World Of Secrets - Death in Dubai: 4. The right hand man

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

A key insider agrees to talk. He says he worked at the centre of this illegal prostitution ring. Why is he speaking out now? And what can he tell us about the world Monic was caught up in, and the man she was working for? We follow in Monic’s footsteps to the glitzy clubs and bars where we are told she was sent. This episode includes discussion of sex and abuse. Presented by investigative journalist Runako Celina.Season 9 of World of Secrets, Death in Dubai, is a BBC Eye investigation, produced in association with Thread Studios, for the BBC World Service. Please note, the image is being used for illustrative purposes only and the person depicted in it is a model.If you feel distressed by the references in this story, please speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support such as Befrienders Worldwide. www.befrienders.org For UK listeners, details of organisations offering information about or support after sexual abuse, or with feelings of despair, are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline. Here’s a link to the BBC Eye documentary film, which we recommend you watch after listening to this podcast: https://bit.ly/bbcdeathindubai If you are in the UK, you can watch on iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n12t256jg

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This is the look everyone goes for, Dubai. You need a great hairstyle that goes with every single outfit. So we'll do you in a side part. We call it a side-pop bus down. Yeah. With baby hairs. I'm in a salon in East London, having a wig installed, getting the Dubai look, as it's called on TikTok.

I'm nearly ready to go there to find out more about what happened to Monica and her boss Abby. I'm going to add some curls as well, add some body to it. Have you prepped for Dubai? Love it. To be able to record at the clubs and bars, Monica was. was sent to, I'm going to go in posing as an influencer. So I'm kind of nervous, to be honest. I think you'll be fine.

I mean, you are getting a look. Lots of Shope's clients go there, so she knows exactly what I'm after. When it comes to the buy, it's about how you look. Pretty privileged, you know? Yeah. Pretty privilege is a real thing. Yeah. When you want to go to a club, they ask you send pictures of your girls, you and your girls.

But it's not just about being pretty. There's another layer to this. I've been warned by other black women who live in Dubai that I might get looked at in a certain way. Men might just assume women like me are available for a price. And as a journalist, I'm worried about whether I'll even get into the country. I'm hoping the right look will help me blend in. Oh yeah, I think hair is important.

Yeah, I guess for this, like the stakes are even higher because if I look like I don't fit in there, potentially people are going to start asking questions. You know, like, what are you actually doing here? Why have you come? And that's the last thing that we need. This is World of Secrets, Season 9. Death in Dubai.

From the BBC World Service. I'm Renarko Selina. Episode 4. The Right Hand Man. I'm on the final leg of my journey into Dubai, having just stopped in Qatar. I have minimal kit with me so that I don't look suspicious. But still, But still, I'm nervous.

I don't know if I'll even be let in to the country. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dubai. For the local time now is 3.7 a.m. Just landed in Dubai. Thank you so much. Thank you. I clear immigration, but I'm still a bit on edge. When I get to my hotel room, I check for hidden cameras. I can't see any signs of them, so I relax a bit and listen back to a voice message Monica's friend Kira has sent me.

If you want to find out how Mona lost her life, you have to go where Abby used to take Mona. You have to be careful. Abby has eyes everywhere in Dubai. When you reach Dubai, you have to make sure you act like a tourist. You have to be like Mona. Mona before she died, she was staying in Warsaw and her. She was staying in Worson Building. Go to Woson Building. You may find some information.

Remember what Monica's other friend, Mia told me that the landlord at that Worsan apartment heard Monica fighting with someone on the balcony the night she died? Mia doesn't recall his name and has no idea where he is. But I've got a few numbers of people that I'm hoping might know. Some just hang up on me.

But I do get through to. to this man who knew Monica when she was in Dubai. What I'm trying to establish, okay, yeah, she moved to this building and, you know, I heard this and I heard that. But I'm trying to understand who was there on the day when she passed away. He doesn't know the answer to that question. He's now back in Uganda and doesn't have a contact for the landlord. I try others. But I can't push too hard, because I'm worried if I do, it'll get back to Avi that I'm here.

