Co-founder of Gokada found decapitated, dismembered inside New York condo
nydailynews.com
nydailynews.com
Doesn't this mean that anybody with the [widely, publicly known] FDNY elevator override key can get right into the apartment? I've seen far too many physical pentesting talks (i.e. any at all) to trust a setup like that for my home in a city.
The building this attack happened in had a total of 7 units.
That's true for newer buildings that are purposely built to be luxury apartment buildings. But if you're living in a building that used to be an office building or a factory then it's not necessarily going to have a doorman. This applies to a lot of the old industrial buildings in SoHo, Chelsea, the meatpacking district, Union Square, etc. It's basically impossible to change where the elevator shaft of a building is after it's been built, because it's part of the structural support system of the building, so you can't just move everything around to add a lobby and front desk to the ground floor after the fact.
Society wouldn't be very fun or fruitful if we all lived in secure underground bunkers.
Not that penthouse problems will ever be my problems, granted. But let's not be too absurd here.
The main reason a thief wouldn't want to is that is loud and suspicious looking, much more likely to be noticed. People seeing someone they don't know fucking around with smashing a window in town might call the cops, if they seem someone they don't know using a key they assume they were given it by the residents
These buildings also change hands, whether between family members, or just outright sales, more so if a unit in the building is currently for sale, someone could access the building by showing interest, not even with the real estate agent but just telling the doorman you have a viewing. You wouldn’t have to hack the elevator at all and I doubt this perpetrator did. It would take a pretty vigilant doorman to stop this/determine the identity and purpose of all visitors.
Most of the doormen are there to provide additional services to the residents, like having a cab waiting when they are on their way out and other small conveniences, not so much as gate keepers especially since 99.99% of the people entering are no cause for concern.
Most people lost more from the door/door frame damage than they did from the theft.
We used to buy popcorn and snacks from him when the scouts were fundraising. Great opportunity to case places....
Also, other than "high security" locks, it is easier to bump a lock than it is to get a duplicate key. Most people have mid grade entry sets on their house. Anybody can learn to bump those, with some practice, and it only takes about twenty or thirty seconds, particularly on an older, worn, lock.
I taught myself, decades ago, and was surprised how easy it was. My father always said, locks just keep honest people honest.
Not sure that kind of talk is allowed here, HN feels very strongly about how all knowledge can be extrapolated from first principles if you grew up in a nice enough suburb.
Per the article:
> ...found inside a $2 million Lower East Side condo...
It may sound absurd for folks outside of NY (or Bay Area), but $2M barely gets you a 2/2 in Manhattan these days [1].
[1] https://newconstructionmanhattan.com/nyc-apartments-by-price...
$2M USD can buy an older stock 3-bed 2-bath or "classic six"[1] co-op apartment in Manhattan.[2] Anything north of $2M for a 2-bed 2-bath is more likely to be in an expensive neighborhood, an explicitly expensive/luxury building or new (and likely luxury) condo unit building. This last category is pertinent to NYC real-estate because most apartment inventory is co-op compared to condo.[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Six
[2] https://streeteasy.com/3-bedroom-apartments-for-sale/manhatt...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/realestate/getting-starte...
Yes, it's very different from the sheltered life of a developed country.
The diversity of human experience is truly staggering.
Nothing happened and the stop was done in a couple minutes, but it reminded me of how different the daily lives of those guards must be from any job I've ever worked.
The purpose of my previous comment is that, depending on how we define "developed" (which is very blurry! Think about the range of wealth within the US or India for example), it's not the case that you need to walk around with body armor everywhere in each country that's not "developed". The parent comment I responded to seemed to imply that "wear body armor and stay in window-less houses" == "life outside of developed countries".
See parent comments/thread for more context. If you see a mistake or if I misunderstood something, please feel free to point it out.
He’s kind of exaggerating, and but not totally. When I said that my family and friends lived in fortresses, it’s along those same lines. While the house is somewhat normal aside from the iron window gates (it was not windowless), the outer structure is not. The outer fence is a large tall concrete wall, with metal gates which are sometimes automatic. The top of the wall is lined with a combination of wire, metal spikes, and broken glass. Every household is fully armed. Some families even have security guards both onsite and as an escort. Some families have a perimeter of fences.
