhi,” he added.

A bench of justices PD Naik and N R Borkar scheduled further hearing on Wankhede’s petition for February 15 to determine the validity of the transfer as well to hear the plea seeking quashing of the money laundering case.

Before the case was transferred to Delhi, the ED’s Mumbai unit questioned and recorded the statements of two NCB officers associated with the Cordelia drugs bust case. One of them was associated with I-Note of the case while the other was part of the then administration wing and looked after the internal monitoring system, including CCTV units at its office, agency sources said. The agency had also called in a third person, then NCB officer, who was the superintendent (vigilance) in the agency and the complainant in the CBI case. He is yet to be questioned.

Sources said the statement of the NCB’s administration wing official was recorded to verify the findings of the NCB’s special enquiry team (SET) - that the CCTV equipment of the agency’s Mumbai office collected by it to verify certain facts was corrupted. “The DVR and the hard disc provided by the NCB’s Mumbai office were different. It appeared that the CCTV footage was important but was intentionally not provided to the SET,” the SET report had said.

Aryan Khan was apprehended in the alleged drug bust on the Cordelia cruise ship on October 2, 2021, along with several others. The NCB filed a chargesheet against 14 accused but cleared Aryan Khan of any involvement. The case took a significant turn when an ‘independent witness’ claimed that ₹25 crore was demanded to absolve Aryan Khan.

The CBI charged Wankhede and others for alleged criminal conspiracy and threat of extortion, among other charges. Wankhede has secured interim protection from arrest in the CBI case.