NYC millionaire was tasered as elevator opened and stabbed in the chest by hitman in a ninja outfit

Fahim Saleh, the tech millionaire brutally murdered by a hitman in a ‘ninja outfit’ inside his luxury Manhattan apartment this week, was tasered and then stabbed multiple times by his killer before being dismembered, an autopsy has revealed.

The 33-year-old’s limbs and head were found shorn from his torso by his sister when she arrived at the entrepreneur’s $2.2 million Lower East Side apartment at 3:30pm Tuesday. 

Saleh was last seen alive just over 25 hours earlier. Surveillance footage from inside 265 East Houston showed the tech guru walking into an elevator at 1:40pm Monday with an assailant – dressed in a suit, tie,  mask and holding a large bag – following closely behind him.

Law enforcement say Saleh, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, appeared suspicious when the masked-man fumbled with the elevator, which requires the use of a key fob to operate.

As the doors opened to the seventh-floor, words were said to be exchanged between the pair before Saleh reportedly collapsed to the ground as he stepped into his apartment. 

A struggle ensured between Saleh and the assailant but the elevator doors closed, obscuring the camera’s view of what happened next.

An autopsy has since determined that his killer incapacitated him with a stun gun, before stabbing him multiple times in the chest until he died, the Daily Beast reported.

By the time police arrived at the complex the following day they were greeted with a horrific scene: Saleh’s torso was found in the corner of his living room, with his head, arms, and legs separated into plastic bags.

A law enforcement source told the New York Post that Saleh’s limbs had been ‘severed with surgical precision’, with his arms cut off at his shoulders, and his legs just below the knees. 

Describing the murder as ‘professional’, the killer had reportedly kept Saleh’s blood confined to one corner of the room, tracing a near ‘perfect outline’ around his body.

Investigators also found a number of ominous objects nearby, including industrial-sized plastic bags – the kind used by construction contractors to dispose of trash, a myriad of cleaning products and an electric saw that was still plugged into the wall.  

Fahim Saleh is pictured with his two sisters, Rif Saleh (center) and Ruby Bashir (right). It is not known which of them made the grisly discovery 

The apartment building where Saleh lived. His dismembered body was found by his sister on Tuesday at 3.30pm

Detectives outside the building on Wednesday. Police are yet to track down or arrest the killer 

The entrance to the expensive, exclusive building, where there are only seven units

All of the apartments in the building have private elevator access. The killer followed Saleh out of his after riding up with him, cops said. Above, a floor plan of his apartment which shows the staircase that the killer likely escaped out of 

Saleh’s apartment is one of just seven in the exclusive Lower East Side Building. Above, one of the marketing images used to promote the sale. It’s unclear if this is his apartment

Saleh was being sued by a former prison guard, Kirk Eady, who was jailed for using Saleh’s PrankDial app to listen to employees’ phone calls 

Police believe the masked butcher may have been interrupted by Saleh’s sister when she stopped by her brother’s apartment to check in on him on Tuesday, having not seen or heard from him in more than a day. 

The killer is believed to have fled the building through a fire escape while his victim’s sibling rode the elevator up, police said. 

Sources told The New York Post the sister likely pressed the buzzer of Saleh’s apartment before entering the building, alerting the killer and forcing him to abandon his efforts to dispose of the remains.

In addition to the saw still being plugged in, investigators noted that the blood around Saleh’s torso had not yet blackened.

The discovery suggests that the 33-year-old had only recently been dismembered – likely in the last hour of the some 25 hours the killer appears to have spent inside the apartment.

TECH ENTREPRENEUR’S PLEA TO AFRICAN OFFICIALS TO LET HIS STRUGGLING COMPANY RUN IN FEBRUARY

 

In February, Saleh defended his Lagos-based company, Gokada, after officials banned motorbikes as taxis – crippling the business model and forcing him to lay off hundreds of people. 

The business was set up to try to circumvent the constant traffic in Nigeria which means people are often stuck in cars for hours at a time. 

Commuters in Lagos relied on the service to get to work and the drivers relied on it for money.

When the ban was put in place, Saleh had to pivot the business to operating as a courier and delivery service. 

In a heartfelt video to Nigerian officials at the time, he said: ‘It’s not my country. It’s a country that I feel has amazing potential and amazing people and an opportunity to shine. 

‘The drivers, every one of them, wasn’t there because they just wanted to make money. They were there because they had families, children, dreams, they wanted to start businesses. They wanted to go to school.

‘They had degrees already but they couldn’t find jobs. We were hoping that a lot of these drivers wouldn’t be drivers forever, we were hoping that we could place them in higher jobs in Gokada and create a beautiful community which was developing slowly and,it was really something that moved me to the point where I was OK putting all my money in, all my effort in.

‘Gokada is not just a business. We do things that nobody else did at the time.

‘This has definitely been a blow.’ 

The company confirmed his death in a tweet on Wednesday.