Even with all that, someone who worked for one of our family friends got his face blown off by simply answering the gate. It’s hard not to be paranoid if you ever live in one of those places. After moving to the US decades ago, one of the luxuries I really enjoyed was being able to walk in most places without the need for an armed escort or concealed firearms. Feeling relatively safe in a non-fortified home is also nice. I didn’t realize it was the norm in the developed world outside of movies
Thank you for sharing
The GINI seems to be a somewhat better fit: https://i.imgur.com/vYSsLMw.png
> One of the law enforcement officials said a surveillance camera had captured video of Mr. Saleh in the building’s elevator with another person who was wearing a black suit and black mask. On the video, the elevator door opens and Mr. Saleh goes into the apartment, the official said. The masked person follows directly behind him, and the two immediately start to struggle, the official said.
> The worried sister went to the apartment because she hadn’t seen her brother in a day, and arrived only to find his butchered body, cops said.
> The suspect bolted via a staircase as the sister rode the elevator upstairs to visit victim Fahim Saleh, with her impending arrival interrupting the killer’s efforts to scrub the bloody condo clean and dispose of the body, the source said.
> “He was dressed like a ninja, full out, so you can’t even see his face,” the source said. “He clearly knew what he was doing. We think his intent was to get rid of the body parts and go back and clean it up and make it look like nothing happened. He left before he finished the job.”
> The assassin stabbed him repeatedly in the chest to kill him, according to his autopsy results. He used a stun gun to incapacitate Saleh before murdering him, police sources said.
> A police source indicated investigators believed the grisly execution was prompted by a business deal gone lethally bad.
I wonder what the motivation was. It doesn't seem like a market where there'd be the political pressure to assassinate someone. Maybe if there was someone trying to rethink the way pharmaceuticals or something, I could understand a CEO getting chopped into pieces by some shadowy figure, but ridesharing? It benefits everyone to carpool and use fewer cars to get people from place to place.
Ugh. God bless his family.
If this was related to his startup (and not some other personal dealing) then a clear motive would be for a legacy carrier being disrupted to want end his startup...
Your comment made me realize I was making an assumption that it was related to his business. I guess I just figure for someone to be trying to make progress in a place where progress is sorely needed, that its unlikely for them to have relationships or dealings that would warrant such heavy-handed consequences.
If it was political, I wonder who benefits the most from this. Surely there will be scrutiny now, if there's more case details than are reported. I hope they don't get away with this. This will scare off entrepreneurs, maybe that's exactly what the killer wants. Maybe they want to discourage not only Gokada, but any company or product that might disrupt status quo.
Who knows. This is nasty stuff.
Wasn't just his company - bike sharing was banned in the state without warning. Also, commercial bike operations were banned on major roads and completely in some cities.
Following Lagos state, neighboring states immediately announced bans, telling the ride sharing companies not to come over.
Bike ride sharing companies were forced to rebrand as dispatchers. The bikes however must have delivery boxes fitted on the bikes else - the bikes would be seized.
What is there to gain financially from killing him, if his previous business was gutted by regulatory changes?
The killer was evidently belonging to a highly capable skillset, and I'm extrapolating that they very nearly got away with his body in tow, and nobody would've been the wiser.
Could they not have kidnapped him and ransomed the company? If there's financial qualms on the board, I just don't understand why they'd just kill him then. If they went to deliveries, does that mean other delivery couriers are to be scrutinized?
Maybe he was involved with something dirty?
If it was a state agent of Nigeria that is responsible, idk, that'd be geopolitical suicide, putting hits out on private entrepreneurs across national borders...
Of course, had they gotten away, it may have seemed as though he just vanished, which I suppose is the ideal scenario for a state-sanctioned killing.
Ugh. This is beyond horrible all the way around.
There are some people you just don't want to owe money to. I'm not speculating on if that was the case here, just that in the US, that sort of thing is the realm of movies. Elsewhere in the world (and also parts of the US) that still the reality of borrowing large sums of money.
