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Rotten Mango Podcast Episode #302 Summary
Episode Overview
- Podcast Title: Rotten Mango
- Episode Title: #302: TikToker Killed 2 People To Help Hide Her Mom’s Affair & Save Her Career
- Description: The episode dives deep into the shocking case involving Ansreen and her daughter May, a TikTok influencer, as they become embroiled in a crime to protect their family secrets from being exposed.
Key Characters
- Ansreen Bukhari: 44-year-old mother involved in an affair and the central figure in the crime.
- May (Mahek) Bukhari: 24-year-old daughter, a rising TikTok star, who participates in the crime to protect her mother.
- Saqib Hussein: 21-year-old man blackmailing Ansreen with videos that could ruin her marriage and May's career.
- Hashim Ijazudin: Saqib's friend who becomes an unintended victim in the ensuing events.
Episode Highlights
- TikTok Fame and Stalking:
- May is a TikTok influencer who gains followers by showcasing her dancing and family dynamics.
- Ansreen is stalked by Saqib, who threatens to leak incriminating videos of her, jeopardizing their family.
- The Affair:
- Ansreen embarks on a secretive, romantic relationship with Saqib, which leads to blackmail when she tries to end it.
- The emotional turmoil escalates as Saqib threatens to release intimate videos to her husband.
- The Plan:
- To silence Saqib, May and Ansreen concoct a plan involving multiple friends, leading to a dangerous confrontation.
- They lure Saqib to a Tesco parking lot under the pretense of paying him off to end the blackmail.
- The Chase and Consequences:
- The encounter leads to a high-speed car chase where Saqib and Hashim are killed in a crash after being rammed off the road by the group.
- The aftermath reveals deep psychological and legal ramifications, as authorities investigate the murder.
Key Concepts and Discussions
- Psychological Motivations:
- The episode examines the lengths to which individuals will go to protect their reputation and family secrets.
- It highlights the complexities of relationships, including the dynamics of a mother-daughter bond under strain.
- Social Media Impact:
- The narrative discusses the influence of social media on personal relationships and public personas.
- It poses questions about the consequences of online fame and the pressures associated with maintaining a curated image.
- Legal Implications:
- The subsequent legal trials reveal the challenges of assigning culpability in a chaotic situation with multiple involved parties.
- The varying degrees of involvement from the other friends complicate the narrative, raising questions about intent and accountability.
- Public Perception:
- The episode touches on how public sentiment can sway perceptions of guilt and innocence, especially concerning social media personalities.
- It critically assesses the societal fixation on "perfect victims" and the implications for justice.
Conclusion
- Final Thoughts: The episode concludes with reflections on the tragic outcomes resulting from poor decision-making and the desire to conceal personal failings. It emphasizes the drastic consequences of actions taken to maintain a facade, leaving listeners to ponder the complexities of human behavior and morality.
Key Takeaways
- The case serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of secrecy and the pursuit of fame.
- It underlines the importance of addressing conflicts transparently rather than resorting to violence or deception.
- Ultimately, the episode invites listeners to consider the interplay of personal choices, familial loyalty, and societal expectations in shaping lives and destinies.
Further Reading For more information, visit the full source notes at [Rotten Mango Podcast](https://rottenmangopodcast.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Ramble. Bada bing, bada boo. And Mahek, who went by May Online, was this TikTok influencer. She's 24. Her mom is 44. And she's very important to this story. So just remember that. And the two of them, they would make these really cute dancing videos together. Dancing to the trendiest song. That's kind of what she got known for. Everyone loved this mother and daughter dynamic where both of them are dancing to the trends. People would comment things like, oh my god, they look more like sisters than they look like mother and daughter. She was live streaming one day. So 24-year-old May is live streaming and her mom is scrolling through the comments with her.
0:38They're listening to the chat, answering viewers' questions. And one comment made by a clearly fake troll account said, tell your mom to call me. May laughed it off. She's thinking, this is a troll who's insinuating that my mom is hot and is like, hey, have her call me. But if you watched carefully, you might have seen Anzreen, the mom, her face twitch just a little. She might have let out a nervous little chuckle and excused herself to the restroom where she would nervously put her phone to her ear. Hello? Is it you again? Please, please don't do that. If you keep doing that, I'm going to go to the police.
1:17Don't involve my daughter like this. Please stop. But he wouldn't stop. He would keep going. This man would find Ensreen's husband's phone number and text him. Do you want to see videos of your wife? Ensreen felt her heart race when she found these messages on her husband's phone. Thank God her husband thought it was an online troll. I mean, given that they're a pretty public family on social media, he never responded thinking, oh, one of these creeps finally got my number. But if this got out, it would ruin her marriage, her whole family, and even her daughter's whole TikTok career. May had a wholesome, religious, family-oriented image on social media.
1:55and now Ensreen, her mom, was going to ruin it all. She looked down at the new text message on her phone from him and it read, one click and I ruined your life. Ensreen and her daughter, May, would do anything to prevent that even if it meant killing two people to keep their secrets safe. What does one click mean? He's going to post whatever that video is. He's going to send it to her husband. And he's going to send it to the world, make it go viral. One click and her whole TikTok career, her daughter's TikTok career would come crumbling down. Wow. And so would her family. So would her social standing.
2:38As always, full show notes are available at RottenMangoPodcast.com. This is a pretty recent case that happened in the United Kingdom. But yeah, let's just get into it because there's a lot. There is a platform called Azar. It's very reminiscent to me of Omegle. Like you use it to randomly video chat strangers from all over the world. But Azar really focuses on marketing. And marketing the fact that they have a lot of preferences that you can set for who you're going to be matched with. You can narrow it down to geographical location. Potentially even age. All these things. A lot of people actually use it to date.
3:13Because you can't get catfished. It's kind of a cool icebreaker. Instead of going through this like uncomfortable texting phase. You just see their face immediately. You see if you have connection. It was also really popular during the pandemic because people just wanted some form of human connection. And Serene's niece was over at the house using Azar. So, and Serene is the mom. And May, the TikToker, is out and about. Her niece is video calling a guy through the app. He looked like he was in his 20s. He lived in the UK. And that's really all and Serene knew about him as of right now. She's just doing some chores and listening to this conversation.
