MUMBAI: The brother of a Bollywood actor’s girlfriend was arrested from Lonavla on Sunday in the drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case. The Narcotics Control Bureau picked up Agisilaos Demetriades (30), who is a South African national, from an adventure resort and recovered a small quantity of hashish and 15 strips of banned Alprazolam tablets from his room.

This is the 23rd arrest in the drugs case linked with Rajput’s death.

NCB officials said that Demetriades was on their radar since Prasad’s arrest, but they were waiting to nab him with evidence.

Late on Saturday, a team, led by zonal director Sameer Wankhede, carried out a search of the suite and seized 0.8gm of hashish and 15 strips of Alprazolam, which is used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and anxiety caused by depression. Possession of a large quantity of the drug attracts punishment.

Simultaneously, NCB officials in Mumbai searched Demetriades’s Khar residence in the presence of witnesses and his fiancee and recovered one strip of Alprazolam. He was arrested early on Sunday.

A fortnight ago, when the NCB had recorded Demetriades’s statement, he had allegedly admitted to consuming cannabis leaves/ganja on occasion, but said he was not into drug peddling. However, during investigation, officials stumbled upon the call detail reports and chats between him and Sandeep Gupta, one of the arrested accused in the drugs case.

“Electronic evidence showed that he was dealing in a variety of drugs, which needed detailed investigation. It is clear that Demetriades had purchased contraband from co-accused Kaizan Ibrahim and Gupta and hence, is part of the conspiracy for drug procurement. Demetriades also has links with Rajput’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik, Rajput’s staffer Dipesh Sawant, and Anuj Keshwani and Dwayne Fernandes who used to procure drugs for Rajput,” the NCB remand stated.

Booked under the relevant sections of the NDPS Act, Demetriades was produced before a A special NDPS court remanded Demetriades in police custody till Monday.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the money-laundering angle in Rajput case had found chat messages pertaining to drugs on Rhea’s phone and had passed on the details to the NCB. The ED had cloned Rhea’s phone and found her involvement in purchase, consumption, transportation and usage of contraband, the NCB had claimed.