New York police on Friday arrested slain Bangladeshi-origin US millionaire technology entrepreneur Fahim Saleh’s former personal assistant Tyrese Devon Haspil in connection with his brutal murder.
Haspil, 21, is in custody and expected to be charged with the murder as Fahim was found decapitated and dismembered inside his Manhattan apartment on Monday, according to New York Times and New York Post.
Haspil worked as Saleh’s personal assistant at venture capital firm Adventure Capital founded by Fahim, 33.
The motive behind the murder allegedly involves stolen cash.
Fahim learned that Haspil swiped $100,000 from him. Instead of informing the local authorities, he arranged a repayment plan for the young staff member.
Haspil, at one point, declined to comply with the deal.
‘This was an act of charity that turned into an act of murder,’ a source of the New York Post told the newspaper.
Haspil reportedly used an electric shock weapon on Fahim and then fatally stabbed him to death on Monday, according to the New York Times.
He returned to Fahim’s apartment next day to chop up Fahim’s body and clean up the crime scene.
Security video footage from inside the elevator of apartment building shows Haspil using a portable vacuum cleaner to dry the floor and cover his tracks.
Bangladesh Police sought, through Interpol, information from the US authorities about the death of Fahim, also co-founder app-based motorcycle ride-sharing company Pathao in the country.
INTERPOL National Central Bureau in Dhaka has communicated with its counterpart in Washington seeking details of the murder of Fahim Saleh.
Mohiul Islam, an assistant inspector general for NCB in Bangladesh police headquarters, told New Age that they emailed their queries about the murder to their counterpart in Washington.
‘Basically we have asked for details about the murder. Whether a case was filed or not? Who are the suspects? Is there any arrest,’ the police officer said. He added that they were expecting replies within a day or two.
Fahim co-founded Parthao in 2015, which valued over $100 million, according to Fahim’s LinkedIn page.
Fahim also co-founded another on-demand motorcycle ride-sharing company Gokado as CEO in Lagos in Nigeria in 2018.
Deji Oduntan was a co-founder and CEO of Gokado until March 2019, according to Nigerian newspaper Vanguard.
Gokada raised $5.3million in funding in May 2019. But in February 2020, the company laid off 75 per cent of its workforce following a ban on tricycles and bikes on major routes in Lagos State.
Fahim also launched Adventure Capital, a venture capital firm, in New York in 2018.
Fahim, 33, died as a result of stab wounds to the neck and torso and it was a homicide, CNN reported referring to a statement made by a spokesperson on autopsy by the New York city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
‘The headlines talk about a crime we still cannot fathom,’ the statement said. ‘Fahim is more than what you are reading. 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.’
The investigators are still probing the death as they think the killing looks like ‘a professional job.’
The killer, dressed entirely in black and wearing a black mask, followed the victim from the elevator of his Manhattan apartment building into his apartment on Monday.
The body parts of the millionaire tech entrepreneur were found in plastic bags inside the apartment on Tuesday as he was brutally murdered in the condo where he lived with his dog Laila. Laila was, however, recovered alive.
Investigators believed that the killer’s work dismembering the body was interrupted when Fahim’s cousin entered the apartment to check on him after not hearing from him for a day.
They think that the killer fled through the apartment’s back door and into the building’s staircase when she arrived.