3:51and the niece she's half bragging half passionately telling him about herself oh and her cousin her cousin mehek was famous on tiktok so she's telling him what her account is what her instagram is oh my god and then this is mehek's mom this is may's mom she's in the videos actually sometimes she's the star so while mehek alone would only get 50 000 views when and serene her mom was in there dancing with her, they would get like 300 ,000 views. That's a big difference. So she's like shoving the phone in Ensreen's face, like, say hi, Auntie Ensreen. This is a, what was your name again? Saqib, nice to meet you.
4:31Ensreen said she smiled and waved. And that was that. She went back to doing whatever she was doing. I mean, these are little kids having conversations. Why should it bother her? Why should it matter to her? A lot of TikTokers became famous during the pandemic and Mei really wanted to be one of them. She was doing all the things that they were doing. She was dancing to the trendiest songs, which looking back at a lot of these TikToks, it feels like a fever dream. Doja Cat, the why don't you say so dance? Like all the viral McDonald's hacks through the drive-thrus, using the Zoom filter to lip sync to songs and like cover your face and then it goes to the next person when they uncover their face.
5:09Yeah, we did all of that too. Yes, it's like a fever dream. so may quit college to do this she really really really really really really wanted to be a tiktoker she would recruit her brother in her videos her mom her dad her dad didn't make as much of a frequent appearance but there he's in a few videos honestly he seems very likable he just seems really sweet kind of like a dad maybe he talks a little too much about things that young people don't care about, but he's cute. So they have this really adorable, wholesome family image. And her caption with her mom would say things like, having an elite relationship with your mom.
5:47So blessed to have her in my life. My mother, best friend and sister all in one. To the woman who birthed me, I appreciate you so much. May claimed to be a devout Muslim. She posted a lot about her faith on TikTok as well. But her primary interest, her ultimate goal was to be a fashion influencer. her. She said, I would post my fashion outfits on Instagram, companies would send me clothing, I would tag them on my platform, and that's how I would get paid. She was also invited to promote restaurants, bars, specifically hookah lounges, and she would always bring her mom with her. So half the reason being, her family was a little bit more conservative, so her dad just always worried about her, and the other half was, her mom is her best friend.
6:32So they're the type that would giggle and whisper in a corner of the house as if they're like two best friends having a slumber party instead of mom and daughter living together in the same house. It was kind of endearing. Like the brother and the dad would joke around. They'd roll their eyes out there. They go again plotting something. May convinced her mom to make her own Instagram account with all the views that are coming in. I mean, it's going to go over to her Instagram. It's going to ripple over and then maybe she can start doing promotions too. Honestly, it sounds like May is telling her, mom, it's an opportunity.
7:02Just do it. It's going to be great. And maybe that's true, but it's clear that there is a side of Anne Serene that really wants this life. She was 44. Her whole life, she had been sheltered for 44 years. Her dream growing up was to be a flight attendant. This is like when she was in her teenage years. But instead, her parents said, actually, we found you a husband. You're going to marry this man and start having children. So that's what she did. She never had this phase of being young and experimenting. She just went straight from being a teenager to being a housewife. There was no crazy phase, no clubbing phase, no drunk phase.
7:40I mean, her whole life was great on paper. Arguably, she had everything that she would ever need. Her husband's fantastic. He's sweet. He's hardworking. He's a provider. But there's this new thrill that she's having from going to bars, being around these young people, and they all have this energy. they all dress so fun they're so carefree they would even say oh my god and zarin you're one of us you're tol milf you look so good tonight and zarin was excited about this new life she's like oh my gosh do i really like that's crazy stop it so she agreed she made her own instagram account and religiously checked her messages she saw someone new had quite literally slid into her dms and his name was sakib and she's like where do i remember that from why is it ringing a bell it's the guy from azar it was an innocent enough dm but i'm sure and serene knew what saqib was doing in her messages and she responds the two start talking every single day every single day they would talk on the phone up to five times a day if and serene's husband wasn't home saqib would always be on the phone in the background it's like one of those high school relationships like so they're talking romantically yes like a genuine relationship even if they aren't actively talking.
8:57He's just on the phone listening while she's cleaning, napping, doing all these things. He's always there. And it seems like because they all live together, May knew that her mom was always on the phone with this guy. But I don't think that she knew from the get go that it was an affair. She claimed that she just thought, oh, well, they're friends and I didn't think much of it. So Ensreen, she would get off on Saqib's company. He's conventionally attractive. He's young. He's fit. He's also very obsessed with her. And it just felt nice. And the age gap. I mean, it was there but it wasn't borderline illegal right how old is he he claimed he was 27 and she's 44 so that's a 17 year age gap which is huge but you know 27 isn't 18 right yeah well he was 18 he lied whoa yeah he was 18 when they started talking but he was not her sugar baby or anything he would actually go out of his way to spend money on ends rain if she was at a hookah lounge helping her daughter promote an event he would show up to the event surprise her by paying for her show up to random restaurants surprise her by paying the tap he would send gifts to the house that she would have to open in front of her family and her husband would be like oh like what what is that from i bought it i bought it online i totally forgot i ordered this that's why i look surprised eventually the relationship turned sexual yeah they didn't see each other a lot because they lived in different towns and Ensreen was also, you know, married with two kids.
10:27So she didn't want to draw suspicion on herself. But when they did see each other, it was just getting more and more explicit. Even during video calls, they would be showing each other a lot of themselves and engaging in sexual activities. For Ensreen, it was more fun, more exhilarating, more scandalous, sexual this was her second affair since being married her first one was another man who was married with children so the two of them they were equals in the sense it's like hey you're married you've got kids i'm married i've got kids we don't want to mess it up you want to stay in your marriage you want to stay with your family i want to stay with my marriage i want to stay with my family wait wait wait wait the guy's married no this was her first affair so this is sakib is her second affair i see so i'm saying with her first affair there was this mutual agreement that both had the same situation yeah they're both like we're literally doing this because we're evil people and we want to like cheat on our partners but we don't want them to find out we don't want to divorce our partners and leave our children and be with one another yeah it was just an escape but with saqib is a little bit different saqib wasn't married he didn't have kids he wasn't even 27.
