Assistant Charged In Death Of Ceo Tech Fahim Saleh

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
Suspect Is Arrested in Grisly Killing of Tech C.E.O. Fahim Saleh

NEW YORK — The personal assistant of a young tech entrepreneur who was found decapitated and dismembered in his Manhattan apartment this week was arrested early Friday and is expected to be charged in the grisly killing, according to two officials briefed on the matter.

The entrepreneur, Fahim Saleh, 33, was discovered dead Tuesday afternoon by his sister inside his $2.25 million condo in a luxury building on the Lower East Side, police said. She had gone to check in on him after not hearing from him for about a day.

She found a gruesome scene: Saleh’s head and limbs had been removed, and parts of his body had been placed in large plastic bags. An electric saw was still plugged in nearby.

The personal assistant, Tyrese Devon Haspil, 21, was expected to be charged in a criminal complaint with second degree murder and other crimes.

Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Saleh having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from him, despite the fact that Saleh had not reported the man and had set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of the officials said.

Police were expected to announce the arrest at a news conference later Friday.

Investigators have also concluded that Saleh was killed Monday, the day before his body was found, and that the killer returned the next day to Saleh’s apartment on East Houston Street to dismember the body and clean up the crime scene.

Detectives believe that the killer, dressed in a black three-piece suit, white shirt and tie, wearing a black mask and carrying a duffle bag, followed Saleh off an elevator in his building and into his apartment, a law enforcement official said. He used a Taser to immobilize Saleh and then stabbed him to death.

Security video taken from inside the elevator shows the killer later using a battery-operated portable vacuum cleaner in an apparent effort to remove any traces of his presence, the official said.

New York City’s medical examiner announced Thursday that Saleh had died from multiple stab wounds to his neck and torso. Initially, a law enforcement official had described the killing as a “hit” and said it looked “like a professional job.”

Detectives investigating the killing believe the killer’s work dismembering the body was interrupted when Saleh’s sister buzzed from the building’s lobby, another official said, prompting him to flee through the apartment’s back door and into a stairwell before the sister arrived.

Saleh’s family said in a statement Wednesday that the killing was so shocking it was unfathomable.

“Fahim is more than what you are reading,” the family said. “He is so much more. His brilliant and innovative mind took everyone who was a part of his world on a journey and he made sure never to leave anyone behind.”

Saleh was born in Saudi Arabia to Bangladeshi parents who eventually settled near Poughkeepsie, New York, a small city on the Hudson River.

After graduating from Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2009, he built an app called PrankDial that allowed users to send prerecorded prank calls. Saleh said he eventually built PrankDial into a $10 million business.

Saleh went on to found Pathao, a motorcycle ride-sharing startup in Bangladesh. He left that company in 2018 to begin a similar venture in Nigeria, an app known as Gokada.

At the time of his death, Saleh was the chief executive of Gokada and oversaw a shift in its business during a turbulent time. In February, Nigerian officials began enforcing a ban on motorcycle taxis in major commercial and residential parts of the country’s largest city, Lagos.

Gokada was forced to halt its ride-hailing business and laid workers off, but Saleh pivoted the company to focus on food and parcel delivery and business logistics.

“Fahim’s passion for Nigeria and its youth was immeasurable,” Gokada said in a statement. “He believed young Nigerians were extremely bright and talented individuals who would flourish if just given the right opportunity.”

Saleh was also the founding partner in a Manhattan-based venture capital fund, Adventure Capital, that invested in similar transit startups in Colombia and Bangladesh.
https://www.boston.com/news/crime/2020/07/17/fahim-saleh-killing-arrest
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
Left Fahim Saleh
Right Tyrese Devon Haspil
 

Crackers Phinn

Either A Blessing Or A Lesson.
I'm just going to go head and imply some things considering the passionate nature of the murder.

"Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Saleh having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from him, despite the fact that Saleh had not reported the man and had set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of the officials said."

It would have been much simpler for dude to shoot or stab him and try to hide the body. It took a whole nother level of feelings to go to the trouble to cut off another person's head and appendages. That goes way above and beyond the emotional quotient of a simple employee/employer relationship.
 

NaturalEnigma

Well-Known Member
This is so sad! That guy is a monster. It sounds like the young man who died was doing some great things. It’s sad to see his life cut short. The murderer sounds like he was trying to make it hard for the police to identify the body by cutting the head (face) and his limbs (fingerprints) and later possibly disposing of them in different places or burning them, but dang like that homie. That’s sick. We don’t usually do crimes like that. The killer looks like a regular guy. Smh, what adds insult to injury is that he’s a thief too and the guy was nice enough to not turn him in and let him pay back in installments. If he would have just called the cops on him when he found out he was stealing he would still be alive.
 
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Theresamonet

Well-Known Member
I'm just going to go head and imply some things considering the passionate nature of the murder.

"Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Saleh having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from him, despite the fact that Saleh had not reported the man and had set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of the officials said."

It would have been much simpler for dude to shoot or stab him and try to hide the body. It took a whole nother level of feelings to go to the trouble to cut off another person's head and appendages. That goes way above and beyond the emotional quotient of a simple employee/employer relationship.

