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Nigerian man, two others arrested over murd3r of 20-year-old woman in Nairobi Airbnb

Olu Adeyemi — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 06:28:25 +0000

The Nigerian suspected of involvement in the killing of a Kenya lady

Kenyan police have arrested three people, including a Nigerian national, suspected to have been involved in the murder of a 20-year-old woman at an Airbnb in Roysambu, Nairobi.

The Nigerian man was arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JIKIA) on Monday night, January 15, while attempting to depart from the country.

The two other suspects were taken into custody at Kasarani Police Headquarters in connection with the murder.

The suspects are being held for allegedly murdering the young lady on Sunday, January 14, 2024.

The suspects allegedly murdered the woman, dismembered her body, packed the pieces in polythene bags and dumped the bag in the apartment’s dustbin.

The body of the victim was not found in the bag.

Kasarani OCPD Joseph Muriuki explained to the media that they had not informed the family of the recent developments because they were still searching for the head of the deceased.

He explained that detectives traced the Nigerian national through the CCTV footage which showed the suspect receiving the key used to access the apartment in Roysambu.

Muriuki said that police officers traced the Nigerian through his phone contact that he used to book the rental room on Sunday.

The phone records also showed that on the night of the murder, the suspect was traced to Ruaka before the phone was switched off.

Speaking to journalists, a neighbour of one of the arrested suspects said he was called by investigators from DCI to give information regarding the suspect.

The neighbour, identified as George, said he saw the CCTV footage and discovered the suspect could be someone he knows in one of the estates in Syokimau.

George added that he spent the day at the DCI headquarters along Kiambu Road, where he recorded a statement.

He described the neighbour as a “calm and collected fellow,” adding that he saw him in custody but didn’t say much as he looked confused.

Interestingly, before the apprehension of any culprits, some Kenyans had commenced a “Deport all Nigerians” campaign, apparently because they believed that a Nigerian had something to do with the gruesome murder.

The hashtag “Deport Nigerians” trended all day on Tuesday in Kenya, spreading to Nigeria after some Nigerian X users got involved in the conversation.

Read the report here.

The post Nigerian man, two others arrested over murd3r of 20-year-old woman in Nairobi Airbnb first appeared on MicroSecondNews.

‘Deport Nigerians’ campaign kicks off in Kenya

Olu Adeyemi — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 10:54:12 +0000

Some Kenyans are trying to link Nigerians with this incident

There is an anti-Nigerian campaign ongoing in Kenya.

“Deport Nigerians’ is currently among the top 10 trending topics on X in Kenya and this has also manifested on Nigeria’s X trend map.

The specific reason that sparked the campaign is not known right now, but an X user, @Haaland_sholla suggested that a Nigerian was involved in the killing of a lady in an AirBnB a few days ago. Read the story here.

Another X user has cautioned the user that this had not been conclusively proven.

Nonetheless, @Haaland_sholla listed the sins of Nigerians to include drug trafficking, prostitution and violent crimes.

The user twitted:

“Kenya Should Deport Nigerians asap; this is what most Nigerians are allegedly doing in Kenya.

1-Scamming people in the US, and EU (washwash) thus tarnishing Kenya’s image 2-Money laundering unclean money thru Kenya

3-Selling drugs like coke in Kenya

4-Rituals and killing our girls in ke

5-Many other crimes All Nigerians visiting Kenya should have a detailed security and background check If not they will end up turning Kenya into a dangerous country If u agree with me please like and retweet this tweet to amplify it”

@ohadugha: “You sound bitter. Why not call on your law enforcement to find the lady’s killer, rather than calling for the deportation of Nigerians? From your previous tweets, I deduce it hasn’t been confirmed that it was a Nigerian”

@Haaland_sholla: “Both should go concurrently; Nigerians should stick in their country and do their crimes in Nigeria. Not moving to other countries to ruin lives. I repeat; deport Nigerians and lets start screening each of them who want to visit Kenya”

@BULLET_FEN: “this is what south africans are complaining about but u were bashing us for saying this, nigerians are not good people once there is a nigerian church in your community expect drugs, prostitution and kidnapping to increase.”

@samuelk321: “Who is to blame Nigerians or our girls who have become so cheap and available nowadays?”

@ThaboMama661302: “Lol! noooooo “you are being xenophobic”, “crime has no nationality”, “Nigerians are our African brothers”.

The post ‘Deport Nigerians’ campaign kicks off in Kenya first appeared on MicroSecondNews.