11:38He lied. He was 18 when they met and he was absolutely in love with Ensreen. She was his end game. After two years of this affair, Ensreen wanted to move on. Meets up with Sikib at a hotel and tells him, look, I just, I just want to focus on my marriage right now. You know, I feel guilty to my husband, to my kids, and I don't think I can do it anymore. They did not break up that night. They slept together. And then the next morning, it was like nothing happened. Sakeep started texting Ensreen, clinging to her. And now that he knew she wanted out, he was doing everything to hold on to her. He would call her five to ten times a day, ask her, what are you doing?
12:19Who are you with? Where are you going? What's next? Did you talk to your husband today? Ensreen claimed that he would get angry with her if she didn't tell him everything. And he started to get what she describes as controlling. If he felt Ensreen was pulling away, he would send her pictures of designer goods that were on route to her house. And she claims, I kept telling him, I didn't want those. I didn't need those. This was so unnecessary. But he wouldn't listen. He just kept buying me gifts. Sometimes he would even just randomly Uber eats her food. Ensreen said she felt like if I accept these gifts, he would feel like we're together.
12:54But if I don't accept the gifts, he would get angry. Finally, December of 2021, Ensreen bit the bullet and broke up with Saqib for good. She's like, I can't do it anymore. There's nothing you can say. I'm not going to meet you at another hotel. Like, I'm done. I'm done. She expected curse words, nonstop angry phone calls, angry emails. She was prepared for it, but she hoped, you know, if I don't engage, if I don't respond, he's going to get bored. He's going to move on. But instead, Ensreen looked at her phone and there were explicit pictures and videos of her and Saqib during their rendezvous.
13:28Some screenshots of her during their explicit FaceTime calls. He bombarded her with messages like, if you don't respond, I'm going to send these to your husband. Fine, you want these to go public? I'll make them go viral. And Zarin felt like there was only one way out of this. Dead man, don't post. Soon enough, Saqib would be found dead in a burning car on the side of the road.
13:55And Zrin's daughter, May, the TikToker, she had no idea who was making deep fakes of her, but it was ruining her life right now. There were explicit videos that look so realistic. I mean, someone was out there targeting her. It felt especially hurtful because May had built her career on being this religious, multifaceted woman. And not that you can't do both, right? But these photos were deep faked. There were deep faked nude photos and videos of her out there. And even her friends were sending them to her like, hey, what's going on? Originally, she had no idea it was her mom's fault. Her mom was the reason that these deep fake photos of her were circulating the internet.
14:34December of 2021, the same month that Anzarin broke up with Saqib, she sits May down and tells her everything. I don't think she did it to just get it off her chest. I think she did it to get help. Anzarin felt like she had no other options left. I mean, she was trapped. So at first, May blows up on her. She's mad at her mom. First of all, you cheated on my dad. But more than that, she's pacing around the living room and she starts getting angrier and angrier. But that anger is turning towards Saqib. How dare he think that he can get away with blackmailing us? He was the ultimate threat, the threat to her family, but also the threat to her career.
15:13And she would do anything to protect everything that she had worked so hard for. She comforted her mom. This girl was determined. She told her mom, I will take care of it. Don't worry. He's not going to fuck with us. She said, I'll get him jumped by guys he won't know what day it is. May set into motion a plan that will land eight people in jail. The first thing she did was call her best friend, Rakan Karwan. Hello? I'm being blackmailed. What? I need your help. This psycho guy is spreading deepfakes of me and I think he's going to try and hurt me. Do something to me. I think as long as I pay him off, he will back off.
15:53but I don't want to be the one to talk to him about it. Yeah, no problem. Tell me what you need to do. So Rekhan agreed to be the middleman. He was going to be the one that talked to Saqib for May. He had no idea that May's mom was involved in any of this and that she was the one being blackmailed. I guess May doesn't trust him that much, right? And Rekhan reached out to Saqib, who stated that he wanted$3 ,800 to back off from the family. So this is where the game of Monopoly starts. there are eight main players, all of them trying to win the game without ending up in jail. And when it comes to pick their game piece, you know in Monopoly, there's the dog, there's like the cat, their iron, the wheelbarrow, right?
16:38They would all choose the car. And this would be the last game that they ever play for a very, very long time. And Serene and May reach out to Sakeep. They ask him, do you want to meet up with us so that we can pay you finally, so we can end all of this? Meet us at the Tesco parking lot. Tesco is like a supermarket. Parking lot at 1.30. No one else would be there. It's 1.30 a.m. He said, yeah, bring all$3 ,800. That is all the money that I spent on answering during this affair. He, Saqib, did not know that eight people were going to show up to this meeting. The Monopoly Eight is what they'll be dubbed by authorities.
17:18The Monopoly Eight split up into two cars, a blue car and then an Audi TT. Now both May and Ensreen were in the Audi and I think it would get too technical to explain where each person was before the crime and then how they got picked up for the crime. It's not necessarily important. Just know that some of them were at a hookah lounge playing Monopoly and that would be their alibi for the rest of the night. Which is, what do you mean? We're just playing Monopoly. Yeah. There was one friend, Muhammad, who came super late. He got a call to come hang out at around 12.30 a.m. which is just an hour before the murder.
17:52He was already in bed at this point, but he got up, went to meet with his buddies. And a lot of people still feel like Muhammad had no clue what he was getting into. Like if anyone in this group, because this becomes like a point of argument later, which is how many people of this group actually knew what they were about to do? So the argument is if anyone in this group had no idea what was going on, maybe it's Muhammad because he really wasn't even supposed to be there. They just called him out of nowhere and he thought, But yeah, Monopoly. Okay, let's play. Yeah, why did they call him? It's so weird.