This is the most nerve-wracking process, basically being handed from one person to another trusted person, to another trusted person. But, you know, if there's only so far trust can go. I've been told a lot of African migrants live in the Warsaw Sand building, so I decided to just go there. to see if I can get any leads without raising suspicion. I approach a guy who seems to be in pyjamas and looks like he's just come out of an apartment in the building. Hi, how are you?

I don't know if you can help me. Do you know anyone who lives in Warsaw? I'm looking for, on the 23rd floor, there was a Nigerian landlord who used to run an apartment there, like, 2022. No? It's been a while, he says. Even though it was only three years ago, it's a transient place.

People don't seem to stay for long. But I do manage to get inside the building. One of the flats is on the market, so we book a viewing for it. It's just a few floors down from the apartment Monica was living in, and on the same side. I'm inside the building when Monica pulsed away. It was in an apartment just like this one, that she was living and it was at a balcony. Like the one I was standing around to.

The rails on the balcony are just above waist height. It'd be hard to fall or trip. Being here, having seen it, online for such a long time. and knowing what happened to her. She can't quite explain how it feels. I mean, sad, emotional to be honest. I mean, this apartment building was supposed to represent a new start for Monica. She moved here, having left the control and grip

or so she thought of the man who brought her to Dubai, came here and before long she lost her life and, you know, it was a dream unfulfilled for Monica and I can imagine for many girls like her. In my hotel room the next morning, I go through Monica's social media, mapping out the locations she tagged herself in. In her posts, she's in one place again and again. It's a glamorous resort hotel on one of Dubai's artificial islands. It's shaped like a palm tree that juts out into the Persian Gulf.

Rooms here cost hundreds of dollars a night, and with multiple bars and nightclubs on site, it's well known as the place people come to party. I walk through an archway of bright pink flowers into another part of the hotel complex, an outdoor bar I've seen in Monica's photos. A waiter shows me to a table overlooking the beach, and it's not long before I see a negotiation taking place.

They exchange the words, and the only sentence I could make out was her telling him that she normally takes men back to her. were her only safely. And then they walked out together and left. And there are so many other women just like her sitting and standing around. From what I can tell, these women have come from all around the world. Sex work is illegal in the UAE,

but no one here seems to bat an eyelid. None of the staff seems surprised. When I ask a waiter what's going on, he laughs and says, what you think is happening? That's exactly what it is. My next step is to go to the clubs, see if I can find people who might have known Monica. We got a big chime in today. Official birthday, we're doing a big.

Music is blaring. Men in loud shirts and shiny shoes are seated at tables, checking out women as they walk past. It's not long before a man approaches me and asks for a kiss. When I look shocked, he replies, you should know. Later, another guy taps me on the inner thigh. Twice. Unwanted touching, requests for kisses from strangers.

It all just makes me wonder, how did Monica feel being here? What must she have experienced? Every few minutes, a guy orders a bottle to his table. A group of dancers parade around him, holding bottles with fizzing fireworks in the air. I head into the ladies' toilets. They're super glam, very Instagrammable. Monica had lots of pictures taken in them. It's got these white feelings and marble everywhere.

It's really distinctive. It's really weird being here. It's just their stumping ground. I thought I'm walking in Monica's Christmas. I'm chatting to girls who I've spotted outside, looking for clients, in the hope I might find someone who knew Monica. I'm wary with how much I say. I can't risk anything getting back to Abbey.

After several nights of doing this, I'm told that a girl who might know Monica will be out tonight. We're put in touch and arranged to meet. It's so loud in the club We talk in the lady's toilets I go in gently I ask how her night is going I want to check that she's comfortable talking about what she's doing here

You understand the game Guys give money here A flash money White girls get more money than black ones That's Dubai Then I ask if we can talk about Monica And give her a few details I know her

It's so sensitive We can't talk about it. Not here, she says. The attendant keeps giving us suspicious looks and I don't want to get this girl in trouble. So we make a plan to meet up properly in a few days' time. Mona died in 2022. You're the first person that I've met who's still in Dubai.