As you pointed out, business in these countries isn't clean and clear as it is in most countries HN'ers live in.
I saw crazy shakedowns in Northern Africa when I briefly lived there. I wouldn't doubt the same to be seen in other countries.
It's possible that he might have taken an investment from someone that does not take failure/underdelivery as an answer. Or that Gokada's continued existence pissed off someone that intended the company to go under. It could also possibly be much more personal than that - there are many people who are wealthy enough to order such a hit with relative impunity (as long as they remain in Nigeria - our justice system and infrastructure is frankly not the greatest). It could also have nothing to do with Nigeria at all; he had business ventures and personal affairs elsewhere.
It's all speculation at this point and I just hope whatever it is doesn't crush the company. Gokada employs a thousand riders but beyond that it's helped so many small businesses grow and thrive especially during this period; there's a huge informal vendor culture in Lagos that's enabled by companies like this.
Regarding infrastructure, my point is that it's far easier for someone to disappear from the eye of law enforcement here than in many other countries.
Saudi Arabia seems to be doing fine last I checked.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/nyregion/dismembered-body...
There isn't a fundamental ideological divide, everyone is just jockeying for a few more square-meters of this or that.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey%E2%80%93United_States...
That "small, neighboring state" is a №2 state in NATO
Devil's devil's advocate - the motivation for the killing doesn't need to be "rational" or make sense from our perspective. It could be pathological, it could be revenge, who knows?
It's a power move. Putin does it too.
Except they would have footage of two people going into the apartment (one person apparently wearing a ninja outfit), and only one person leaving.
That could have been a tipoff that something was askew.
It doesn't have to be that complicated.
"The killer was evidently belonging to a highly capable skillset," - no, it's not skill, it's just the diabolical will to actually do such a thing. Depending on circumstances, there can be a lack of evidence ... and that's that.
It may be as simple as being the member of the board another member is displeased with. Not suggesting that, just saying sometimes your very existence is a liability to others.
> If it was a state agent of Nigeria that is responsible, idk, that'd be geopolitical suicide, putting hits out on private entrepreneurs across national borders
When in Rome....
Just as much as this financial or business hitman speculation.
Its all happened in NYC. Chopped up into bags sounds like cartel or organized, it happened to OneCoin promoters in Mexico this month too. But we dont know yet for this case.
The chance is part of the rush.
The CCTV footage would seem to make those first two somewhat less likely:
"One of the law enforcement officials said a surveillance camera had captured video of Mr. Saleh in the building’s elevator with another person who was wearing a black suit and black mask."
"On the video, the elevator door opens and Mr. Saleh goes into the apartment, the official said. The masked person follows directly behind him, and the two immediately start to struggle, the official said."
It's comparable because it happened in France? :)
Only in developed countries, in a lot of the world that's actually exactly what you get when you disrupt someone's market.
Robbery? Murder during attempt to get the victim to transfer money or bitcoins to an intruder? Lots of possibilities even without any context except the victim being somewhat wealthy.
If I were a betting man, my money would be on he owed someone money from his part of the world and decided that because the law said that the debt evaporated his creditors would let it go.
With that out of the way, as someone who's lived in NYC for decades, I would say that most stories you hear with these broad strokes involve cocaine.
It specifically mentions that 2 rideshare leaders felt their lives were threatened by local competition. I believe it was the original founder of Seamless in NYC, and an early executive at Uber, I believe when they were launching in NYC. Apparently it's not uncommon for taxis and limos to be have connections to local crime.
I have no idea if that happened here, but I've also never heard of a story like this in the tech startup world.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/13/610849891/michael-cohens-trou...
His investors probably weren't too thrilled seeing him live in a multi-million $ NYC condo shortly after their substantial investments tanked.
[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gokada#section-inves...
Hope he will get justice
Look at e.g. (probably) the FSB poisoning Litvinenko, six years after he fled to the UK. After six years there wasn't much to gain for the FSB other than making an example out of him and retribution.
Not saying I agree, but I can see where the circumstances aren't different.
Although many circumstances are unknown to me, at first approach this looks like a sad illustration of the intense frontier between new business models powered by emerging technology and entrenched business interests in many parts of the world.