18:27He ends up in the Audi with Ansreen, May, and Rakan. He is the fourth person in the Audi, and the other four are in the blue sedan. The group all drive to the Tesco, where they briefly park next to each other, but they separate because Sakiba's gonna get there, and they don't want two cars parked next to each other in this relatively quieter parking lot because, you know, maybe he'll be like, uh why are there two cars there that's weird some of them would later argue they just thought may and enshrine we're gonna meet up with someone pick up something real quick and we wanted to give them space that's all even rakan and muhammad got out of the audi and stood out of sight so that if sakib were to walk up to the audi it looks like just may and enshrine were meeting with him there was nobody else watching him so they got out the car so they can have their own space to talk No, the theory is that six of them, so the two that got out of the Audi plus the four in the blue stand, were probably going to jump him in the parking lot.
19:23Is the theory. Because nobody had cash on them. They're like, hey, meet us so I can pay you$3 ,800. Got it. Nobody had any money. Okay, I see. When Saqib gets to the Tesco, everyone realizes a few things. First of all, he's not alone. Saqib was known to hate driving. He just didn't like it. That night, he asked all of his friends to drive him to a Tesco in another town because they're meeting in like a mutual area. They don't want to meet in town A because that's where Saqib lives. And they don't want to meet in town B because that's where May lives. So they agreed on town C. And all of them were like, what?
20:00No. They all had excuses on why they couldn't drive him. I mean, I imagine some of them just straight up didn't want to because it was inconvenient. Technically, Saqib could drive himself. but his good friend Hashim he was the type to always want to help a friend so he said you know I guess if you really need a ride yeah you know what get in sure I'll do it I'll do it he had no idea that Saqib was blackmailing someone for money and he was driving him there to pick up the funds he just thought Saqib needed to get something from this specific Tesco or meet someone for something innocent and thought maybe it'll be fun we could listen to music jam out in the car catch up during the ride Hashim pulls up to the Tesco and it seems like Saqib realized at this moment that he was being set up I don't know something in him was like no I gotta go like we can't do this Hashim and Saqib pull out of the Tesco parking lot avoiding a physical altercation but a blue sedan starts following them and then an Audi is right behind them right behind the blue sedan Muhammad said once we were all following this random silver car on the road May called Saqib May called someone because Muhammad is in the car with them.
21:11May said something weird. She said, watch what I do to you. At 1.21 a.m., a Shell gas station CCTV captures three cars racing down the A46 at a high speed. It looks like the blue sedan is chasing Saqib and Hashim and the Audi is following the blue sedan. They were going up to like 100 miles per hour during the chase. Wow. It looks dangerous. looking at the footage, it can easily be interpreted as the blue sedan trying to run Hashim and Saqib off the road. So right after the phone call with May and Saqib ends, the one where she allegedly tells him, see what I do you, watch what I do to you, Saqib calls 999 using Hashim's phone.
21:54His phone was out of battery. Now the parents of the victims have requested the police not release the actual call, so they released the transcript instead. And because we don't have the actual audio, it's really hard to know if we're interpreting the tone correctly. But the transcript is so frustrating to read. Sakeep calls 911 to tell them that he and his good friend Hashim, Hashim is driving, are being followed by two cars down the road. He said, I'm being followed by two vehicles. You're being followed by two vehicles? Yes, I'm being followed by two vehicles. And right now, how do you know you're being followed?
22:32They're trying to block me in. They're trying to block me in. Can you get to a police station? I can't get to a police station right now. I need help. What I'm saying is, when you say you can't get to a police station, why can't you get to a police station? I can't get to a police station. Why not? There's guys following me. They've got balaclavas on. Balaclavas are the masks, the ski masks, basically, with the eyes cut out. Oh, my gosh. Right. are you in a vehicle or are you? The operator goes to ask where Sakib is and he finally says, they're trying to kill me. I'm going to die. Calm yourself down a moment, okay?
23:09They're trying to ram me off the road, these two vehicles. At one point, the operator sounds like they don't believe Sakib. So they keep asking for where they're headed. And Sakib tells them, I can't tell you because my phone is dead. Insinuating, my phone is dead. So I can't look up the navigation right now. And obviously I can't look it up on the phone that I'm calling you with because I'm on the phone with you. But the operator is just like, your phone's not dead because I'm talking to you. Oh my gosh. Sakeep tries to tell them that he needs help urgently and tries to tell them his exact location.
23:40And the operator says, slow down a moment for me. You've given me a lot of information very quickly. I've gone past Radcliffe College and I'm getting rammed off the road. You're not getting rammed off the road. They're trying to hit the vehicle. They're hitting on the side. And you've gone past Radcliffe Road? Radcliffe College, I just told you I've gone past that now. Please, I just need help. I'm in danger. I understand that. I think you're going a different way than the way that you think you're going. I passed a speed camera right now. They're hitting the car. They're hitting the back of the car really fast.
24:13They're trying to ram us off the road. Please, I'm begging you. Yeah, I'm arranging help for you right now. Oh my God. and it said in the transcript that the sound of a crash can be heard and the line cuts off. Oh my gosh. At 1.32am, a car rams into Hashim and Saqib sending their car skidding sideways towards a barrier, hit the barrier, flew into the air, hit a tree, split in half and instantly burst into flames. The two other cars, the blue sedan and the Audi, the Monopoly 8, just kept driving along the highway before they stopped at a nearby lot two people were seen on cctv cameras getting out and kind of inspecting the cars it looks like they're looking for any obvious signs of damage they get back in the car and make a u-turn and start driving towards the direction that they came probably kind of trying to check what's going on right all eight of them would drive past the burning car this is around 1 30 a.m everything else is dark the car on fire stands out like a giant bonfire they all drive past it not a single one of them call for help.
25:20Nobody calls emergency services. It was later said and Serene slumped in her seat and was crying uncontrollably while May tried to comfort her as they drove past the car. The blue sedan and the Audi park in a neighborhood. Everyone gets out and seven of them would start walking around the neighborhood for about an hour and this walk will become a huge point of contention in the trial. CCTV footage shows them walking as if you know when you're when you're younger and you go out with your friends or they're at your house and you're like, you know what? Should we just like giggle gaggle and walk around the neighborhood?
25:53That's kind of what this looks like. Getting some fresh nighttime air after a big dinner and you're walking it off. Who stayed back? The only person that didn't go is Muhammad. He immediately left. So that's another reason people believe that he's innocent because right afterwards he's like, oh my God, I'm leaving. The body language is rather nonchalant. Some say that they can see one of them having a hard time, but overall it's not one of those mental breakdown walks if you've ever had them. Authorities will later speculate that they were walking up and cleaning up their story, getting on the same page of what really happened that night.
