Death in Dubai: 1. The real Mona Kizz

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. People are going to hate me. I won't move on with my life. And I was so petrified of being dragged across the coals for reporting them. And I still am. My name is Laura Hughes, and for the past two years, I've been uncovering the United Kingdom's perplexing relationship with lead. What I've found has shocked me. From the Financial Times, this is Untold. Toxic Legacy. Out now. Some details of support organisations at the end. It's early morning on May 1st, 2022, and Kampala, Uganda's sprawling bustling capital, is waking up. Rita's closed the curtains. Shut out the sun. She's trying to have a lion. She's in rooms, and she quickly silences it. But it rings again and again. The same number. Reluctantly, she picks up. On the line is a familiar voice. He asked if I knew what had happened. And I said no. He asked if I had seen the news. I hadn't. Then he said Monika had died. Five months earlier, Rita says this man helped her sister Monika move to Dubai. Got her a job. Arranged her travel. Promised Rita that she would be safe. But now, he's calling to say she's dead. I felt sick. I didn't believe. I asked how she died. He was like, "I'm going to send you a video they shot while she was dying." A few minutes later, it arrives. It's shaky phone footage of a white tower block. There's a figure of a woman balancing on a window sill. And to warn you, it's really unsettling. You could see the woman at the top of the building. There were parked cars and other people at the bottom. I was so scared. Then I saw the woman shouting and then she jumps out of the window. I saw it and I just believed that it was Monika. This same video is being shared far and wide online. A Ugandan woman died instantly after she jumped off the tower in Dubai that is United Arab Emirates. You can hear the screams of everyone who witnessed it. The woman in the video stands there for a moment and thinks about things and then just lets go and falls. Tiktokers and YouTubers are saying the woman who falls, Rita's sister Monika, who they're calling Mona Kiz, is caught up in something terrible. Some dark, demented, twisted shit is going down in Dubai behind closed doors. Mona Kiz was a beautiful young woman from Uganda. She was enchanted by the glam and glitz of Dubai and the Instagram influencer thing. Mona and her friend were forced to do terrible sexual acts and some of them are unspeakable and it was all filmed and released on the internet. Rita's sister is accused of being a Dubai porta potty, getting paid to be a human toilet. I never had heard the term Dubai porta potty like en masse until the Mona Kiz story. She became the face of Dubai porta potty. A Dubai porta potty is a woman, usually an Instagram model who gets flown out to Dubai by a rich Emirati who pays them to do horrible, horrible things. OK, it's recently come to light that people are going to Dubai, people are going to Dubai to get pulled on. These rumours are out of control. Every few months, another model or influencer or even random women in Dubai get accused. Currently the going rate is 30 to 40K to be someone's human toilet for the weekend. All for money, money that disappears. I'm actually flabbergasted. I'm in a shame. It's the shame of appearing in a Dubai porta potty video, the story goes, that drove Mona to take her own life. It's everywhere. The internet is ripping her apart. There's such an outpouring of hate, ridicule and shame. Everyone's weighing in on her story with their own version of who she was. I find Mona's Instagram. She's riding a quad bike in the desert. On dance floors in Dubai clubs. Posing at the beach. Monica is striking. She's slim and tall, with sparkling brown eyes, arched eyebrows and high cheekbones. But I also notice something else. In a photo uploaded less than three weeks before her death, there are bruises on her neck and face. This is World of Secrets, season nine. Death in Dubai. From the BBC World Service, I'm Renako Salina. Episode one, The Real Mona Kids. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, thank you for taking my call. I'm on a call with a woman who I noticed commented a lot on Monica's Facebook, so I got in touch. She's called Rona. She's very wary of me, but has agreed to talk. Like, I want to know why you would like to fall about her. You know, it's very difficult to talk to her. The phone line isn't great. It's hard to hear each other, but I've got to earn her trust. So I'm really trying to understand what happened to her. If I send you my name, you will see a bit of my work and what I do. So I do kind of investigations into issues impacting Africans and people of African descent. I send Rona some of the stories I've done. A week later, she gets back in touch. She wants to talk again. Yeah, I try to scan the photos on your Facebook page to get the investigation about you. Rona's the first family member I speak to, and eventually she'll introduce me to Rita, the sister