Cordelia cruise drugs bust case: CBI questions Sanville D’Souza for 9 hours

CBI questions Sam D'Souza in connection with the alleged extortion bid of INR 25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan in the 2021 Cordelia cruise drugs bust case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday questioned Sanville, alias 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.

Mumbai, India - January 04, 2022: Cordelia Empress cruise ship arrives from Goa at Mumbai International Cruise Terminal after more than 2,000 passengers aboard the ship are stuck on the vessel as 66 people tested positive for COVID, in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, January 04, 2021. (Photo by Bhushan Koyande/ HT Photo) (HT PHOTO)

Agency officials said D’Souza arrived at the CBI headquarters in Delhi along with his lawyers around 10.30 am and was grilled for around nine hours.

He was asked about the chain of events related to the alleged extortion bid, about the alleged role another accused K P Gosavi played, and whether three then Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officers, including its former Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, were part of the conspiracy, the officials said.

D’Souza was also asked about the allegations made by a deceased witness, Prabhakar Sail, 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. However, CBI sources said, D’Souza denied the allegations.

D’Souza left the CBI office around 7.30 pm. His lawyer Pankaj Jadhav said the questioning would continue on Wednesday. “D’Souza told the investigators what he had already mentioned in his court submissions. He will cooperate in the probe. If the allegations against him were true then Aryan or his family would have filed a complaint, but they did not.”

The CBI on May 11 booked five people – Wankhede, Vishwa Vijay Singh, then superintendent, NCB, Ashish Ranjan, then intelligence officer of the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit, Gosavi and D’Souza – in connection with the Cordelia cruise drugs bust case.

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.

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.