Eight people were detained on Sunday by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) over a drug seizure on a cruise ship off Mumbai coast last night, multiple top sources told News18. The NCB sleuths, who raided Cordelia cruise after it departed from Mumbai, seized drugs such as cocaine, hashish and MD. NCB sources from Mumbai told News18 that the ship was to depart on Saturday for Goa. The agency’s Mumbai zonal director, Sameer Wankhede, received a tip-off, after which he and a team boarded the ship, posing as passengers. When the ship left Mumbai shores and was at mid-sea, a party began where drugs were consumed, said sources. Speaking to CNN-News18, Wankhede termed the issue “complicated”.

When the ship left Mumbai shortly and was to reach mid-sea, the first party began where allegedly drugs were by being consumed. Following this, NCB officials present on the ship started conducting searches and apprehended those consuming drugs and seized the contraband. The entry fee alone for the party was in the range of Rs 1 lakh, an officer told CNN-News18. Last week, NCB’s Mumbai and Goa teams in a joint operation had arrested Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal’s partner Gabriella Demetriades’s brother from Goa in connection with a drugs case. The bureau also seized charas from him, according to sources. Gabriella’s brother Agisilaos Demetriades is of South African nationality and was arrested by the NCB last year, too, as part of its probe into the alleged drug use in Bollywood.

The NCB had launched a probe into the alleged drug use in Bollywood after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June on the basis of WhatsApp chats involving drugs. The central agency had earlier arrested Rajput’s friend, actress Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik, some employees of the late Bollywood actor and a few others under sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Rhea Chakraborty and some other accused are currently out on bail.

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