who got that phone call in the middle of the night with the worst news a sibling can hear. But for months it's just Rona and me. Yes, please. Hey, can you hear me? Is it clearer? We talk over the phone a lot. She's beginning to trust me. How can I explain to you, but I have too much pain in my heart. Then she shares her biggest fear. I feel like someone pushed her from the building to town. Rona doesn't think Monica jumped. She thinks someone made her fall. It's over a year since I started speaking to Rona, but finally on the way to meet her at the family's farm outside of Isinduero in western Uganda. This is where Monica grew up. Look at these massive rolling mountains and rows and rows and rows of banana trees. So lush. This is really the kind of place that you can live off the land. A lot of the houses here I notice are powered by solar energy. I'm on the way to meet Monica's family, hoping that Rona is going to introduce me to everyone. It's the longest winding dirt road where the car in front of us left us like in a mist of red dirt. After six hours on the road, in the distance I can see the bright blue roof of a farmhouse, high on the hilltop. When we pull up, Rona rushes out to meet me and she's not alone. It's a really hot day, but up here on their family farm, a cool breeze shimmers the trees. Rona's in her mid-twenties, her hair braided and tied in a low bun. She's in a long flowing blue dress. I can see the resemblance between her and Monica. What does the family call Monica? It's a Monica baptized from the church, but she had another name called Karongi. In our language it's Karongi, but in English it means beautiful and she deserved that name because she was beautiful, really. So I feel like whenever she's at home everyone is happy to see her because she'll be there praying their children, greeting everyone. Rona's actually Monica's niece, but they're so close in age she calls her sister. We grow together, we eat together, we pray together. She was like my sister. She was there for me, I'm there for her. Most of Monica's brothers and sisters have stayed here on the farm, building their own homes not far from their mum. But Monica wanted something different. Monica was a very special person, she was so creative, so I thought maybe one time one day Monica she would change something in our family. After attending school in the village, Monica moved to the capital to live with her older sister Rita. Kampala is a bustling metropolis with bars and clubs where border-borders, motorbike taxis, roar up and down the hilly streets. It's totally different from a Cinderella, and Monica loved it. She was a single girl who had just moved to the city, so she was excited. When she moved to the city she bloomed. Rita speaks Luganda, so someone else is voicing her words. She had a lot of jobs in the village. Village life, it's all about digging, grazing, getting married, and she didn't want marriage. She didn't do it because she saw as her sister's married life, full of suffering. She always wanted, she always had bigger dreams. In Kampala, Monica starts training to be a makeup artist. She's a good job in a salon. Her look starts to change. In this clip from her Instagram, she's dancing in her room in a baby pink dress and huge shades, lip-syncing to an Afrobeats classic, with braids down to her bum. She loved wearing jumpsuits and trousers. She paired them with high heels. Long nails were her favourite. They were her signature look. In this clip, she's at a party. The place is packed and she's surrounded by girlfriends. Rita's happy that Monica's making friends, but not so sure about her sister's new lifestyle. What I know is that those famous clubs are attended by rich people's kids who tend to be spoiled. When she started going out, she began acting like a wealthy person. She would suggest that I rent a more expensive house. She even wanted someone to wash her clothes for her. It felt like she had forgotten her roots. And her social media starts to change too. In her early posts, she's baby-faced. In one caption, she says, "I'm beautiful and black." A year later, she's posting bikini pics. A year after that, it's working clicks. She's posting more and, like almost everyone I know, is probably spending too much time online. Rita thinks social media is where she first got the idea to leave Uganda. She liked being on her phone too much. She used to see all that on social media. You know, American celebrities like Kim Kardashian, she used to tell us stories of how this person bought a house, or did this or that. I personally had no idea who these people were. Also, her friends, they're just about life abroad. She was tempted to go make more money than she can make here. To look after her sick mother, to be buying her medicine. Their mum has been sick for some time, with high blood pressure, and the treatment is expensive. She always wanted to set up a business for us, and to build her own house. Those were her dreams. A few months after moving to the