Judging by Gokada’s business model, the signal is probably intended to deter any further attempts at competing with local taxi and limo businesses.
This could easily be an atrocious crime by an individual or related to — for instance — organized crime in Nigeria, but it is sobering that one of the usual suspects when something like this happens is a state actor.
What? You guys got hysterical and blamed the Saudis based on no facts and you were completely wrong? Who would of guessed? Oh wait, I did.
Could you explain the political side in it? We already had motorcycles in Lagos because Gokada arrived on the scene. A lot of other okadas owned by thousands of people were also knocked out. Even keke
I think this is getting more attention than it deserves because its ripe with "what ifs" that allow one's imagination to run wild. Politically motivated, absolutely brutal, and in an environment that is designed to shield one from any harm. My heart goes to his family and friends - no matter what someone has done in life they don't deserve this ending.
Umm. I think it's safe to rule suicide out when the corpse was dismembered with a saw.
Seems like some other moving pieces in play with his past startup.
"The tech bro found sliced into pieces in his $2.25 million Lower East Side condo made a name for himself by creating a prank phone call app that led to the downfall of a Hudson County, N.J. jail honcho."
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-prankdial-app-hudson...
> According to a 2016 blog profile, Mr. Saleh was born in Saudi Arabia, and moved with his family quite a bit before settling in Rochester, N.Y., and, later, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Also the US leadership is so incompetent at the moment, seems like a good time for other countries to do whatever TF they want.
Lots of prior speculation, but this early arrest will be some small comfort to his family and friends.
Uh, those luxury apartments have cameras everywhere. Why would they think they could cover anything?
The problem is that to publish an App with Apple or Google you cannot be anonymous, correct?
The manner of his death is ominous. For the sake of the people it employs and the businesses it enables, I hope Gokada weathers this.
Sometimes I feel like this is the sort of thing where the justice system and public media just don't work... send some SEALS to knock out whoever did this. It reminds me of the type of thing that happens with central american drug lords.
I wish the article talked about such political issues instead of the weird sort of implied schadenfreude with regards to his material possessions and postings on instagram.
2. Jamal Khashoggi was similarly butchered and there's little doubt about the perpetrator's identity, yet we still trade with them and accept their VC money for our tech startups. I wouldn't hold my breath for a serious response unless the perpetrator turns out to be a government we already don't like.
All murder is tragic and horrible. I think that assassination—of journalists, entrepreneurs, activists, and so on—to be an especially abhorrent category of murder, because it is intellectual terrorism and has an outsized impact. A single murder is a tragedy to a family, a community — but a single assassination is a tragedy to all of society. The plausible fear of being killed for challenging an industry incumbent, a corrupt politician, or an unscrupulous business places a sword of Damocles above any would-be upstart. It pre-emptively silences voices and minds and reduces a society's capacity for progress.
Like it or not, the US is not going to do anything.
What a tragedy. God bless his family.
Whatever bubble you live in, don't forget we're animals.
[0]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6288235/Saudi-autop...
Edit: The article keeps changing, it originally said 200 W Houston, now it says both 200 East Houston and 365 E. Houston.
Edit #2: In a standing proof that local journalism isn't worth the cost of the paper it would take to print it out and wipe your ass with it, the actual location, judging from the video that accompanies the article is 265 E. Houston.
Gruesome murders are salacious enough; it happening to a wealthy entrepreneur inside his expensive Manhattan home is especially rare.
For many reasons, people seem to be interested when tragedy strikes the rich or glamorous.
EDIT: It appears the link has been changed from (IIRC) a Chicago Tribune article to a New York Times article. My comment is about the original article.
Murders in such settings instantly trip the "fear alert." Now all of our LC residents need to know how the deed was done and if there's anything about their safe-island assumptions that must be revisited or repaired.
The result: a story that people can't stop talking about. It's fashionable to decry business pressures that force journalists to do this, but the truth is sheer desire for recognition is a sufficient driver, no matter what the business model.
Edit: I can buy the FDNY fire key on Amazon. Anyone could have pulled this off.