Do you think he's still operating today? He's still operating today, yeah. I'm going to call her Hope These are her exact words spoken by an actor and one piece of information Hope gives me is a game changer She says Abby travels a lot

He doesn't stay in Dubai all the time He goes to London I hear he has a London passport If he has ties to London Where I'm based It could help me gather evidence on his operation And might make it easier to hold him to a account. Hope wasn't brought to Dubai by Bash to work for Abby, but one part of her story is the same

as Monikas. The job she says she was promised. It was working in the supermarket. I said, okay, I was very happy, you know, that excitement. When I reached, they collected my passport from me, like maybe two days. I was put out on the street. Two days? Yeah, like. Like two days, they took me on the street where I had to sell myself." When she saw a chance to escape the gang that brought her, she seized it. Someone told her about Abby. They said he could sort out accommodation for her. She thought she'd found herself a better situation, a place to stay, and she wouldn't have

to work for the gang anymore. She thought all her problems were over, but the reality, she says, was more complicated. He acts like he's your landlord, but in the actual sense, he is your boss. He's so greedy for money. It's like as if he has not seen money. I call him a mafia boss because he deals in many, many shit things. He deals in drugs. His environment, drugs, his place, people of all sort of weird behaviors,

be there so because of influence girls get into drugs you know hope tells me something new about the way she says Abby controls girls there are things he does to people spiritually you know you cannot tell me out of the blue someone can just say okay let me just kill myself girls die through sacrifices. Some of them it's stress, you know? Spiritual control. Sacrifices. Obia, Juju. I've heard this before.

Some people, they don't believe in those sacrifices, but he does. Hope managed to get away from Abbey's place. I can't say too much about how she did that because it could identify her. When that interview will come out, He will say, Which bitch is this?

Which fucking bitch went to those people in the news? Hope is now working for herself And at least gets to keep what she earns. I was brought here when I was still young. Just imagine if it was you. Your family knows you are abroad working. You have to at least come home with something, you know? I would like to leave, and I'm planning to leave.

But I sat down and I set my goals so that I can at least say, okay, I was into this shit, but at least I managed. Out of that bad thing, I managed to achieve this. I think my future will be something different from what I am now, like the future I want to give my babies. She started investing and has a plan, away from all of this. But she's speaking to me now because she wants to warn other young girls.

These videos you see on TikTok, pictures you see on Instagram, they are not real. There is that dark side people don't know. If someone tells you, I have a job for you, I want to take you a bro. road. To be on the safer side, don't. Because you end up falling from the pan to the real fire. And it's really, really dark. There are weird things, very weird things. There's someone who will know more about these weird things, hopes talking about. someone inside Abbey's network, someone who is now saying he'll talk. I'm in my hotel room in Dubai texting a source who will be the first person I'm able to speak to

who worked in this operation underneath Abbey. But I'm nervous because he's not responding to my texts. And since morning, I've been trying to negotiate to get him to come and speak with me. I just don't know if he's going to show up he's been sending me these messages disappearing messages on WhatsApp almost as if he's having second thoughts he's actually told me just how

dangerous the network is and that he's not going up against one person but many and I don't know if that's going to be enough to sway him to block me and just not come which sucks because the information that he will have is really going to change everything In the morning, the first thing I do is grab my phone

and there's a message from him. He's actually confirmed that he's happy to meet me and he's coming to this side of Dubai where I'll pick him up but it's dangerous for us and potentially for him as well if we're seen together. So we've hatched a little strategy heading down to the basement of this building

to see if we can drive him in to the building in the basement hopefully avoiding the security at the main desk. In Dubai, there are cameras and eyes everywhere which makes it even more difficult. AI is now a must for companies and the executives in charge of steering them. But the path to implementation is not so clear.

