JAY RIDDLE
Identity of Jay Slater mystery man ‘Johnny Vegas’ REVEALED by ex-Maddie investigator as mystery over final night deepens
Ayub Qassim, named as the man behind the nickname 'Johnny Vegas' has insisted he has 'nothing to hide'
THE identity of 'Johnny Vegas', one of the mystery men who last saw missing Brit teen Jay Slater, has allegedly been revealed.
Initial reports suggested convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim and Johnny Vegas were the two new pals Jay made before he vanished - but they now appear to be one and the same.
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It comes after The Sun revealed Ayub, 31, rented a £40-a-night holiday let under a different surname with an unnamed friend.
Jay, 19, went to the Airbnb - called Case Abuela Tina - in northwest Tenerife at around 5am on June 17, just hours before he vanished.
Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas shared a video on X today, claiming Qassim told him that the nickname 'Johnny Vegas' is his.
The ex-cop - who worked on the Madeleine McCann case - tracked down Qassim and quizzed him on the mystery of Jay's disappearance.
Mark said: "We know the two men that took Jay back to their rental apartment were key people to speak to.
"And as a result, I've now spoken in some detail to one of these men, Ayub Qassim, who is known as Johnny Vegas."
In a huge development, the former cop also revealed: “And I’ve also identified the other male who was with him, but I’ve not yet spoken to him”.
Mark claims his efforts have "opened up an established criminal network with links to drugs , violent crime and thefts".
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Qassim's unnamed friend had so far only been referred to as Johnny Vegas.
If the nickname - based on a famous comedian who starred in Benidorm - does indeed belong to Qassim, the identity of the second man is still unknown.
Jay Slater's Dad furious over search
He remains a key piece of the puzzle in the bizarre mystery of Jay's disappearance.
Qassim, who The Sun revealed was jailed for nine years in 2015, previously insisted: "Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive."
He said: "I let the geezer stay at mine because he had nowhere else to go.
"His friends had all left him.
"I know Jay, through friends, I'm not going to bring someone back to mine if I don't know them.
"I'm doing the geezer a favour and now my face is all over the news. It's a bit mental. I haven't even done anything."
Qassim, who booked the Airbnb under the surname Abdul, and his friend spoke to Spanish police after Jay vanished.
Officials deemed them "irrelevant" to the ongoing investigation and let them fly home to the UK the very next day.
Jay's dad Warren, 58, questioned why his teenage son ended up at a remote Airbnb with “two grown men”.
Qassim confirmed he had spoken to the Spanish authorities in Tenerife but says he was told by foreign cops not to speak to anyone else.
This week he insisted he has "nothing to hide" and slammed Facebook detectives for screenshotting his Instagram.
The Sun previously revealed his connection to a legal cannabis cafe in Tenerife owned by his childhood friend, acclaimed drill rapper Potter Payper.
The mysterious case of Jay Slater, three weeks on
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Monday July 8 marks three weeks since Jay Slater, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished in Tenerife.
The apprentice bricklayer, who flew out to the popular holiday island for a rave festival with friends Lucy Law and Brad Page, has made headlines around the country.
On Sunday June 16 the three of them headed off to one of the events at Papagayo nightclub.
In the early hours of Monday 17 - Lucy and Brad were ready to head back to their hotel, but Jay wanted to keep partying.
It was then that he left the south of the island and headed to an Airbnb in the northwest with two British men.
The Sun revealed the identity of one of them - convicted drug dealer Ayub Qassim, who spent nine years behind bars in the UK.
For days it was thought that the second mystery man went by the name ‘Johnny Vegas’.
On Sunday former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who is out in Tenerife investigating, said Qassim told him he is in fact the man behind the nickname ‘Johnny Vegas’.
We don’t yet know the identity of the second man - who remains a key part of the puzzle in Jay’s mysterious disappearance.
Qassim claims he drove Jay and the friend back to their accommodation and said they all went to sleep.
In the morning he offered to drive the teen back to the Los Cristianos resort after a nap, but Jay, hungry and tired, said he wanted to leave immediately.
Lucy, the last person to speak to Jay, claims she had a panicked call from him soon after he left the holiday let, telling her he was lost and thirsty, his phone was about to die and that he’d been cut by a cactus.
Jay had been seen by the owner of the Airbnb that morning wandering around near the Rural de Teno park - a mountainous region close-by.
He is believed to have been attempting the 11-hour trek back to his hotel, despite the alleged offer of a lift and more buses scheduled for the day.
It was there that his phone last pinged - and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Mark Williams-Thomas has claimed he left the Airbnb quickly, and was “scared”.
Bizarrely, Qassim says he was woken up that morning by a phone call from an unnamed friend of Jay, saying he was “in a ditch” somewhere and had been “cut by a cactus”.
Jay’s friend Lucy claimed to have “tracked down” the two men in the Airbnb after he vanished - quizzing them on the morning of Jay’s disappearance.
Some reports have suggested Lucy knew the two men, although it is not clear how.
She has dubbed his disappearance “weird and suspicious”.
Both men were questioned by Spanish cops on June 17 but quickly deemed “irrelevant” to the investigation and cleared to fly back to the UK.
Police spent almost two weeks searching for Jay in the Tenerife mountains, scouring a 2,000ft ravine, before calling it off on Sunday June 30.
Jay’s family have repeatedly slammed the Spanish investigation into his bizarre disappearance.
His uncle, Glen Duncan, is convinced of “third party involvement”.
And the teen’s devastated dad, Warren Slater, says “everything stinks”
He told The Sun: "My starting position, I’ve said this from day one, ask the two men who’ve taken him - and then start from there."
A number of unanswered questions remain, over why Jay would have travelled so far with two older men he didn’t know, why said men would have taken him in, and why he braved the Tenerife mountains with no phone battery, water or heat protection for a day-long walk.
LUCY LAW & JOHNNY VEGAS
Jay's friend Lucy, the last person to speak to him before he vanished, tracked down the Airbnb where Johnny Vegas was staying and one of Jay's last known locations.
She said: "We managed to find the house. I knocked on the door and there were two people there."
The mystery pair told Lucy that Jay had gone out to buy cigarettes before returning to their apartment.
Once he got back he told them he wanted to go home to his accommodation.
Lucy said: "They told me he'd spoken to the next door neighbours and they'd told him there was a bus every 10 minutes back down to Los Cristianos.
"The bus stop was right next to the house.
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"So obviously if he'd gone to get the bus he wouldn't have got lost because it [the stop] was visible from the front door."
Lucy has described his disappearance as "weird and suspicious", adding "there’s something weird going on."
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