Edit 2: The NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/nyregion/dismembered-body...) does say he was in the elevator with his killer. It seems the ABC7 article is lacking a lot of information.
I bet it's possible to get into almost any building in a US city just by wearing a suit and telling people you forgot your keys. Eventually someone will let you in.
Whether a piece of information is relevant/interesting/newsworthy/etc. is a judgment too, but not the kind I was referring to.
And 'where' matters, given this: The condos in the building are full-floor and the keyed elevator opens right into the apartment.
The fact that this may be a politically charged murder makes it even more newsworthy.
But a poor person being murdered inside a $2.4 million dollar condo in the same fashion is certainly newsworthy.
Cause there is fair too much evidence both historically and current to say that is not the case.
https://heavy.com/news/2020/06/watch-tiktok-video-seattle-de...
And there is of course countless reasons why someone vanishes, but then again, there is a lot of missing people: https://www.statista.com/statistics/240387/number-of-missing...
Slightly south of half a million kids/teens go missing every year? And 150,000 adults?
How many of these cases are never closed?
> Fewer than 350 people under the age of 21 have been abducted by strangers in the United States per year between 2010–2017.[5]
> The federal government estimated about 50,000 people reported missing in 2001 who were younger than 18. Only about 100 cases per year can be classified as abductions by strangers.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_in_the_United_State...
> The fact that this may be a politically charged murder makes it even more newsworthy.
No, it wouldn't be. And I can tell you why.
A suitcase stuffed with parts from two (recently) dismembered bodies was found on a Seattle beach two or three weeks ago. [1]
Neither of the deceased were tech entrepreneurs, and, unsurprisingly, this did not make Hacker News, nor more than a whisper on the national media circus. I presume you haven't heard about it, either.
Now, tell me, was that also a politically charged murder? [2] What makes you immediately ascribe the politically charged label to the tech entrepreneur case?
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=akai+beach+suitcase&oq=alki+...
[2] Hell, Seattle stopped talking about it after a few days.
Short answer is it depends. Not that long ago, white guy got killed by a hispanic guy in what police determined to be a hate crime( https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/wisconsi... ). There was no uproar on CNN. Oddly, I did not see stuff on Fox News either. For whatever reason, it simply did not feel the narrative.
I agree with your example that it is not a given that the killing was political in nature ( as in, we simply don't have enough information to know ). But today, non-white person dying draws a lot more scrutiny. Now serial killers will only be left with the homeless..
Why did you expect? This is a community of programmers and tech entrepreneurs. We get articles all the time on the front page about deceased programmers, computer scientists, and tech entrepreneurs. This poor guy was a tech entrepreneur.
> nor more than a whisper on the national media circus. I presume you haven't heard about it, either.
No, the clear implication was that there was some kind of double standard in HN here.
I'm not addressing the rest of his comment, which may or may not be true. But the first part is clearly misleading, or at best uncharitable.
Finally, the full comment is available for all to see by looking up exactly a quarter screen. I didn't "remove" anything-I pulled the quote pertaining to the issue that concerned me.
This is wrong, unless you insinuate "if poor people were wealthy and powerful as well" when you say "murdered like this".
It seems like make believe to think we value all life regardless of their economic worth in the news headlines that we click on. In my community alone, mundane and powerless children and adults get shot, executed, dismembered semi-regularly and yet it's more of a statistic than something interesting for most folks, citations below.
I'm not saying that wealth and power are the only thing that makes a headline clickable, but jeez can it make it seem relevant to people in a world where poor people are disproportionately exposed to violence.
https://news.sky.com/story/william-algar-man-charged-with-mu...
https://www.fox19.com/2020/07/07/coroner-identifies-woman-fo...
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-transgender-woman...
“His limbs and head were stuffed in bags in the living room.
“…
“It remains unclear how the victim died.”
Here’s a more informative, earlier article: https://www.pulse.ng/news/ceo-of-gokada-fahim-saleh-found-de...
The location is not a easy crime area, which makes this killing so bold. It looks like a hit, either government or organized crime, and if it's not and just the work of a serial killer....