Which function or scenario or the use case do I start with that gives me the most value? I'm Chip Klanixel, host of Resilient Edge, a business vitality podcast, Paid and presented by Deloitte. Our latest episode has the answers to all these questions and more. Available now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm in the car. On a scorching Dubai morning, I'm watching out for people watching us. I'm in the car with my team and we've picked up this guy who says he was in Abbey's in a circle. We're driving in an underground car park looking for a space away from the security guards. Is there any parking spot that's near as the door? Because there's a lot of workers behind us.

Go here and then we're right up to the door. We find a spot in the dark, hot basement and head up a back staircase to a private room, hopefully without being seen. Am I right to put this microphone on you? I think we're good. Should I go? Everyone happy?

Yeah. Yesterday, this man said he wanted to do this interview anonymously for his own safety. But now he's saying we can use his first name, Troy, and his real voice. We go through the risks again, and he's certain. Yeah, because I guess many would wish to know where this information comes from. because it is the right information and I'm speaking it from the bottom of my heart

so like why would I hide the truth the truth comes from visible sources he's a Ugandan guy in his late 20s but with the calmness about him that suggests someone older he's in a cream polo neck and a black beanie

with a sparkling stud in one ear but the most noticeable thing is his tattoo in the middle of his forehead the outline of an anchor. He came to Dubai in 2017 and said he started working for Abbey two years later. I met him because I had gone to a nightclub.

So he asked me, could you join me? I could sustain your living. I could take care of your accommodation. I could pay you weekly or daily. You could be my home driver. You will see my business when we get home. So I agreed to work with him. He was out of work at the time, and his visa had run out, so he was in overstay.

So he attracted me by being kind at first, before I even got to know how the business runs. Upon reaching his home, I found a new type of animals, and those were human beings who would be taken out for grazing in clubs and work for him. and these were young girls. What is the exact business that Abbe is running? I never went so far with books, but is it human trafficking? I would refer it to human trafficking because you are selling humans for money. That's why I refer to it as human trafficking, yeah.

What was your exact role in Abbe's operation? I started as a driver who could drive girls to different places, nightclubs. Later on, I was the operation manager because I could take care of the business when he's outside in the nightclubs. I would face the challenges if the police came around after massive fighting. I would be the person to talk to these girls to convince them. to stay in their business. According to Troy, he was in a position to know far more about Abby's business than anyone I've spoken to so far.

And he supports a lot of what Kira, Mia and Hope have told me about how Abby uses short-term tourist visas and how he racks up their debts. But I want to know more about how Abby scouts girls and what he tells them. He's like a computer, he doesn't risk. He's always online trying to see where money is. He would use TikTok to see the type of girls he would want to work with in Dubai. Sometimes he communicates with white men and ask them what type of girls they want, and he'll be able to find what his clients want.

He loves dark-skinned girls, young girls that are wanted by rich men. He has boys on ground back in Uganda. He could be paying, and some of these are from his family, cousins, friends. He would describe the type of girl he wants them to look for. They start getting the girl ready. He processes their passport. He applies for the visa. Then the visa is processed within three days.

Thinking back to our undercover phone call with Bash, the man we've been told brought Monica and some of her friends to Dubai. I realized that Bash's connections, His access to Uganda's official ID register must have played a big part in this process. But from what Troy's just told me, it sounds like Bash wasn't the only person scouting girls to send to Abbey. And he's not the only one convincing girls to travel. According to Troy, Abby sometimes takes a personal hand in that too. He starts communicating with a girl that you would be coming to Dubai.

you would be going to nice places for leisure. Sometimes these girls don't know what they're coming to do. They don't know what's up with the business. He would only tell them the positive side of their side that you'd be getting money, you would be driving expensive cars, you'd meet rich men, you'd live a luxury life,

so they are convinced in that way. Once they get into Dubai, What is the first experience they have with Abbe like? So for the first days, he takes them to different malls, to buy them clothings, to make them feel comfortable. He takes them around the restaurants to have nice food, to brainwash them before he sticks them to the business.