I had similar thoughts, cause who sets up a repayment plan for a thieving employee, instead of at least firing them?
 

yamilee21

Well-Known Member
The accused killer is only 21, and had been working with him for 5 years, since he was 16. How did they meet? What were the dynamics of this relationship? Somehow, it doesn’t seem that ‘being fired for stealing money’ is the full story.
Even Saleh’s own story is odd... born in Saudi Arabia to Bangladeshi parents - most Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia are migrants working lowly regarded jobs that wealthier Saudis don’t do. Somehow they manage to resettle in the US, he graduates college and founds a company back “home” in Bangladesh, which does happen often enough. But then he also funds companies in Nigeria AND Colombia - how did he make those connections, and why were they even willing to work with him when he had no other ties to either place?
If the accused killer is truly guilty, he should of course face the consequences, but I really hope this story will be fully investigated, because it has too many disparate parts.
 

UmSumayyah

Well-Known Member
The accused killer is only 21, and had been working with him for 5 years, since he was 16. How did they meet? What were the dynamics of this relationship? Somehow, it doesn’t seem that ‘being fired for stealing money’ is the full story.
Even Saleh’s own story is odd... born in Saudi Arabia to Bangladeshi parents - most Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia are migrants working lowly regarded jobs that wealthier Saudis don’t do. Somehow they manage to resettle in the US, he graduates college and founds a company back “home” in Bangladesh, which does happen often enough. But then he also funds companies in Nigeria AND Colombia - how did he make those connections, and why were they even willing to work with him when he had no other ties to either place?
If the accused killer is truly guilty, he should of course face the consequences, but I really hope this story will be fully investigated, because it has too many disparate parts.
I went to college with a couple of rich Pakistani girls who were raised and went to school in Saudi Arabia. Not sure how common it is for the other south Asian countries.
 

Queenie

Well-Known Member
I'm just going to go head and imply some things considering the passionate nature of the murder.

"Detectives believe that the motive for the killing stemmed from Saleh having discovered that the assistant had stolen tens of thousands of dollars from him, despite the fact that Saleh had not reported the man and had set up what amounted to a repayment plan for him to return the money, one of the officials said."

It would have been much simpler for dude to shoot or stab him and try to hide the body. It took a whole nother level of feelings to go to the trouble to cut off another person's head and appendages. That goes way above and beyond the emotional quotient of a simple employee/employer relationship.

Exactly, I question if he was more than an employee. Stabbing is a crime of passion.
 

yamilee21

Well-Known Member
I went to college with a couple of rich Pakistani girls who were raised and went to school in Saudi Arabia. Not sure how common it is for the other south Asian countries.
Bangladesh is a very poor country prone to natural disasters. Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are akin to Mexicans and Central Americans in the United States... except that as migrants/day laborers there, they are even more frequently subjected to human rights violations. Even for those who come to NY, the community tends to struggle with poverty and severely overcrowded multi-family households; there are real differences with Pakistanis and Indians, who tend to be wealthier. In NYC, they have actually been one of the communities hardest hit by the Covid-19 crisis, both with the illness itself and with the economic impact, since so many of the men were Uber/Lyft drivers. There are always wealthy outliers in any country, but Saleh’s family has been described as being from “humble” backgrounds in some of the articles I read.
 

yamilee21

Well-Known Member
I saw this earlier and it never occurred to me the assistant would be a black dude. Something is definitely off about the story.
The first article I saw about the case had a bunch of comments pointing to his partner in Nigeria, since the business was in trouble and it had essentially copied the model of a competitor established a year earlier. But the business in Colombia was in a similar predicament, so that could have been equally plausible.
 

Reinventing21

Spreading my wings
^^^Ok so I had t go back and re read. The article states tbat the killer was wearing a b!ack mask. It never says the assistant's face was on camera. Throughout this article, the suspect was referred to as 'the killer'.

In the next breath, the leap is made to a possible motive that the assistant owed some money. But! The possible motive sounds ludicrous given that the ceo offered him a way out. For him to do that, he would have to 1) be bonifide nuts 2) the relationship had some additional layers or 3) someone else close to the ceo killed him knowing the flimsy possible motive of the assistant would divert attention and dressed like the assitant on purpose.
 

Kanky

Well-Known Member
^^Nope. He did it.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/us/fahim-saleh-murder/index.html

According to the complaint, video surveillance shows a male, identified as Haspil, following Saleh up the elevator into his apartment on Monday and shooting him with a Taser.
The next morning, video surveillance allegedly shows Haspil went to a hardware store to purchase cleaning supplies and an electric saw, according to the complaint. The electric saw and cleaning supplies were observed in the apartment next to the dismembered and decapitated torso of Saleh, the complaint states.


He is terrible at this murder thing.
 

LdyKamz

Well-Known Member
This story is so odd. When they first reported it, although they didn't say it, they implied the victim knew the suspected killer because they rode up in the elevator together and that they started fighting immediately upon exiting the elevator/entering the apartment. They never mentioned this guy by name. Then in later reports they started saying the killing looked professional, implying either that the victim didn't know the man in the elevator OR that the victim was involved in shady dealings with even shadier people. Color me surprised when even later they name his assistant. This guy probably thought since masks are a thing now he wouldn't be able to be identified while also still being given easy access/opportunity to commit this heinous crime. The way the news has reported it is so sensationalized that it hardly makes sense. If they had stuck to the facts people wouldn't be questioning whether or not the assistant did it even though all the evidence points to him.

I will also say the reason this story scared me so bad is because it was reported as though it was some random killing from a crazed maniac on the loose. That along with this steady stream of violent crimes here in NYC got me fearing we are returning to the NYC of the 70s and 80s when it was the murder capital of the world.
 

Reinventing21

Spreading my wings
^^^ Wow! That is sad, horrifying and just so weird. So I' m back to he is either completely psychotic or there is more to this story. And yes, the way he went about it...it is like he did the bare minimum to plan and cover up is crime.

Well at least they have the right guy...so sad all the way around.
 
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