city, it seems those dreams might finally come true. She's been out to a bar with her new friends, and comes home super excited. She came with a very big bottle of alcohol. A very big bottle. She might have been ashamed to be seen with it. And she told me, "Sis, I met a rich friend, let's drink." She told me she'd got a friend who paid for everything, and that she's going to work in Dubai. I even have videos that we took that evening. We were drinking, playing music, and dancing with the kids. We put suspands on our heads and started banging them. Once the initial excitement wears off, Rita goes into elder sister mode and starts asking questions. I said, "You know that you need a lot of money to do so." And she said, "No, I won't put in any money." She told me confidently that her guy was helping her. Because, she says, "This friend is going to pay for everything." Rita says Monica was excited, telling her he'd promised her a job in a supermarket in Dubai. I asked her, "Do you trust the people taking you?" She said that she trusted them because they were her friends. Rita says Monica's talking to this guy a lot. But Rita's never introduced him. Looking back, she thinks he might have been trying to avoid her. They do speak a couple of times on the phone. Rita never gets his name, but he manages to make a good impression. He was well-mannered in speaking. He seemed nice. I saw his picture before. He was tall, handsome, with chocolate brown skin, and he also carried himself like a gentleman. He looked to be a fellow Munya Ankole. I think she trusted him because he was a Munya Ankole. They were from the same place, the Ankole region of Uganda. The same people. He told me that first of all, she's a beautiful girl. She speaks English and she's hard-working. She'll be able to work. He said that he takes people abroad and he would get her a job. I thought he was a good man, helping his friend to make her life better. I thought he had good intentions. He told me that she'll be fine. He promised that she would be safe. Rita says over the next two weeks, his friend sorts Monica's passport and visa and makes all the arrangements for her to go to Dubai. He even gives her money to throw a leaving party. It's the weekend before Monica leaves. The whole family has come together on the farm. A goat is slaughtered and a mountain of matake, a savoury banana with a thick green skin, is peeled. One of Monica's brothers is DJ for the day. He's blaring music from his speakers. And Monica's got everyone up on their feet. According to Rona, Monica's niece, this is classic Monica. So she was happy. She makes some small, small music and she dances. She was so happy with her kids, mother, everyone, siblings at home and some of people in the village. Monica, the last of 11 siblings, will be the first of them to travel abroad. The day after the party, she returns to Rita's in Kampala. The sisters are so busy laughing and talking about Monica's future in Dubai, they stay up most of the night. At some point, Rita speaks to Monica's friend on the phone. I told him, "Are you planning to take her sister without meeting me first?" He assured me that he would come in the morning to pick her up. However, when morning came, he called to say he was held up and he could not meet me. Instead, he instructed me to send her on a border, border to a particular beach on the way to Entebbe Airport. So Rita helps Monica get her bag ready. Monica cried as she was saying goodbye. She said, "I'm going to work. I'll send you money and all will be well." Rita waves goodbye as Monica heads off on the back of a border, border. She's taken to the meeting point, a beach on Lake Victoria, on the way to the airport and that's where that friend picks her up in his car. When they reached the airport, the man sent me photos of her pulling her suitcase in the security line. I remember she wore black shoes, blue-ripped jeans with a black sweater. Her eyes looked red. Like someone who'd been crying, it was Monica's first time going on a plane, first time leaving Uganda and the last time Rita ever saw her little sister. I'm Jake Halpern, host of Deep Cover, a show about people who lead double lives. We're presenting a special series from Australia. It's all about a family who is conned by a charming American. When you marry someone, you feel like you really know them. It's just gobsmacked as to what's going on here. Does the name Leslie Minookian mean anything to you? Oh, you bet. Never forget her. Listen to Deep Cover presents Snowball, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, Mama. I told you. Monica's filming a light show from a balcony. Fountains and fireworks are going off before her eyes. So beautiful, you guys. She's been living in Dubai for a month now. She's 23 and it looks like she's living her dream, at least from her online presence. This is beautiful and magnificent. In this video, Monica walks around a rooftop terrace, amazed by everything around her. Lights spin across the dance floor