What happens to girls who refuse to kind of continue doing what he wants them, what Abbe wants them to do. If you're not willing to work with him, because there are certain girls that choose to come and find out the situation is not as it was told. So those who would say that I'm not ready to provide sex, it would keep you inside the room, until when you agree that, okay, let me work.

The question some people seem to have when they hear accounts like this is why don't the victims just leave? Just get away, go to the police. And Troy, who says he has known lots of women in this situation, makes it crystal clear. These girls are traumatized. You can't go home. You know that you are hunted by the police because you are an overstay.

You end up drinking every day using any type of drug that comes along your way in order to survive. Yeah. So Abbe has girls that have even been by for six years in overstay. and they're staying with him because he's the only option is he becomes the dad to them. Their own option is to be with Abby and that's how he runs this business. That's how he controls it.

They look to him for food, for shelter, for transport. They have no escape route. They don't have money. He collects every single penny that they work. Troy says he didn't see much of that money, but he was working for Abby for over a year. And I'm thinking, why did he stay? How did he live with himself?

But I'm walking a bit of a tightrope. He's my best chance of getting closer to Abbey, so I need to keep him on side. Troy says he knows the type of man Abbey is. So Abbey loves reading history. He reads about the famous ancient man who is to gamble the world. He loves reading about the media, different countries. So he would sit for an hour and read about Dubai, how their police operates, how the nightclubs operate.

Most of these nightclubs deploy African men for security. So he pays them off to give him information inside the club. When is the manager off which days these clubs have good parties with white men? He just uses his money to pay off to different nightclub securities to allow his goals getting for work. His girls have to look expensive. You have to put on expensive wigs to attract these expensive men. You have to use expensive perfumes to attract these expensive men. So Abbe provides search for these girls.

A white man will not know that he is meeting a girl from the ghetto because the girl is preserved to look expensive. What type of clients do these girls end up seeing? They see musicians. They see footballers. They see presidents. Because the place abatex them to are places, are fantasy places in Dubai, Dubai Marina,

those expensive clubs. These are rich men that come from different countries of the world. They enter Dubai. Then they look for girls that could fulfill what they need, sex desires. and I've heard about the types of sex that I've never seen in my life. That they have the slavery type of sex

where a girl is put on robes and she's put in the cage within the clan's room, she's served like a dog. He makes sure that the rich men are happy. So it doesn't matter what you go through as long as his rich men are happy. Do you think these clients know or even care how these girls ended up in Dubai? Some clients don't need to know after having their fantasy.

Troy admits to being deeply involved in this abusive operation. The nightmare Monica was caught up in. Did you ever try and stop Avery in the past? Trying to stop him came up as a way of telling these girls to escape him. That is the best way I tried to stop. stop him while still working for him. Some of the girls did tell me that Troy had helped a few of them escape from Abby. Troy says when Abby found this out, that's when he left.

We got a misunderstanding after him getting to know that I'm helping these girls to find life elsewhere. So once he knew about that, he was like, you are spoiling my business. Troy says, despite this, they're still in contact. apparently Abbey's fond of the saying Keep your friends close and your enemies closer Because of this, Troy can still help us get close to Abbey But it has me thinking

Is he doing this to try to make up for his past Put right his wrongs? I'm trying to put up justice for these girls Justice for those who are dead Because with justice You have to be having a body that can talk. Those who are still alive, because they are the only that could tell the truth. Troy isn't just talking about Monica here. He didn't know her. He'd returned to Uganda by then.