26:26Now, Mohamed, like I said, was the only one that walks off from the group before the walk. And right afterwards, there was another person that goes home. Okay, so what about the rest? The rest, they get back into the cars and they're dropped off one by one until the drivers of the car finally go to their house. meanwhile at the crime scene the fire was so big that it was only after firefighters managed to put out the blaze that they could even get close enough to realize there are two bodies in here 21 year old sakib hussein and 21 year old hashim ijazudin were dead it is stated that both of them died upon impact in the collision um it was really severe so the car split in two and the engine of the car was detached from the car itself.
27:11Both of them had passed before the fire started. And it was pretty easy for investigators to figure out, okay, this car did not crash on its own. They pulled CCTV cameras nearby, as well as Sakeb's 999 call, and there was indeed a high-speed chase going on. Cameras showed two cars chasing after Sakeb and Hashim. The calls were immediately identified, tracked through the cars, were immediately identified, tracked through the automatic number plate recognition system that they have and a fleet of cop cars as well as helicopters were used to make the first initial arrest. And even if they hadn't done that, the Audi was literally registered and traced back to May's home address.
27:49Another big piece of evidence that the police had was a phone pinged traveling in that Audi that had been involved in this high-speed chase. So they tracked that phone number, went to the address that it belonged to, and what do you know, it's the same address that the Audi traced back to. Officers show up and they arrest May's teenage brother. Was he there? Yeah, he was at the... No, he wasn't in the car. He was at home. And he just gets arrested on charges of double homicide. Imagine waking up in your PJs and you're getting arrested for double homicide. He was freaking out. So he wasn't in the car at all?
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28:24No. Okay. And he's freaking out. Like, what are you talking about, guys? I don't even have my license, officer. I don't even have a car. How can I possibly be involved in a car accident? Like, you've got the wrong person. Very quickly, the officers realized, yeah, we got the wrong guy. So they let him go and they informed him, okay, well, sorry, that was our mistake. Well, did you at least catch the person who actually did it? Yes, your mom. And your sister. His mom's phone was registered under his name. And just like that, the Bukhari house fell apart. February 11th of 2022 authorities show up at the Bukhari residence to now question Ensreen and May they are both seen on body cam footage wearing pajamas they look so calm May is giving the police a completely made-up story about where she had been last night and she said you know I did see this weird chase that was happening last night but I didn't get involved later on in this interrogation room she has these really long acrylic nails and she keeps showing the cops how the chase had happened it's just really odd i don't know if it's the nail so she's saying that she's not the one chasing no she's describing something else she's describing like a fast and the furious scene that she's not a part of and she keeps putting okay her demeanor and i'm not saying this to make light of this section but like this demeanor was so odd and again i don't know if it's just the visual aspect of her nails she's in this gray track suit she just looks so young and just like a tiktoker but she keeps doing motions with her hands very animated and like this car did this and it just the way that she's casually explaining it makes you feel like she's explaining the parking lot situation at a trader joe's 3 p.m tuesday where nothing happens she talks about how she was in the car with her mom and this car starts speeding up and then cut in the lane in front of her.
30:19She had no idea who was in this car. But she said, you know, I always keep a distance from the car in front of me because I've been driving for four years and that's just something that I always do. She's talking about the blue car. Yeah. She said that there was this blue car that seemed to be agitating a silver car and it just felt like they were trying to race or something. She said, I wanted nothing to do with it. And I turned to my mom and I remember saying in the car, like, what is this car trying to do? And her mom just kept telling her to stay out of it. and quote, it's got nothing to do with you, May.
30:49And she's using her hands to be like, then the silver car pulled up, like using her hands as if they're cars. And she keeps driving, so she claims. And she says that she saw the blue car agitating the silver car in front of her, trying to come up to its side and ram into it. And she said, I kept looking at my mom and I said, mom, what's going on here? What is wrong? Like, I don't know if they're drunk. What are they trying to do in general? Her mom said again, just leave it, May. You're not involved. You don't know what's going on. you just go straight to where we're going and we leave it while going a hundred miles an hour yeah in the footage of the interrogation may look super calm and honestly convinced of her own stories which is the crazy part she doesn't even you know when you see someone and you're like okay this person is lying and it's you get secondhand embarrassment because you're like uh she's so confident it's crazy because you know there's a of you and there's cameras everywhere there's camera exactly it's not something that you can just make up a story and think you can get away with it like yeah like by yourself exactly there's a of you there's so much evidence and then just throwing the blue sedan under the bus like you think the blue sedan occupants are gonna be like yeah that's exactly what happened she's right yeah i mean she acts like she has no idea what's going on she acts like she has no idea who's in any of these cars so i've looked at mom and i And I goes, Mom, what is going on?
32:11What is wrong with, are they, I don't know if they're drunk. Are they, what are they trying to do to this blue car in general? So Mom goes, May, like I said, leave it. You're not involved. You don't know what's going on. You just go straight on and leave it. I goes, okay, that's fine. In the interrogation footage, the police, they just let her keep talking. They knew that she was digging herself deep in lies. They just let her keep talking. The motive for the crime seemed really clear from the get-go. I mean to the officers. Saqib's family kept telling officers Saqib was having an affair with an older woman that he called Anzi.
32:45Anzarin, Anzi. Saqib even introduced her to his sister at one point. So authorities were clear of the connection between Anzarin and Saqib early on in this investigation. They sit Anzarin and May down and they say, can we take your phones? Can we look at your phones? Not that you really have a choice. But they were not cooperative. May lied about the passcode to her phone and both of them denied any sort of affair. Anne Serene had deleted every single picture of Saqib from her phone, but detectives were able to pull Saqib's iPhone cloud albums where there were pictures upon pictures upon videos of Saqib and Anne Serene cuddling and doing other things, indicating that on at least 11 separate occasions, Anne Serene and Saqib had been together.