‘Fahim was a great leader, inspiration and positive light for all of us. Our hearts go out to his friends, family and all those feeling the pain and heartbreak we are currently experiencing, here at Gokada. 

‘All updates and changes will be communicated with you, as it unfolds. Forever in our hearts.’ 

The New York Times reported that some effort had been made to clear up evidence.  

The killer remains at large as of Thursday, with cops now desperately searching for leads in the case.

According to an unnamed friend, neighbors heard screaming and loud noises on Monday afternoon but no one called 911. 

Police sources say they believe the murder was financially motivated, likely the fatal result of a soured business deal.

Investigators are looking into the victim’s business affairs for any possible motives or suspects.

‘I think it was an overseas situation where they hired a hit man to do this and maybe the person is on a plane out of here,’ an unnamed friend of Saleh’s told NBC4. 

Investigators say they are looking into that theory as a possibility.

The family of the tech tycoon have since begged the NYPD to find Saleh’s ‘evil’ killer, calling the 33-year-old’s death unimaginable.

‘The headlines talk about a crime we still cannot fathom,’ the family said in its statement. ‘No words or actions to provide any of us comfort except the capture of the person who exhibited nothing short of evil upon our loved one.

‘We need and urge the NYPD and other members of law enforcement to work diligently to get to the bottom of this horrific crime and bring justice for Fahim…

‘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.’   

Saleh, who was born in Saudi Arabia but grew up in New York in a Bengali family, bought his luxury pad for $2.25 million last year and was clearly proud of his purchase – regularly posting pictures and video on his Instagram.

His LinkedIn profile reveals the former website developer was the CEO of a motorbike hailing company in Lagos, Nigeria.

The firm, Gokada, recently faced severe setbacks after being banned earlier this year by the Nigerian government.

It was forced to lay off staff and pivot from being a ride-sharing service to a delivery courier.

The ban came at a difficult moment for Gokada which had just raised $5.3 million in funding from Rise Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, in May 2019.

After the ban was enacted, the firm stopped bringing in money and around 800 bikers working for Gorkada were also immediately laid off. 

Saleh was working on new ideas and a new direction for the firm.  

At the time of his death, he was also being sued by a former prison guard turned criminal who was jailed for using his app PrankDial to secretly record and listen to employees’ phone calls. 

He founded the app in 2015. 

The app let Kirk Eady, the former deputy director of Hudson County Correctional Facility, place a call between two employees without them knowing he was behind it, then listen to whatever they said. 

He listened to their complaints about him and about their jobs then retaliated against them in the workplace, according to prosecutors.

He was jailed for 15 months and in 2017, sued Saleh for fraud, claiming the app made him think what he was doing was legal. 

On June 2, Saleh ominously tweeted: ‘Have a very good feeling about 2020.’ 

A bouquet of flowers is seen left outside of 265 East Houston on Thursday as a police investigation into the murder continues at the property

A woman could be seen sitting in the lobby of the building shortly after the police arrived at the scene to investigate

A crowd of people are seen gathered outside the apartment building in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan

The victim had last been seen alive on Monday afternoon and was caught on surveillance cameras getting into the elevator with the suspect 

Saleh bought the luxury pad for $2.25 million last year and was clearly proud of his purchase – regularly posting pictures and video on his Instagram 

Police say they believe the man was attacked as soon as he walked into his apartment

Saleh would regularly post pictures on social media with him together with his sisters, at least one of whom lived in New York

Gorkada had faced issues with its operation in Nigeria having been banned by the local government 

Friends of Saleh have paid tribute to him saying ‘He was extremely smart, ambitious, very kind. Always smiling’

NYPD crime scene detectives are pictures on scene, outside the apartment block

On Tuesday afternoon, police could be seen in the condo’s lobby at 265 East Houston Street and speaking with a woman who was in tears and who was believed to be one of Saleh’s sisters who had found the body. 

‘She was really upset. Crying. Shaking,’ neighbor Danny Faust said to The Post. ‘She was just sitting there but you can tell her legs were shaking. She’s nervous. She was crying like, you know, wiping her eyes.’

‘She was screaming when she first came down,’ Faust said. 

‘Dead body? Okay. But when you hear chopped up and dismembered? 

‘That’s it. That’s a sick type of mind for somebody to do that,’ he added.

On Tuesday afternoon friends began showing up to his building. A couple said they believe that Saleh must have been targeted. 

‘He was extremely smart, ambitious, very kind. Always smiling,’ one friend told the Daily News. 

The friends said he was a self-made millionaire who had a passion for gadgets and video games.  

He also enjoyed bringing tech companies into underdeveloped nations including Nigeria and Indonesia. 

He never said he was scared,’ another friend recalled. ‘[He was] always very happy-go-lucky.’ 

On Tuesday night, tributes were also being made online to Saleh. 

‘Rest in peace Fahim Saleh. Deepest condolences for his family and friends. The world is becoming inhumane day by day,’ wrote Ashiq Rahman, a software engineer living in Toronto.