But he was working for Abbey when Kayla died. That's the aspiring model whose brothers I met at their phone shop in Kampala. Another family who were told their loved one killed herself, who were now left desperately trying to work out what happened. I want to know what Troy has heard about her death. Killer was one of Abbe's girls, and that night incident happened on one of Abbe's apartment. She jumped off

from the 13th floor and lost her life. How did Abbe react when he heard that she was dead? Abbe called me because at that time he was driving along different girls for money. So Abbey called me and told me

have you heard about the incident? I told him, yeah, I heard about it. Please, can you go and see how you can handle this with the police? So I was the second person to reach the scene. So I called the police. It wasn't hard, he says, to handle the situation. Make the case disappear. It took just like four minutes the police was around.

And the investigation started. I told the police that I'm a Ugandan and she's a Ugandan. And she has been sleeping in one of the apartments that I know. It was handled by the same department that would deal with Monica's death, less than a year later, the Al-Basha police station. Once the police investigation came out, it showed that it was a suicide. The police found me on the scene, and no one in the police department has ever come to me to ask to give a report about that. Troy's version of events of the night Kayla died is that she was with an Emirati government.

client. He says he heard that this man had given Kayla a vape containing some kind of drug. They were drinking, but Kayla was taking a vape, and that vape came with that local guy. And after, Kayla went outside the balcony. Since then, that was it. Was the client with her on the balcony? No, Kayla went alone at the balcony, and then she went down. Someone who was there, who I can't identify, told me something different. That this client was on the balcony when Kayla died. And that there had been an argument about money.

And remember the autopsy the brothers showed me. It said there were no drugs or even alcohol in her body. What everyone does agree on though is that Abby knew who this client was and that it was never investigated by the police. Yeah, Abby knew who the client was, because you could not take a client at his place and he's not knowing. The client was an Arab. And the girl told Abi that this is my old client that has been working with me. Yeah, I'm worried maybe after this interview I have to exit their country.

Because I don't think, because I don't trust anyone. You understand? Troy says he does want justice for Kayla and Monica. their deaths need to be investigated. I think the police would have gone under further investigations, not just conclude the file as a suicide, because this is an African soul and spirit. Then what do I call justice?

And he also wants Abbey to stop exploiting women. I want him to stop in any way. But the only thing that could stop Abbey, it could be prison. because if he's just exposed, he'll do this elsewhere. So it's only one thing that could stop him, and that is prison. Troy repeats something, Hope also told me, that made my ears prick up, about Abbey's UK connections.

Whenever he's flying out for vacations, he goes to the UK. I've seen his UK driving lessons. So I had the thinking. that if you have a UK driving license, you can have citizenship. If he has the UK citizenship, wouldn't the UK investigate what this guy is doing all over in Dubai all along? Where is Abbey based now? Abbey is based in JVC.

He's based in villas because he was more troubled with apartments, because many apartments never wanted to work with him anymore. So he adopted to villas, because villas are private, and you can do everything. JVC, Jamera Village Circle, a smart neighbourhood of residential villas near the Dubai Marina. We're getting closer. Troy's given me a rough location

and I followed clues in the social media accounts of the guys who still work for Abby, trying to narrow it down. Hello? Hi, Renaraka. I thought I'd just give you a bit of a bit of brief about Abby and his network. My colleague Mark has brought in some ex-military contacts who now work for a charitable

organisation. They specialise in undercover surveillance. Number 10, Brian Dole. They're going to stake out the address to check if Abby is actually there, so we can approach him. The team understands the importance. They know the background of the targets and the seriousness of the investigation. So the anticipation is high

And the guys are ready to do the job We're watching the back We're ready to record We will update anything significant And after a few hours A sighting So that's the blue Chinese model SUV With two girls

At least two girls in the vehicle That's next time On World of Secrets Later in the series, we will try to find Abby to see what he has to say about these allegations. This has been episode four of six of Death in Dubai, season nine of World of Secrets. Thank you for.

For listening, please leave us a review. It really helps us to get the word out. World of Secrets, Death in Dubai, is produced by Ruth Evans, Li Chong, Bondo, and me, Renarko Salina. The sound design and mix is by Andy Fell. The editor is Rebecca Henshki. Voiceover by PNB. It was a BBCI investigation produced in association with Thread Studios. Thank you.