Saipov hungered to make it in U.S.
Uzbek immigrant tried to jump-start 3 truck companies
NEW YORK — Sayfullo Saipov knew his way around motor vehicles.
Although he was only 22 and couldn’t speak English, the Uzbek immigrant — who is suspected of killing eight people Tuesday in lower Manhattan — was quick off his feet after arriving in the United States in 2010.
Although he moved frequently, he was clear that his career path was in driving. He tried to start three trucking companies, two in Ohio and one in Florida, and in the past year had started driving for Uber.
After arriving at John F. Kennedy Airport in 2010, he found temporary housing with fellow Uzbek immigrants near Cincinnati who were acquainted with his father. The following year, he registered his first company, Sayf Motors, at their address in Symmes Township, Ohio.
Saipov’s father in Uzbekistan had asked the father of Dilnoza Abdusamatova, a family friend, if the young man could live with them after his arrival in the United States. He apparently stayed only a few weeks before moving on.
Two years later, he registered another trucking company called Bright Motors at another Ohio address, in Cuyahoga Falls, near Cleveland. He then moved to Tampa, Fla., to start another company.
“He always used to work. He wouldn’t go to parties or anything. He only used to come home and rest and leave and go back to work,” Abdusamatova told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Saipov married Nozima Odilova, a 19-year-old fellow Uzbek in April 2013, and listed his occupation on the marriage certificate as “truck driver.”
He and his wife, now 23, had two daughters, one now 6 and another 4, and a baby boy who was born about six months ago.
He was living in Paterson, N.J., about 20 miles northwest of New York City. He rented the Home Depot truck used in Tuesday’s attack in Passaic, N.J., near his home.
Saipov and his family moved from Florida to New Jersey in June, according to a law enforcement official.
On Wednesday, FBI agents removed evidence bags from an apartment building in Paterson.
Saipov, 29, plowed the truck down a bike path in the Tribeca neighborhood of lower Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, killing eight cyclists and pedestrians. After exiting the truck and brandishing a paintball gun and a pellet gun, he was shot in the abdomen by an off-duty police officer. He is expected to survive. A note was found near the truck stating that the attack was conducted on behalf of Islamic State.
Although Saipov seemed purposeful in becoming a driver, there is no indication that he had planned to deploy a truck as a weapon at the time he arrived in the United States. The occupation is common for Uzbek immigrants, who are well represented in the trucking, moving and car services.
A fellow Uzbek immigrant said that there was nothing about Saipov to raise alarms.
“He is very good guy. He is very friendly. He is like little brother ... he look at me like big brother,” a friend, Kobiljon Matkarov, told the New York Post. The only thing that stood out as odd was that once, in June, when one of Matkarov’s children asked to take a photo with Saipov, he refused.
Others painted a different picture.
Two Uzbek immigrants, Akhmadjon Kholberdiyev and Mirrakhmat Muminov, came to know Saipov and said they were most struck by how provocative he was.
Sometimes, he would stir quarrels over politics or the Mideast peace process, they said, but he could also grow angry over something as simple as a picnic.
“He had the habit of disagreeing with everybody,” said Muminov, 38, of Stow, Ohio, who works as a truck driver, just as Saipov once did.
Muminov described Saipov as “aggressive” and suspected he held radical views, though Muminov never heard him speak of ISIS.
“He was not happy with his life,” Muminov said.
Kholberdiyev, a groundskeeper at a local mosque, called Saipov quiet and said he came to the mosque to pray every two or three weeks.
According to some media reports, Saipov lived for a time in Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet nation that borders Uzbekistan.
Authorities believe Saipov was radicalized in recent years and did not come to the United States with terrorist intent.
“After he came to the United States is when he started to become informed about ISIS and radical Islamic tactics,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN on Wednesday.
“All the evidence we have is that he was a quote unquote lone-wolf model,” Cuomo said. “He has had several run-ins with the law which were basically minor vehicular traffic.”