On Tuesday, the CEO of Gokada, Nigeria’s motorcycle ride-hail company, was found dismembered in his luxury Lower East Side New York condo.
33-year-old venture capitalist Fahim Saleh was last seen in surveillance footage Monday evening, walking into the elevator in his apartment building, a source revealed to CNN. Another man, who was dressed in all black can be seen entering the elevator with Saleh. Authorities believe that this was his assailant. The elevator in the luxury building goes directly into the apartment units.
The source said that once the elevator stopped at Saleh’s apartment, the attacker followed him in and proceeded to attack the CEO. Saleh’s sister was the one to make the grisly discovery when she went to check on him Tuesday. She discovered his torso in an area next to the living room. The remaining parts of his body were found stuffed into individual bags in the condo, the source further revealed.
Police are working to determine how the attacker was able to leave the building undetected and the motive.
Gokada confirmed Saleh’s death in a statement on Twitter.
“We at Gokada are shocked and saddened to hear that Fahim Saleh, our founder, and CEO, passed away under tragic circumstances in New York earlier this week.”
During his short life, Saleh gained success from founding and selling websites. While in high school, he founded PrankDial.com, a website for pre-recorded prank phone calls. In 2018, he revealed that the website had generated over $10 million since its inception. He continued to found and sell sites well into his college education at Bentley University before establishing the venture capital firm Adventure Capital, a company that invested in ride-sharing start-ups in countries like Bangladesh and Colombia.
In his blog on Medium, he called his founding of Gokada, “one of the most out-there things” he’d ever done.
In response to Lagos, Nigeria’s ban on commercial motorcycles, Saleh was rallying for a lift on the ban on behalf of his over 800 drivers. He was also working on alternatives such as delivery services and a boat hailing service that would allow his employees to continue working.