33:30They found the phone logs that showed the defendants, the two drivers of the blue sedan and the Audi, calling each other nonstop during the night of the crash. As well as May and Saqib were on the phone right before the crash. So very quickly, the eight people were arrested. So in the blue car, you had 22-year-old Natasha Akhtar, 22-year-old Sanaf Gula Mustafa, 27-year-old Amir Jamal, and the driver of the blue sedan is 22-year-old Raees Jamal. In the Audi, we've got 45-year-old Ensreen Bukhari, the mom, 23 year old may bukhari the tiktoker 21 year old muhammad patel and the driver of that car was 28 year old rakan karwan they were all charged with two counts of murder and all denied being responsible for the crash at first everyone in the blue car was like what are you talking about i have no idea what you're talking about we're just a group of friends that were driving to one of our houses so we could finish our very intense lengthy game of monopoly that's what we were doing i mean We did see something on fire on the side of the road, but that had nothing to do with us.
34:38We were, I guess you could say, at the wrong place at the wrong time. Originally, May stuck to her story for a little while before deciding, okay, this is dumb, this is moot point. And eventually she would admit, yes, okay, fine. My mom had an affair and Saqib was going after our family's safety and well-being. And yeah, okay, he kept threatening to show up at our house to do who knows what. But I just wanted to make sure that my mom was protected. We were just going to give him the money that night at Tesco and make sure that we weren't alone. That's why I asked my friend Rakan Karwan to come with us.
35:13She said, I asked Rakan and I said I was being blackmailed and harassed. And I told him to message Saqib as one brother to another brother. She said, we just wanted to show him what kind of person he was at the time and just put an end to it. But Saqib was demanding. He was demanding money and all this. and I told him, you're not getting your money, Sikib. We need to talk first. But then he said he was going to come to my house, so I suggested we meet at another location, a neutral location, to give him the money. And yeah, I just wanted Rakan to come with us because it would give us peace of mind.
35:42I didn't want my mom and I to go alone. She said she was worried that Sikib might attack them. She said as for the blue sedan full of other people, they were close with Rakan, but she never really hung out with them like that. She thinks Rakan called them as backup, just in case. She said, you know, I was even annoyed. I was even annoyed that Muhammad was in our car. It was weird. I was like, I didn't understand why he was there in the first place. Rakan invited him. May said she did meet up with Saqib that night. She knew that he was in that car, but she had no idea what was going to happen with the blue car and Saqib's friend's car, which clearly doesn't make any sense.
36:19Clearly, they're chasing him in the car. Like, it's one thing. Yeah, and they talk on the phone the whole time. Yeah, and they know what they're doing. If you're going 100 miles per hour after another car, switching lanes to go after that car, you really can't say you don't know what you're doing. Clearly, there's CCTV footage of it. Basically, she's telling the police, you've got to believe me this time because I'm not lying this time. I'm innocent. She said the only reason she lied was because she was embarrassed of her mom having an affair and she didn't want the news to find out. eventually she would even try arguing that saqib wanted to unalive himself and forced hashim to crash the car on purpose and the authorities were flabbergasted by all of this um if i'm not mistaken i believe hashim is is muslim and to say that about a victim who is muslim and all of the it's just so sick you know it's it's just disrespectful upon disrespectful the authorities are looking at her like, so are you suggesting that Saqib wanted to take his own life by causing the crush and killed his friend Hashim too while he was at it?
37:25Yes. Wow, come on. That seems unreasonable. Well, he's the type, you know, he sent messages where he tried to gain attention from my mom by saying that he was going to hurt himself. He's psychotic. The authorities didn't believe her and moved forward with a trial for seven of them. One person gets off. Oh yeah, we're going to get to that.
37:53The trial was a mess. I mean, the first trial was deemed a mistrial. Prosecutors said it was just a behemoth to conquer. First of all, they had seven defendants. Most of them had slightly or completely different versions of events from that night. We had 200 hours of footage the night of the murder, more than 40 locations, 300 statements that they took in to just organize this evidence. A nightmare. and a huge question to the prosecutors was out of the friend groups so excluding may and her mom and probably excluding the two drivers how many of the other five knew what was going on or were they just hanging out with friends got in a car for a little ride and suddenly they're on charge on trial for murder what would you do if your friend is suddenly going 100 miles per hour out of nowhere risking your life and they won't slow down even though you keep telling them to slow down they cause a crash what do you do not saying that they're innocent but just kind of toying with the idea killers yes so if that were the case could they have done something to stop the drivers from what they were doing could they have done something afterwards is that what we're arguing maybe they could have gone to the cops another thing that just added another layer of complexity was Saqib at this point was almost put on trial.
39:09Same with Hashim. So Hashim was the friend that was driving, truly had nothing to do with any of this. He's just giving a buddy a ride out of the goodness of his heart, but he was the driver and he was found to have cannabis in his body during the autopsy. So of course the defense would take this and run with it saying that he was driving recklessly. He caused the crash on his own. This was all his fault. And then Saqib was kind of put on trial too, but this one I think is a bit more understandable of why it needed to be talked about in the trial. The court and jury were presented with evidence of Saqib's pattern of behavior prior to his death.
39:45Apparently, there was another woman that he made threats to when she tried to break up with him. Side note, this woman is not in any way connected to the defendant, so it doesn't seem like she has some sort of incentive or motivation to lie for them. She said she met Saqib at a club during a night out. She had a boyfriend, but he wouldn't stop trying to get her number. So she just gave it to him thinking, I'll just ignore him later. But he kept texting and she let him know nicely. Hey, I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. Like, sorry, you were just kind of kept asking me. So I gave you my number, but I have a boyfriend.
40:18He called her 15 to 20 times a day, threatening to smash her car up and go to her house. And then during one call, he got very, quote, extremely sexually suggestive. the woman reached out to the local police three times because she was terrified of saqib it was overall not a great look the jury were also presented with saqib's text messages to answering leading up to the incident he said things like if i don't get a call i'll do what really has to be done even though i don't want to you taking me for a dickhead not for long your son's gonna see them videos now of us in the hotel okay don't make me fuck everything up don't say i didn't tell you i'm giving you a last chance i'm gonna send them now your son is gonna see them videos and pictures are you gonna call me back or shall i make your husband mad i'll tell him everything and make all your pics and videos go viral right now i'm telling how all the girls were in on it with you saying like may and her friends knew a lot of these text messages were shown without context to the jury but another one read you're messing around with me yo what the fuck, just pick up one second now.