Friends said he was like the ‘Elon Musk of the developing world’ because he was so committed to investing in countries to improve them. 

He started his businesses from his parent’s house in Hopewell Junction, upstate New York.  

Revealed: Humble beginnings of tech CEO who credited his love of computer games as a teen to developing Nigeria motorbike-sharing app that drew in millions of dollars from investors  

Fahim Saleh was born in July 1986 into a middle-class Bengali family in Saudi Arabia. Along with his two sisters – Rif Saleh and Ruby Bashir – he and his parents eventually settled in Rochester, New York.

But even as a youngster, Saleh was said to already be dreaming of earning money and found that his interest in computers could help to realize those dreams.

As a young teen, his enthusiasm for the internet which was still in its infancy at the time, led him to researching Google’s founder and other big tech names during the dot com boom of the late 1990s.

After spending hours playing computer games, he decided to turn his computer wizardry to building a website. 

Fahim Saleh, far left, was born into a middle-class Bengali family in Saudi Arabia. He is pictured here along with his two sisters and his parents. The family eventually settled in New York state

Saleh started small, creating a website for his family when he was in eighth grade, but the dotcom boom of the 1990 saw him become interested in programming and developing websites

He started small and began with a simple site for his family – Salehfamily.com. It would draw in around five visitors a month, mostly driven by his proud father who would send friends and relatives to look at the pages. 

But by the age of 15, Saleh began to develop a knack for programming and set up a blogging site just for his friends. 

What started as a teen hangout (teenhangout.com), ended up turning into a blogging forum for the community as more people heard about the site and began to publish articles. Finally, money slowly began to come in to the tune of around $3 a month.

A blog notes how at high school, however, Saleh was drawing a profit of between $100,000 and $150,000 a year as he created websites that focused on young people.  

After leaving school, he attended Bentley University in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied Computer Information Systems and developed a Facebook app  which allowed students to have food delivered. 

He then set up a phone-pranking phone app that would let a user choose a prank call before calling up their friends to hear their surprised reaction. 

What started off generating about $20 a day soon grew to $1,000.  Saleh notes in an article for Medium  that PrankDial.com has generated $10million during its lifetime. 

The website still brings in about $1-2million a year and allowed Saleh to set up more companies: TapFury, an entertainment company, and Ninja Fish which had a focus on gaming. 

With money being generated, literally while he slept, he set up a venture firm that would allow him to invest in startups in the developing world. 

Saleh’s current focus was on a Nigerian transport service app called Gokada – essentially an Uber for motorbikes 

His current focus was on a Nigerian transport service app called Gokada – essentially an Uber for motorbikes –  which was co-founded by Saleh in 2018. 

The initial idea was to have people transported across Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, by motorcycle.

In its first year of operation, Gokada was said to have secured 1,000 bikes giving around 5,000 rides across the crowded city each day. 

But the firm ran into difficulty in February of this year after a ban went into effect that expressly forbid motorbike taxis. 

The ban came suddenly and without warning after the Lagos state government said a ban was needed because of ‘accidents, and disorderliness caused by the vehicles’.

As a result of the ban, commuters were left stranded and many were forced to travel on packed public transport instead.

The firm stopped bringing in money and around 800 bikers working for Gorkada were o immediately laid off.  

The ban came at a difficult moment for Gokada which had just raised $5.3 million in funding from Rise Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm, in May 2019. 

‘As a business, we kind of have to just roll with the punches and a lot of those people that we had to lay off were very focused on the transport sector of the business,’ Saleh told CNN earlier this year. 

In an emotional plea to Nigerian officials to reverse the decision in February, Saleh said: ‘It’s not my country. It’s a country that I feel has amazing potential and amazing people and an opportunity to shine. 

‘The drivers, every one of them, wasn’t there because they just wanted to make money. They were there because they had families, children, dreams, they wanted to start businesses. They wanted to go to school.

‘They had degrees already but they couldn’t find jobs. We were hoping that a lot of these drivers wouldn’t be drivers forever, we were hoping that we could place them in higher jobs in Gokada and create a beautiful community which was developing slowly and,it was really something that moved me to the point where I was OK putting all my money in, all my effort in.

‘Gokada is not just a business. We do things that nobody else did at the time.

‘This has definitely been a blow.’  

The company decided to attempt to pivot and become a delivery and logistics company with a new boat hailing service that would run vessels that could hold up to 24 people – but then the global pandemic struck, putting future plans on hold.

‘The drivers here at Gokada, were not there to make money, they were here because they had families, they have children, they have dreams,’ Saleh told Nirametrics.

‘They want to start businesses, they want to go to school, they have degrees already, but they couldn’t find jobs. For many, Gokada wasn’t the final place for their life. It was a stepping stone to get to that next endeavor.’

‘What I will tell you is that Gokada is not just a business, it’s a mission. And every part of that mission is to always be safe, provide jobs.’