The Mumbai police on Thursday detained South African national Agisilaos Demetriades, brother of Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal’s girlfriend Gabriella and an accused in the Sushant Singh Rajput death-related drug case, from Goa in connection with a Supreme Court order rejecting his bail application in the three drug cases being handled by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
A visiting team of the Mumbai police executed the detention order issued against Demetriades in the aftermath of the rejection of his bail application by the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court on March 28, 2022 and subsequently by the Supreme Court on April 19, 2022.
Demetriades will be brought to Mumbai and lodged at the Arthur Road Central Jail (ARCJ).
The detention order had been issued against Demetriades On September 21, 2021 under Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PITNDPS) Act in view of involvement in multiple cases under NDPS Act.
Demetriades is being prosecuted in three cases of the NCB – the first registered in connection with the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput in October 2020, the second one cocaine smuggling case Nigerian drug and the third case in which he was arrested with a small quantity of Charas from Goa for which he spent two weeks in judicial custody.
It may be recalled that Demetriades was arrested for the first time by the NCB from Lonavala near Pune on October 19, 2020.
Demetriades is alleged to be a part of a larger drug syndicate operating in Bollywood, which is being investigated after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
The NCB’s investigations have revealed that Demetriades was in touch with Omega Godwin, a Nigerian national who had earlier been arrested for supply of cocaine in Mumbai. During his custodial interrogation, Godwin had named Demetriades and others in connection with the Sushant death-related drug case. Among other things, 47-year-old Rampal is being investigated for his links with Demetriades and Australian-architect friend Paul Bartel, both of whom were arrested earlier with the Bollywood-drug mafia nexus case. He had been questioned twice – once for eight-long hours on November 13, 2020 and once again on December 21, 2021. Rampal was questioned after live-partner Gabriella was subjected top two rounds of questioning by the NCB subjected.
The NCB had earlier carried out searches at the Rampal’s Bandra residence on November 9, 2020.
Incidentally, the raid on Rampal’s residence had come a day after the NCB officials carried out searches at film producer Firoz A. Nadiadwala’s residence along Gulmohar Cross Road at Juhu Vile Parle Development (JVPD) Scheme in north-west Mumbai. During the searches, the NCB sleuths seized a total of 717.1 gm of Ganja, 74.1 gm charas and 95.1 gm MD (Commercial Quantity) along with Rs 3,58,610. They also seized 10 gm of Ganja from another accused Wahid Abdul kadir Sheikh @ Sultan.
At that time, Rampal had expressed how he was ‘shocked and taken aback’, and said it was unfortunate his name was being unnecessarily dragged into the whole affair.
“As far as my family and I are concerned, my direct family and I are law-abiding citizens. And while the incident involves a person who is a relative of my partner, I have no other connection or relationship other than that with this person,” the actor had said, alluding to the arrest of his brother-in-law Demetriades.
Alluding to seizure of some medicine found at his residence during the search carried out on November 9, 2020, Rampal had said: “I am fully cooperating with the investigations. I have nothing to do with drugs. The medicine found at my residence (during Monday’s raid) was prescribed by a doctor. The prescription has been found and handed over to the NCB officials. The NCB officials are doing a good job and I support them in their investigations”.