The Narcotics Control Bureau Mumbai Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede’s tenure ends today, 31 December.
Wankhede, a 2008-batch IRS officer had been on deputation with the NCB since September 2020.
As he bids adieu to the NCB, here’s a look at his tenure, which was marked with a series of controversies, including his public spat with Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik.
Aryan Khan arrest and drug investigation
No case garnered as much attention as the arrest of Aryan Khan, the son of Shah Rukh Khan, in the drug raid. The case brought a lot of attention to Sameer Wankhede. It was him and his team that allegedly recovered drugs during a raid on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast in October, following which Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested with seven others.
During the course of the investigation, several allegations were levelled against Wankhede, accusing him of forgery and extortions.
In a series of tweets and comments, Nationalist Congress Party and senior Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik had also accused Wankhede of using forged documents to get a government job under the Scheduled Caste (SC) category. He also claimed that the senior NCB officer was a Muslim.
While Wankhede denied these allegations, his father filed a defamation suit against Malik.
Sushant Singh Rajput’s death
In August 2020, he was loaned out to the NCB to probe the Sushant Singh Rajput drug case. Starting with actor Rhea Chakraborty, multiple high-profile Bollywood personalities were interrogated and arrested by the NCB under Wankhede.
It was Wankhede who was on the other side of the table when actors such as Deepika Padukone, Shraddha Kapoor and Sara Ali Khan were questioned by the NCB as part of the alleged drug nexus involving the film industry.
World Cup episode
Not many would know this but in 2011 when the Indian cricket team won the World Cup, the team had to make do with a replica of the trophy.
The original trophy was stuck at Mumbai airport customs for non-payment of a 35 percent duty on it. Wankhede had been an assistant commissioner at the airport customs at the time.
Customs stint
As the Assistant Commissioner of Customs, posted at Mumbai Airport, he had several run-ins with celebrities who were evading Customs duty.
He had detained actors Minissha Lamba and Anushka Sharma at the airport for not declaring that they were carrying gold and diamond-studded jewellery.
In July 2011, he had fined Shah Rukh Khan Rs 1.5 lakh at the airport for carrying excess luggage. The actor had arrived at Mumbai airport after a family vacation in Holland and London.
Encounters at Central Excise
In 2013, he served at the Central Excise department for a few months. In his short term there, he had memorable run-ins with several Bollywood bigwigs, such as Anurag Kashyap, Ram Gopal Verma and Vivek Oberoi. In August 2013, he imposed a fine of Rs 55 lakh on Anurag Kashyap for service tax evasion. A similar fine of Rs 40 lakh was imposed on Vivek Oberoi too, by Wankhede.(Firstpost)
