Who is Jay Slater’s ‘pal’ Jonny Vegas? Most elusive mystery man in case who partied with teen before he vanished
JAY SLATER vanished on June 17 after he left a rave in Tenerife with two mystery Brits and headed back to their Airbnb.
In the 18 days since his disappearance, countless people have tried to piece together information about exactly who those two men are – with the most mysterious being a man dubbed “Jonny Vegas”.
The Sun revealed yesterday that one of them is a convicted drug dealer, Ayub Qassim, 31.
We told how he had been jailed for nine years in 2015 after working as the ringleader of a London-based gang dealing heroin and crack cocaine in Cardiff.
The remaining mystery man, referred to so far only as Jonny Vegas, is a key piece of the puzzle in the strange disappearance of Jay, 19.
Sharing a nickname with the famous comedian who starred in Benidorm, limited information is known about who he is – and how he knew Jay.
The two mystery Brits who partied with Jay on the night of his disappearance were initially labelled “not relevant” by investigators.
They are said to both be black, in their late 30s or early 40s and from Luton, Bedfordshire.
Despite speaking with cops briefly after Jay was reported missing, they were allowed to fly home to the UK soon after.
Lancashire Constabulary, whose offer of assistance was refused by local police in Tenerife, said it would not quiz the men further.
Online sleuths have touted a series of possible identities behind the nickname Jonny Vegas, all unconfirmed.
One of them, whose name The Sun has chosen not to publish, is accused of being the mystery man by online detectives.
During a bizarre Facebook livestream, he even engaged with social media users discussing the Jay Slater case.
At one point, he muses: “You think they are setting me up?”
In the specific clip, he also speculates on what happened to the 19-year-old – suggesting he may have fallen or been attacked.
Today the man also shared a strange post to his Instagram which read: “The man your looking for ain’t me. Time to take legal action.”
Jay’s worried dad Warren, 58, has questioned why his teenage son ended up at a remote Airbnb with “two grown men”.
He said: “My only question is, and this is where you start the investigation from, why did two grown men take a young boy to a valley to a bed and breakfast? I can’t understand that.
“Why? Why? You need to ask them why and then start from there.”
His comments came after a TV investigator helping the family revealed Jay left the £40-night Airbnb feeling “scared”.
Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas claimed the lad did not want to return to the holiday let despite needing water and having little phone battery.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
A woman identified only as Araceli, who works in the cafe next to the Airbnb where the pair were staying, told reporters of the duo: “They came in for cafe con leche a couple of times.
“One was aged about 40. The other one was slightly younger.”
According to reports the men did not know Jay before the festival in Tenerife, but they are said to be known to his friend Lucy Mae Law.
It is not yet clear how the three of them might know one another.
The Sun revealed on Thursday how Ayub Qassim is closely connected to a legal cannabis cafe in Tenerife owned by his childhood friend, acclaimed drill rapper Potter Payper.
A source told The Sun: “Ayub is one of Potter’s main guys. They go way back and were friends back in London.
“They both grew up in Barking and mixed in the same circles.
“Once Potter opened up the cannabis cafe in Tenerife he decided that Ayub was the guy to run it.”
Qassim told reporters that Jay was a “cool guy” who he knew through friends.
He told press this week: “I let the geezer [Jay] 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.”
He doubled down amid swirling conspiracy theories online: “The only comment I have to make is that Jay came to the house alive, and he left the house alive.
“There were no problems. You’ve seen the last images of him with his red blanket around him.”
Jay shared a Snapchat from the Airbnb early on June 17 of him holding a cigarette, wrapped in a patterned red fabric, with the location tagged before he vanished.
The owner of the holiday rental Casa Abuela Tina where the two men stayed, Ophelia, insisted she had given all the information she had to the police.
Ophelia previously said she was “very worried about” the teen.
She told MEN: “It’s dangerous walking around here, it’s easy to lose yourself. He walked up the road when I saw him for the last time.
“He was alone. He was walking normally, though he was fast.”
Jay 'left Airbnb feeling scared'
By Katie Davis
JAY Slater left the Airbnb he went to with two men feeling “scared” after admitting to stealing a £12,000 Rolex, an investigator claims.
Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas said the 19-year-old did not want to return to the remote holiday let in northwest Tenerife despite having little phone battery.
Apprentice bricklayer Jay, who had been at a rave all night in Playa de las Americas, travelled north to the Airbnb in Masca village in the early hours of June 17.
During the hour-long drive, Mark claims Jay posted a Snapchat saying he had taken a Rolex worth £12,000 from an unknown person.
Police had been examining security cameras at a beach club and speaking to witnesses about an alleged Rolex theft hours before Jay vanished.
It was reported a brawl broke out at the Papagayo Beach Club in the early hours of June 17 after a “burly” Eastern European man allegedly had his pricey watch stolen.
Mark said he and his team had been “unable to validate” Jay’s claim on Snapchat “in terms of reported theft”.
He added: “However friends of Jay said he would not make this up and the watch was subject of later conversation between the friends.”
According to Mark, the host of the Airbnb told Jay at around 8am there would be a bus two hours later.
Jay then tried to make his way back to his holiday accommodation, faced with an 11-hour walk.
Mark – who worked on the Madeleine McCann case – said Jay talked to at least three friends via message and the phone while trekking back, telling them he was lost.
At around 8.50am he made a final frantic call to friend Lucy, saying he was in the “middle of nowhere” with no water and had just one per cent battery on his phone.
Mark said in a video update today: “He was told to go back by two people to the rental.
“He said he could not do that and that he’d already been walking for 30 minutes and that he was now off road and was walking on a track where there were loose stones.”
Mark has claimed Jay fled the holiday let and was “scared”.
He said: “We have received information that would suggest that Jay left the rental property feeling scared and he would not return to the rental, even though that would have been the most sensible course of action, and also where he could have charged his phone, got some water and made contact with friends.
“We continue to investigate this aspect.”
LUCY LAW & JONNY VEGAS
Jay’s friend Lucy, the last person to speak to him before he vanished, tracked down the Airbnb where Jonny 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.
“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.”
Cops have been investigating a brawl that took place outside the Papagayo Beach Club in Tenerife shortly after closing time the night before Jay vanished.
A scuffle is understood to have broken out after a burly Eastern European man claimed his Rolex watch had been nicked.
One of Jay’s friends who flew to Tenerife after he vanished told investigators the alleged theft may have something to do with him going missing.
And former detective Mark Williams-Thomas made further extraordinary claims in an eight-minute video.
He said the apprentice bricklayer, from Lancashire, posted a Snapchat the night before he vanished saying he had taken a Rolex worth £12,000 from an unknown person.