This is such a strange paragraph to read in an article like this. I see the relevance of the last sentence, but the rest just feels jarring. Is that normal for pieces like this?
> An electric saw was found near the man’s torso, law enforcement officials said. Units in the Lower East Side building have sold for more than $2 million.
The additional details about tiling and decor seem quite superfluous.
I like hard boiled detective novels, but it felt weird here when I reminded myself this isn't a short story, this is a real man who was just murdered with family and friends and neighbors.
If anyone can suggest a better URL, we can change it again.
I am not sure but I think the coverage might come across as a bit tabloid-y however.
Here is an updated link: http://archive.is/7LbxX
As to the newsworthy debate, yes, the death of a person that is of a greater relative value to society (such as for eg a tech entrepreneur) is more newsworthy than otherwise (such as for eg a homeless person).
Hope his family finds some answers.
They have a CCTV video with the murderer but unfortunately he had a mask on. During the pandemic killers can operate with a cover, the mask, gloves, etc
Does anyone know if theres a lead to who the murderer is?
Also, the electric saw to dismember the body to fit into the suitcase.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/nyregion/dismembered-body...
> When detectives began investigating, they found the man’s torso and an electric saw nearby, two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter said. The man’s head and limbs were later found in the apartment, a Police Department spokesman said.
> There were several large plastic bags in the apartment, and it appeared that some effort had been made to clean up any evidence of what had happened, one law enforcement officials briefed on the matter said....
> The saw was still plugged into an electrical outlet when the police arrived, leading detectives to investigate whether the arrival of Mr. Saleh’s sister at the condo might have interrupted the killing and prompted the killer to flee through another exit, one of the law enforcement officials said.
This is the latter. You don't lose your head and limbs by natural causes, and an accident ending with body parts stuff in bags is unlikely.
Convicting the killer requires much more evidence, but that's going to be many months later, currently all the listed claims of the police seem perfectly reasonable for this stage of investigation.
Did they find who the suspect is?
This is off on a little bit of a tangent, but there is an interesting point to be made, I think.
I was on a jury once. Not a murder case, mind you, but the principle is the same. There was a detective from the local law enforcement agency that investigated the case, and he testified on the stand about the case and his investigation.
Now the defense attorney was a sharp guy, and he found (and seized on) every tiny little discrepancy or crack in this guy's testimony, which made this all the more glaring. The detective was a complete buffoon. I mean, calling this guy "Barney Fife" or "Officer Barbrady" would be paying him a compliment.
We sat in the jury room deliberating and were making jokes like "Man, if I ever murder anybody, I hope this guy is the one investigating me" and so on.
The point is just to say... detectives come in all grades of competence, just like anybody else. For every Sherlock Holmes there is a guy like the one I encountered. I'm not sure if a normal distribution applies, but I wouldn't be surprised. And I'm definitely not surprised when I see (apparently) silly statements come from law enforcement agencies. TV and movies glamorous the more "Sherlock Holmes'ian" type detectives, and maybe we subconsciously tend to assume that most detectives are like that as a result. But it's definitely not always the case.
But, I guess, he could have just struggled a bit, left, and then Spiderman came in through the window and finished the job.
That’s too damned grisly. I mean, sure maybe people snap in the heat of passion whatnot, manslaughter —it happens but this is just depraved. I hope they get the person and they get what they deserve. There is no chance for such a person to redeem themselves and join society ever again. Very sad for the victim's family. Tragic.
The hitman was likely doing a deed for someone who paid for his service...
The other clue is from the articles I've read is that there was no blood. No average person with a bone saw is going to be able to pull that off. Sorry.
A guy with a plan and a regular job?
didn’t take anything from the apartment either.
a regular joe who wanted to do this would’ve just shot him.
The fact that there were screams loud enough to concern neighbors could suggest it wasn't quite so professional. If it were a professional hitman, why not use something guaranteed to instantly and silently incapacitate him, first, then focus on cleaning up the evidence? Or did they try to, but it didn't go as planned?
One possible explanation would be that the goal was to send a message (to him before his death, and others after it), not to try to make him disappear without a trace. Though, either way, it doesn't necessarily mean it was a professional hitman.