Another lady k!lled in Nairobi Airbnb

Olu Adeyemi — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 17:37:23 +0000

Security officials on the property

Police in Kenya have launched an investigation into the brutal murder of another woman inside an Airbnb located along Thika Road Mall (TRM) in Nairobi.

The woman’s body was discovered on Sunday morning, January 14, 2024.

Residents told the media that a man who had booked a room with the woman returned the key early on Sunday morning before disappearing.

Witnesses say that some body parts of the woman had been chopped and stashed inside a paper bag.

Although details about the incident are sketchy, police officers from the Kasarani police station visited the scene early Sunday morning as investigations unfold.

A detective attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) who is part of the team investigating the matter, said that officers were reviewing CCTV footage to understand what transpired.

“As we talk, officers are busy reviewing CCTV footage in order to establish what transpired, the body is still at the crime scene,” said the detective.

The discovery comes barely a week after police arrested John Matara, a suspected serial offender believed to have killed socialite Starlet Wahu inside an Airbnb in Nairobi’s South B area.

The post Another lady k!lled in Nairobi Airbnb first appeared on MicroSecondNews.

Family sues Airbnb after their 19 month old baby dies of fentanyl overdose in rental

Olu Adeyemi — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 18:51:07 +0000

A family whose 19-month-old daughter died of a fentanyl overdose while staying at an Airbnb apartment during a vacation in Florida, USA has filed a wrongful death suit against the home rental company and the property owner.

Lydie and Boris Lavenir were vacationing in Wellington, Florida, with their children and found their daughter, Enora, in her bed just hours after their arrival. The family told the Washington Post that her face was blue with white foam coming from her lips and that when paramedics arrived after calling 911 it was too late to save the child.

Her death was deemed to be the result of exposure to fentanyl according to reports by the Palm Beach County medical examiner and an independent toxicology report, according to the Post.

It’s unclear how the girl came into contact with fentanyl at the rental, as investigators were unable to find any traces of fentanyl at the rental home or on the parents’ belongings. According to the Post, an investigator wrote in the latest report, “I am currently unable to determine how the child Enora Lavenir ingested the fentanyl.”

The Lavenir family has now filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Airbnb, the vacation homeowner, and the prior renter following their daughter’s death from an accidental fentanyl overdose.

The family’s wrongful death lawsuit names Airbnb, the property owners, and the prior renter as defendants. They allege the rental company and vacation homeowner failed to ensure the safety of the property, and claim the prior renter was negligent in allowing drugs to be used at the property and leaving behind drugs or drug residue.

An Airbnb spokesperson in a statement said “Our hearts go out to the Lavenir family and their loved ones for this devastating loss.”

The prior renter who booked the rental home through Vrbo admitted to police that they had hosted a party at the property where cocaine was present, but investigators were reportedly unable to link those drugs to the girl’s overdose and her death has been deemed accidental.

Fentanyl is an opioid that can be fatal in small doses and has caused thousands of deaths around the country as overdoses surged in recent years.

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How Airbnb promotes scam, my experience

Olu Adeyemi — Sat, 11 May 2019 11:53:00 +0000

Staircase

A door opening to a hideous recess.

I had heard a lot about Airbnb before I decided to try them out in March when I was planning a vacation in the United States. It turned out to be a huge mistake.

The search

I spent days scouring Airbnb for a suitable apartment I could stay in with my wife for 10 days and finally shortlisted two; one in Queens because it was close to JFK International Airport where we were coming in through, and Brooklyn, because it was close to the areas we were keen to see. The Brooklyn apartment was going to win until we noticed it was a basement.

Queens won

We settled for the one the host described as Rosedale Private residential (SMOKE FREE) in Queens. The winning description in the ad was ‘an entire bungalow’. It was costlier, but we thought it was worth it.

Rude shock

We flew thousands of miles to this destination and discovered the listing was misrepresented. It was not a bungalow, but a basement apartment. That was a big deal for me because apart from the nice Brooklyn apartment, I had seen and ruled out many other basements with better prices and reviews because we were apprehensive of the problems associated with basements, such as dampness, flooding and mould.

To make matters worse, this apartment we opted for was so disappointing that we left almost immediately and looked for a hotel to stay to search for another apartment, into which we moved the next day to spend the rest of the vacation.

Apart from the lie of the actual nature of the apartment, we also found that the sofa in the living room was old; the reading table in the room had seen better days and looked like it would fall apart. The apartment was apparently furnished with what the host discarded from the main building.

