Indian hotelier Vikram Chatwal was arrested at a Florida airport this week after trying to board a flight with heroin, cocaine and other drugs, local media reported.
Chatwal, who owns Dream Hotels in South Beach Miami and New York, was stopped at the Fort Lauderdale Airport on Tuesday after Transportation Security Administration agents found what turned out to be prescription pills rolling around loose in a carry-on bag.
A search turned up a half gramme of cocaine wrapped in a small plastic package in his shirt pocket, six grammes of heroin tucked in his pants along with marijuana and ketamine, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reported. “The arrestee provided a statement to narcotics detectives admitting possessing and purchasing the controlled substances illegally,” the arresting officer wrote in her report, the Miami Herald said.
Chatwal, 41, was charged with eight drug counts, including one for trafficking because of the amount of heroin he was holding.
The son of an Indian billionaire, Chatwal has dated a string of glamorous women including Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and is said to be good friends with Lindsay Lohan, who has herself been in and out of trouble.
It was at Chatwal’s Manhattan Dream Hotel in Chelsea that Lohan allegedly clipped a chef with her Porsche last September. Lohan and Chatwal were spotted shopping together in SoHo in January, the same weekend her criminal lawyer claimed she was laid up with the flu and too ill to travel for a California court date.
Chatwala reportedly was in rehabilitation in 2010 for alcohol issues, and friends told the New York Daily News he has a serious substance abuse problem.
Chatwal was released on April 3 on a bond of about $56,000. He faces a minimum three-year jail sentence if convicted of the most serious charge.
