Fahim Saleh’s executive assistant has been charged with the murder of the tech entrepreneur in a Manhattan apartment on Tuesday, said NYC police. Executive assistant Tyrese Devon Haspil, 21, has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder, reports BBC.
According to police, the suspect is alleged to have owed Saleh tens of thousands of dollars.
Assistant Haspil is accused of using a taser on Saleh and fatally stabbing him on Monday.
New York police on Friday arrested the assistant of Fahim Saleh in connection with the brutal murder.
Fahim Saleh, co-founder of Bangladeshi ride-sharing app Pathao also the CEO and founder of Gokada, a motorcycle ride-sharing app in Lagos, Nigeria, was found decapitated and dismembered in his luxurious condo in Manhattan of the city on Tuesday when his sister went there looking for him.
Haspil left behind some clues
Sources said Haspil used a credit card to purchase the saw, and a Taser prong recovered from Saleh’s body bore a serial number connecting the suspect to the murder, reports New York Daily News..
He was captured on surveillance video buying the saw and cleaning supplies at a Home Depot, said Manhattan Assistant DA Linda Ford early Saturday in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Police observed professional nature in the grisly murder and suspected a possible financial motive in behind. They also said the hitman had to bolt from the apartment using a staircase without completing the work of dismemberment when Fahim’s sister got into the elevator to check on her brother.
Fahim had recently come to know that Haspil misappropriated tens of thousands of dollars from him. Although Fahim set up a repayment plan for him to return the money, it didn’t work out, an official told the NYT.
Police now suspect the motive for the killing may have originated from those circumstances.
Meanwhile, the investigators discovered that Fahim was killed on Monday and the killer came back to the apartment on Tuesday to dismember the body and remove evidence.
Fahim was regarded as a rising star in the tech world. Friends called the young investor the “Elon Musk of the developing world”.
Roughly two years after co-founding Pathao, Fahim co-founded Gokada in Lagos, Nigeria in December 2017, and took over as its CEO in April of last year. Most recently, he oversaw Gokada’s transition to delivery service during the coronavirus pandemic.
He also launched the venture capital firm Adventure Capital in New York in 2018.
His start-up company Gokada was in trouble. It raised $5.3 million in funding in May 2019, Techcrunch reported. In February this year, the company laid off 75 percent of its workforce after the government banned tricycles and bikes in Lagos, Benjamin Dada reported.
In a statement, the Gokada team described Fahim as “a great leader, an inspiration and a positive light for all of us at Gokada”.
“Fahim’s vision and belief in us will always be with us, a reminder that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to … Forever in our hearts,” it said.