of a nightclub. It's a real vibe. She struts and heals, turning the marble hotel foyer into her catwalk. You're looking so pretty. When you scroll through Monica's Instagram, she's posing in immaculate outfits with perfect nails, behind her, rooftop halls, or beaches surrounded by dazzling skyscrapers. Look, see how bright and close this is. But to Rona, something just doesn't look right. We sit on Rona's bed, looking at photos of Monica before she left, and the ones from Dubai. This is the Monica or Mona that I know before. But for being in UEE, her lifestyle changed, and even the colour of her body changed, and here she was black. But when she went there, in a few months, she changed her colour in brown. Rona thinks Monica might have started using skin-lightning products. The thing is, using these controversial products can be risky, and they're not cheap. Look, the way she's looking, those kind of presses, of course, is money. I can't believe that Monica was affording herself. I think she was not the one who was controlling the internet and social media things. And Rona also notices something else. If you focus on those videos, you can see sometimes she has crutches, and she's walking like someone who has pain from somewhere. On New Year's Eve, just nine days after Monica arrived in Dubai, Rona gets a voice note from her. She was talking, while she's crying so emotionally, and I feel like that's when I knew maybe Karun, Monica, she's not fine. That was not Monica, that I know. It was the last time she heard from her. On May 1st, Rona's phone starts going crazy. People posting saying that Monica Karunji has passed away. So I was like, why? I tried to call her phone, and it's not going through. She watches the video that's being shared over and over, seeing the girl fall from the tower. It's horrible, but she also thinks something isn't right. I was like, this is not Monica. So why people are saying like this? Then I was like, no, I need to tell them the truth, this is not the one. And she's right. In the background of the video, if you listen carefully, you can hear people speaking Russian. I do a reverse image search and traced the clip back to six months earlier. It was filmed in Novosibirsk, Russia. The woman in the video definitely isn't Monica. But there's one thing social media is right about. Monica's body was found at the bottom of a tower block in Dubai. Rona keeps scrolling, desperately looking for information, trying to understand what's happened. And she comes across other videos that people are linking to Monica. One is a graphic video of someone performing Dubai Portapotti. Tiktokers and YouTubers are claiming that it's Monica, or Mona Kiz as they call her. Mona and her friend were both assaulted and defecated all over on film. The film was then released on the internet for all to see. When this happened, Mona was destroyed. But you can see the woman's face. It's clearly not Monica. Rona goes back over the commons people were leaving at the time. She deserved that. Oh wow. She deserved that. She died. She loved money too much and she get what she deserved. In hell, they want to blame her. They want to put on her that she did it. She did it intentionally. She deserved it. Monica can't rest in peace, because people online are tearing her to pieces. Of course, they was going to say whatever they want to say. She was sending herself, getting money, but no need to comment something that you don't know. You don't know she was doing those things that you have been saying. So there's a video of a woman falling from an apartment building, but it's not Monica. And there's a video of a woman engaged in an extreme sexual act. But that's not Monica either. So why are these videos being linked to her? I feel like maybe someone was trying to keep something, or to keep the secret of what exactly happened to her, or how she passed away. Under a marquee on the family farm, the whole community have gathered to mourn Monica. Some of Monica's childhood friends are here. Her school teachers, distant relatives, and all her baby nieces and nephews. Three priests dressed in black and white robes lead the service. One of Monica's brothers sits close to their mum. His arm around her shoulders as they listen on. That we are remembering the life of Karunji Monika, who I feel, who died. She must have touched Monica. And we don't know the cause of her death. This isn't Monica's funeral. Her family don't have her body to bury. They tried to repatriate her remains, but couldn't get the money together in time. It was easy. We never had a burial ceremony. We lost our revenge. So really the grief is so much, the pain is so much. It's so much. It's been a long time since I last saw Monica. God knows you. God knows you there. God knows what you're going through. God knows your pain. Monica's mum is distraught. She sobs and holds her head in her hand. She calls out to God about the pain of not seeing her youngest daughter. If Monica has really gone, she wants to bury