Mumbai: In conjunction with the investigation of the drugs-on-cruise case, NCB witness Prabhakar Sail (alleged payout in the drugs-on-cruise case) appears before the NCB operation team. A Narcotics Control Bureau vigilance team questioned witness Prabhakar Sail for more than 11 hours on Tuesday in connection with an alleged effort to extort money in the drugs case involving actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son, Aryan Khan. On Monday, Sail had also appeared before the vigilance team.
According to an NCB official, Sail and his lawyer Tushar Khandare appeared before the vigilance team at the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Mess in suburban Bandra at 11:55 a.m. and left at 11:25 p.m. Sail had been interrogated for more than 10 hours on Monday. According to the official, Sail has also been called to appear before the NCB’s “operational team” at its zonal office in south Mumbai on Thursday. On Monday morning, a vigilance team led by NCB Deputy Director General (Northern Region) Gyaneshwar Singh arrived from Delhi.
Sail, who claims to be NCB witness KP Gosavi’s bodyguard, claimed in an affidavit last month that he overheard Gosavi negotiating a Rs 25 crore pay-off arrangement after Aryan Khan was apprehended by the NCB during a ‘drug bust’ on a cruise ship. According to Sail, Gosavi stated that Rs 8 crore from the contract would be transferred to NCB’s Mumbai zone director Sameer Wankhede. The NCB launched the vigilance investigation in response to Sail’s complaints. Wankhede had vehemently refuted the charges levelled against him. Last month, a team led by Singh travelled to Mumbai to investigate extortion accusations, but Sail’s statement was not recorded. It did, however, record eight other people’s remarks, including Wankhede’s.