We arrived after a rain. Consequently, I stepped into a puddle of water in the master bedroom. The big cooker was rusty. The kitchen was cluttered with stuff used in the main apartment uptairs. A padlocked freezer, ostensibly containing stored food of the host, took up a part of the apartment.

A staircase descends from the main apartment directly into the lobby of this listing. At the top of the stairs, there is a door that is locked with a key from the main apartment. Apart from this, there were at least three other doors that were locked, one with a padlock. Another unlocked door opens to a dark hideous recess.

The tiles bore water marks, signposting possible flooding episodes in the past. Sounds of water running in some pipes within the walls were persistent. Overall, there was a mismatch between the cost and the value of this listing.

Confrontation

I called the host and confronted him with my findings and expressed my disappointment that he misrepresented his apartment. He was quiet for some time and then the line went dead. I tried again and it went into voicemail.

I called Airbnb and complained. The customer care person who first picked the call sounded sympathetic and requested that I sent evidence of what I was claiming. That took me some time to do, as I had to find a better apartment.

I finally sent the evidence required the following day, when apparently somebody else, a lady had taken over the case. She later reverted that they could not refund me the entire money I paid because I did not stay in the apartment to sort out the issue with the owner, as Airbnb’s policy demanded.

I found that odd. If it was a question of toiletry not being provided or a faulty TV or something, I would understand, because those could be fixed. But this was a case of somebody lying about the very nature of his apartment, calling it a bungalow when in actual fact it was a basement. How could he have fixed that?

A more honest host in the same Queens neighbourhood described his own apartment as ‘An Independent Basement’. But this one fraudulently called his own ‘bungalow’. He took nice pictures of the bed, a long shot of the big cooker, and not a single shot of the two staircases in the apartment, one outside, the other right inside the apartment. His whole intention was to mislead people who hate basements into booking it.

I told them there was nothing that the host could have done to make it right. For me it was a case of deception. With deception, trust is damaged. If I couldn’t trust what you say, how could I stay under your roof overnight?

The review

Even though I didn’t like Airbnb’s decision, I decided to move on. However, when they prompted me to leave a review for the listing a few days later, I described what I saw.

I went back to the listing many times thereafter to see my review. It was not there. I lost interest. A week or two later, I remembered to check again and found that it had been published and the host had responded. The host carefully avoided tackling the issues I raised, but instead made an attempt to damage my credibility by concocting lies that had no bearing on the issues I raised.

I brought this to the attention of Airbnb again and they promised to investigate. It took them over 24 hours to get back. We exchanged a few more mails. Their final decision was that they could not remove the host’s response without removing my review. I told them I would not remove my review because that was the only way prospective guests could know what to expect.

Blackmail

Further scrutiny of the listing in question showed that the host had a habit of concocting lies against guests who wrote critical reviews. I saw a review by a gentleman who described himself as a pilot. The man stayed in the apartment in March just before me, but his review had not been posted by Airbnb by the time we were considering the apartment. If it had been posted, I would definitely not have paid for the listing. The man raised most of the issues I highlighted in my review.

Now, Airbnb has a policy of obtaining reviews from both the host and the guest. The host doesn’t get to see the review of the guest until he has given his own review. Now, this particular host left a very good review for this pilot, not knowing the pilot had left a critical review for his apartment. The moment he realised this, he rushed back to comment that the pilot was actually not a good guest. He described him as a drunk and said he was sorry for whoever boarded a plane he was piloting! Airbnb allowed the comment.

In the circumstances, the option for the pilot was to either allow the impugnation on his professional competence to remain on Airbnb site or to ask that it be taken down together with his own review. This is apparently how this guy blackmails guests from leaving a critical review for his listing.

Until Airbnb reviews this policy, by at least allowing guests to respond to any lies against them, many hosts will continue to exploit this loophole and smile to the bank.

Misleading claim

I took Airbnb up on the misleading claim made by the host. Initially, one Airbnb customer care agent promised they would get the host to correctly represent his listing. Another one I engaged on the issue later said other guests had made similar complaint against the man and Airbnb’s trust committee investigated and found that the host was doing nothing wrong.

That was odd, but I believe they came to that conclusion because they never visited the apartment and relied on the host’s claims. I was in the apartment. The building hosting the listing is a storey building. The apartment is in the basement, below the street level. The host lived on the two floors above the listing.

Conclusion

Airbnb apparently means well. However, they need to look at their policies again with a view to giving more protection to the consumer.

The post How Airbnb promotes scam, my experience first appeared on MicroSecondNews.