Who is Sameer Wankhede? The NCB official investigating Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan?

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan has been released on bail in what is now known as cruise ship drug case. Aryan’s arrest was made on October 3 and ever since, India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) got a bold new face in Sameer Wankhede, who is leading the investigation.

Aryan Khan spent 25 days in custody and not a single day went by without NCB’s ‘revelations’ about the star kid’s involvement with drugs and drug mafia. However, Wankhede himself is now being accused of extortion and corruption by the Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Nawab Malik and witness Prabhakar Sail.

So who is he Sameer Wankhede? India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has a new face: Sameer Wankhede, who is leading the investigation centred around Aryan Khan’s arrest. Khan, the son of Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan was arrested on October 3 in connection with drugs – he has been in police custody since then. Wankhede himself is being accused of extortion and corruption by the Maharashtra minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Nawab Malik and witness Prabhakar Sail.

This isn’t 40-year-old Wankhede’s first brush with Bollywood. He has also made some other high-level arrests in the past when he was with the Mumbai Air Intelligence Unit. The father of two is married to Marathi actress Kranti Redkar. It is his second marriage; earlier, he was married a Dr Shabana; the arranged marriage took place in 2006.

The most recent arrest Wankhede made before Aryan’s was Arjun Rampal's model-girlfriend Gabriella Demetriades's brother Agisilaos in Goa over drugs.

The other celebrities he has detained include Anushka Sharma in 2011. She was stopped at the airport and questioned for 11 hours about her jewellery and watches worth Rs350,0000-400,000 before being released.

Shah Rukh Khan’s family have also encountered Wankhede before – post holiday the same year in 2011, Khan was stopped and detained for hours; he had allegedly not paid customs duty. Khan at the time paid Rs150,000 before he was allowed to leave.

Beauty queen turned actor Bipasha Basu was also stopped back in 2011 at the Mumbai International Airport for not declaring her footwear, designer sunglasses and handbags. She was fined Rs12,000.

That same year actress Minissha Lamba was stopped because of undeclared assorted diamond jewellery and other precious stones worth Rs5 million. She was released after a 16-hour investigation.

In August 2013, when Wankhede was working as a Deputy Commissioner for the Service Tax Department, director Anurag Kashyap was fined Rs5.5 million for service tax evasion. His bank accounts were also frozen in December after he failed to comply with the department’s summons.

Mika Singh was detained in February 2013 after arriving from Bangkok and attempting to leave the Mumbai international airport without declaring over Rs900,000 in cash. The Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs, led by Wankhede, detained Singh.

Wankhede had previously captured Ranbir Kapoor. He was detained for almost 40 minutes in 2013 at the Mumbai airport. According to reports, he was detained after being seen using a tunnel reserved for airport staff and other law enforcement officers. He was found to be in possession of clothing, sneakers and high-end perfumes.

On September 8, 2020, actress Rhea Chakraborty was arrested by Wankhede. She was detained and charged with drug consumption based on her alleged WhatsApp talks in relation to the case of her ex-boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.

In September 2020, Sara Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Shraddha Kapoor were summoned and interrogated based on WhatsApp messages discovered by the NCB during its investigation into the Rhea Chakraborty narcotics case.