41:25You're trying to set me up? Saqib also sent messages to Ensreen calling her a dumb slut and stated he had nothing to lose and quote, when I'm mad, I'm mad. One click of fingers and I can break your marriage and every other single thing. It was also alleged in court that Saqib would threaten to harm himself if she did not pick up the phone. But the harassment was mutually exchanged to a degree. Other text messages showed May threatening Saqib by saying things like, I'm sorry, but this year you'll be gone, Saqib. I've got every threat that you've ever sent my mom. I know what games you're playing.
42:01Carry on speaking to her like this and you'll see movement soon. Another one was from May to Ensreen. So from daughter to mom, she said, I'll soon get him jumped by guys. Leave it to me. He's trying to scare you. Another one was, don't worry, mom. Whatever it is, we will sort it out. it was mentioned in court that between august 2021 and february 2022 saqib had reached out to enserine 1 702 times while enserine in the same period only reached out 214 times of course you know any trial is going to be really hard for the victim's family and friends especially for hashim i i mean imagine his family sitting there they're like he had nothing to do with this and now he's basically being put on trial and they're bringing up cannabis they're trying to slander his character by saying he does drugs exactly yeah and for sakib i'm sure it was really hard for his parents as well but a lot of netizens felt for ensreen's husband and son during the trial it seems like the family was just broken apart ensreen's husband hadn't visited ensreen during her arrest but he did show up for parts of the trial so whether it was foreclosure whether it was to support his daughter or to support his daughter and his wife it's unclear but all of the affair was aired out and serene's first affair was also aired out during the trial i mean i imagine it was hard for the husband but more so the son is also a big victim in this yeah he was only a teenager when all of this went down prosecutors stated they believed may and serene and rakan were plotting for a way to get rid of sakib i don't know why rakan was in on it Maybe he was just a ride or die type of friend, or maybe he was going to get something out of it.
43:45But it just isn't clear to prosecutors. Prosecutors believe that they were the main masterminds of this, and they would lure Saqib to the Tesco under the guise of giving him the money, but they were going to jump him, ambush him, maybe drive him off the road. It's unclear how much of this they actually planned. It's up for debate. A lot of netizens said, going at that speed, that's intent to kill. It doesn't matter. Like when you're going 100 miles per hour chasing someone, trying to ram them off the road, you're trying to kill someone. And Serene and her daughter May's defense, on the other hand, were, it was kind of crazy.
44:20They were victims to a crazy stalker. And while they made some shady, bad choices, Saqib was controlling and terrifying and they had no other choice, essentially. They tried to use footage of Serene walking around after the murder with her co-defendants. You know how they parked in the residential neighborhood? They argued that she looks like a woman in shock. And Zreen and May claimed that they just wanted to talk to Saqib that night and nothing else. And about May's text, her own mom saying like, don't worry, we're going to jump the guy. They argued, no, no, no, we're just exaggerating. During the trial, remember how I said there were seven defendants?
44:55Muhammad, the one that came late and left before the walk. He was the star witness out of the Monopoly 8. He was the one that wasn't tried for the crime. And now some netizens think that he's innocent. Others say that he's guilty, but he's cooperating with the police to save himself. It's unclear, but he gives the police what they want. He corroborates the story that is consistent with Saqib's 999 call. He states that Saqib was being chased at high speeds. He states that they were all wearing balaclavas that night, just like Saqib had mentioned in the phone call. He said that he was the last one to join the group.
45:30He had no idea what was going on. That they mentioned that they were going to jump a guy. he said he was so scared he didn't know what he had gotten into he was so terrified and while they were going like 100 miles per hour he heard two phone calls that night the first one was may the tiktoker telling sakib watch what i do to you then they hung up and he was driving the audi he called the other driver of the blue car race and he said quote ram into him shortly before the car hashim and sakib were in skidded off the road killing the two men instantly. Now, some netizens think that Muhammad should also be in jail and that it seems like he's conveniently taking himself out of the crime.
46:13He's like, no, I genuinely had no idea what was going on. Some people think that he probably knew and he's now taking this stance to get off easy. It's just, you know, netizens have a lot of feelings about this. All the other defendants, minus the drivers, May and her mom and Muhammad, the other five, they insisted they had absolutely no idea what was going on at any point. And these phone conversations never happened. They said we were just going for a drive. We had no idea who was in that car. We didn't know about Saqib or why even we went to Tesco. They said they had no idea what was going on.
46:48Like May said she needed to pick up something from a guy. We were just playing Monopoly one second and then got into the car to switch locations, ended up being arrested for double homicide. They argued we don't have lengthy criminal backgrounds. We're ordinary people with jobs or we're in school right now we have families we have normal lives we did nothing to cover our tracks this is not a smart well thought out plan like why would we do this if we knew what we were doing what in our right minds would make us want to kill these men for may and enshrine some of the people in the blue car they weren't even friends with may they have like a mutual right so why did they do that even the driver of the blue car race he said i tried to break when the victim's car came up in front of me and I tried because I didn't want to hurt anyone.
47:31So he's saying that he was just trying to scare Saqib so because he heard Rakan tell him about the blackmailing and he was like yeah I guess we'll just scare the guy into stopping. Then he was saying you know it's actually the victim's car that was blocking us not letting either of us pass they were instigating it and it was just a high-speed chase thing that spiraled out of control to back up his claims his attorneys brought in some cctv footage that does show at times the blue car was getting dangerously close to the victim's car and the blue car is seen breaking yeah because you know the blue sometimes you let's say you break check someone you're just trying to like stop this madness like yeah what do you mean like you know i i can totally see that why does that matter like yeah drive away like yeah like you're trying to you're trying to intimidate someone right you're following you're tailgating them you're trying to do something to them so and they break check you of course you're not gonna slam into them exactly yeah leave the leave the situation go home and it seems like at one point okay like fine i guess we can try to see his side of the story right make it make sense somehow but then race was revealed to be a rapist he was convicted last year of r-wording a 17 year old girl in his home she stated she repeatedly told him no and tried to push him off of her and he pinned her down and essayed her the victim tried to end her life because of the trauma and ptsd also he didn't have a driver's license the night that he was driving so like the guy is all around a horrible person so everything he's saying for netizens it just went out the window many of the other defendants they said it just doesn't make sense for us to do this.