her on the family land, next to the white-tiled grave where her husband was laid to rest. It's too much. Monica's mum has helped back inside the house to rest. The prayers and singing carry on, and people share stories about Monica. There are lots of happy memories, but for Rona, it's also a reminder of the person they've lost. Rona, don't cry. It's very difficult. We miss her. Please. I'm very sorry. Long time we are waiting. We can see the body, we can see anything, we can find anything. Rona then turns and looks at me. If you have any ways, please try to... I just want to know what has happened to her. Sometimes I feel I want to call her, then I remember it's no longer there. I can't get her, so I feel it. The family do their best to support each other, but feelings are raw. Their loss is huge. Rona says if Monica was here, she'd tell them not to give up, to keep looking for answers. What I know, other than what I have approved, she would never kill herself. That's what I know. Because she was a strong girl, she would never kill herself. I'm trying to investigate what happened to her. Where do you think I should start looking first? I just feel like you should start to look where she was working before and what happened to her exactly. Where did she go? All those people who took her there to abroad, what exactly they did to her. Rona has all these questions, and Rita does too. In the days and weeks after she got that call, Rita tries to find out who those people are, who took Monica to Dubai. Remember, she never got the name of that so-called friend, the one who sent her that horrendous video, who she says paid for her sister to go to Dubai in the first place. Rita becomes obsessed with finding this guy's name. She uses a money transfer service that allows you to send cash using just a mobile phone number. Before confirming the transfer, the system shows the recipient's name for verification. This allows you to see their name without completing the transaction. But when we tried this, the system showed a woman's name. He's using a phone registered to someone else. That is when I became suspicious. I knew then that this guy was a con artist. So Rita still doesn't have his name, but she keeps calling him, asking what happened to her sister, and manages to get one crucial lead. He tells her, "Talk to someone else." He gave me his boss's number to get more information. It was Monica's boss in Dubai. I spoke to him, but he was a very strict man. He was so tough on the phone. He's also from Uganda. Because we spoke in Uganda, that's how I know he's from here. He told me that she was working in a supermarket as an accountant. But he doesn't give her any answers on what happened to Monica. She keeps calling him, asking him to help raise funds to bring Monica's body home. When I realized that they were playing games, I contacted a newspaper. The moment they saw me on the news, everything changed. The Dubai guy told me that he had seen me on TV, and that I should stop doing interviews, accusing me of being a fraud. He said that Monica was not normal, and you know it. He did not show any remorse, or sorrow. Rita tries to find out more about him, digging for information, but he doesn't give anything away. I tried talking to him again, but he had blocked me. She passes me her phone. On the screen, there's a number for Monica's boss, a Dubai one. Rita doesn't know his name, but she needs to pick something to save him as a contact. She doesn't know how her sister died, but she holds this man responsible. Because I got his number after Monica's death, I saved him as Kila. This has been Episode 1 of 6 of Death in Dubai, Season 9 of World of Secrets. Thank you for listening. Please tell people about it, and follow or subscribe so you don't miss an episode. World of Secrets - Death in Dubai is produced by Ruth Evans, Lee Chung, Bondo and me, Renako Selina. The sound design and mix is by Andy Fell. The editor is Rebecca Henshke. Translation and voiceover by Diana Luanga. It was a BBC Eye investigation produced in association with Thread Studios. For BBC Eye, the executive producer is Malen Larsen, and the editor, Mustafa Khalili. For Thread Studios, the executive producer was Mal Grease. Alex Parkinson is head of production. Siobhan Ray is the production manager, and Chris Jones is the assistant producer. Original music by Hugh Jones. The production manager was Maria Caramello, and the production coordinator was Katie Morrison. Many thanks to the BBC World Service commissioning team that is behind World of Secrets. If you're in the UK, listen to the whole series right now, first on BBC Sound. People are going to hate me. I won't move on with my life, and I was so petrified of being dragged across the coals for reporting them. And I still am. My name is Laura Hughes, and for the past two years, I've been uncovering the United Kingdom's perplexing relationship with lead. What I've found has shocked me. From the Financial Times, this is Untold, Toxic Legacy. Out now.