49:12Like no sense at all. Amir, who was in the blue car but not driving, his defense was, I was high out of my mind during that car chase. His lawyer argued, why would he get high if he was preparing for a murderous evening? Other defendants had more interesting defenses. Natasha was the 22-year-old in the blue car, and she said she had a crush on the blue car driver, Reis, and she wanted him to fall for her. so she didn't want to make him mad by telling him to slow down too many times she said she had no idea they were in a high-speed car chase at the time she said and i quote i thought it was boys just being boys driving like idiots i also love when people say boys being boys but it's like a literal crime it's like criminals being criminals actually is the rather especially for this situation more fitting fun fact natasha had dreams of becoming a criminal defense attorney so there's that Sinoph, also in the blue car but not driving he said his father was dying of cancer and he was the only one taking care of him his dad could not eat, drink or even use the toilet without assistance he said he would never risk not being there for his dad for people he doesn't even know so how would that make sense?
50:25the only reason that he went out that night was to interact with people his age and get some comfort and escape out of his life because he just takes care of his dad all day and ultimately through this Sinoph's dad would die and he would not be present at the funeral. So this whole debate of who knew, how much they planned, how much did they know ahead of time is a huge argument still in this case, even now after the trials are over and said and done with. Some argued it made no sense for these people to throw away their lives when none of them had skin in the game. It doesn't seem like they were promised anything specific from May or Rakan because I feel like that would have been discovered during trial.
51:04They didn't know Saqib. they didn't care if may's tiktok family tiktok fell apart they didn't care if may's family fell apart literally they didn't seem to care for may or n serene so some people argued maybe this is a situation where they were just there for a fun night and it got roped into something else but other people argued these sound like people that were ready to jump a guy for the thrill of it not knowing they were going to accidentally kill people it sounded like they're down to like yeah let's get balaclavas and jump a guy teach him a lesson it's thrilling it's crazy maybe they felt like that was okay another supporting argument for that is on the phone with 999 saqib mentioned seeing the people in the car behind him wearing balaclavas and muhammad also mentioned it so if they're not jumping him if they're just playing monopoly why would they have balaclavas why would they be going 100 miles per hour chasing another car exactly and then end up getting arrested and being like, what?
52:03We did nothing weirder out of the ordinary. We were just driving from one place to another in balaclavas. In the end, the jurors deliberated for more than 28 hours and they came back with a verdict. And Zreen, the mom, and May, the tiktoker, Rais, the driver of the blue car, and Rakan, the driver of the Audi, they were all found guilty of the murders of Hashim and Saqib. May was sentenced to life in prison and she will serve at least 31 years and eight months. So if she gets out the earliest as possible, she will be 55 years old. Ansarine was sentenced to life in prison and is ordered to serve 26 years and nine months.
52:42Rais and Rakan, the drivers, were both given life sentences. Rais must serve at least 36 years, probably because he was driving without a license, and Rakan must serve 26 years and 10 months. As for Sanath, Amir, and Natasha, they were found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, and they were given between 11 to 14 years. Mohammed had no charges. I will say I have seen some discourse online that their prison sentences are too harsh, but I'm curious to know, what are your thoughts? After the trial, the victim's family spoke out. Saqib's family said Saqib was a kind, compassionate, caring, sensible man.
53:22Their family had been shattered and they're glad to get some closure. Hashim's uncle came out to state, Hashim never used to enjoy driving himself. So whenever Hashim went out, he would always ask, who's driving? You're driving. He went home and got his car to drive his friend even though he hated driving. He's just a very active soul. One of his mottos or philosophies in life, which he put on his social media all the time, was, if I can make someone laugh or smile, my job is done for the day. Hashim's uncle said the only reason he gave Sakiba ride even though he hated driving was just he wanted to help a friend and I have seen netizens state that Saqib was not the perfect victim not that there ever is a perfect victim and just like the whole general mindset that someone needs to be a perfect victim is kind of dangerous you know netizens are saying he was doing some scary things and obviously he needs to be punished for doing very specific scary things but I wouldn't say Ensreen had no choices it's almost insinuating and Zarin was in a situation of self-defense, which this situation was not a clear-cut self-defense thing.
54:34And while I agree, again, Saqib's actions were a little odd and he might have needed to be punished for it had he been alive. She could have just gone to the police, though. It seems like every choice that she made was to prevent facing the consequences of her own actions. Yeah. And I really think that's telling. Like she would rather kill, put her own daughter's life at risk to kill someone with her rather than face the consequences of her actions. She straight up said, I couldn't go to the police when he was blackmailing me because I was scared officers would come to my house and my family would find out about the affair and the videos.
55:11Exactly. It's so bizarre. It's so bizarre to me when people are willing to kill someone to cover up a much smaller wrong. instead of people finding out you cheated now you kill someone and you're gonna go to jail forever and people found out you cheated not once but twice because you killed two people like what i don't even think that's comparable to an affair yeah the logic is not logicking but i guess that's what they say play stupid games win stupid prizes and if you're playing monopoly there is always a chance that you're going to end up in jail. What are your thoughts on this case? Please leave it in the comments.
55:51Please stay safe. And I'll see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Bye.
From the publisher
Ansreen’s daughter was a rising TikToker that was gaining followers by the day. May loved showcasing her dancing, fashion, and even religion on her platform to inspire others.
Even Ansreen was getting attention from joining May in some dancing TikToks. And with fame - comes people who want to cross boundaries to be with you.
Ansreen had what she deemed a stalker. He was far from harmless. He had videos of her that would end her life, marriage, family, and even her daughter’s career if they were ever leaked.
She and her daughter would team up to make sure that never happened. Even if meant killing two people to keep their secret.
Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com
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