A bodycam video posted November 7 shows a 2024 Tesla pickup in Georgia that ended with two arrests. A customer had returned for another car, and an employee remembered the face behind a failed payment.
The video from Bodycam Rico and NYDETECTIVE follows Fayetteville police on January 6. Fouad Kemal and Hamza Addow were at the store to pick up a Model S worth about $105,000.
For one employee, the buyer’s name was a problem. She recognized Kemal from a past Model X sale, but this order had someone else’s name and license.
Kemal said he had come to pick up a friend’s car. Addow said he had only given him a ride. Officers checked the sale papers and tried to reach the people named on them.
A Familiar Face
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Before officers spoke with the men, the employee explained how Tesla had let the roughly $112,000 Model X leave. Its bank payment had not yet cleared. Days later, the payment failed, and the car was already gone.
Tesla’s team could not track it because it had gone offline, she explained. Asked how she knew the same man had returned, she answered, “I remember faces.”
Employees had put the new pickup on hold while police checked what had happened. One had been told to say the system was down, to buy time for police.
At first, Kemal denied having been to that store before. He later said he had given someone a ride there for a repair or pickup.
For this trip, he said his friend was playing basketball in Alabama. An officer asked him to call that friend, but the call did not connect. Kemal said the friend’s phone was off.
The Tesla app brought more questions. Kemal said the login was on a phone whose battery had died. Officers asked how the store could know he had the right to take the car.
The Other Names
Employees explained that the registered buyer had to be there to sign for the car. An employee identified Kemal as the man who had signed that day’s papers, and an officer arrested him for forgery. Kemal denied posing as the buyer.
Sergeant Collins then called the men named on the two orders. One denied buying or owning a Tesla. The man on the January order said he had lost his license months earlier and had not authorized the purchase.
Police also checked the Chevrolet Tahoe used for the trip. The video’s narrator describes a sale form that Memphis city staff called fake. Who owned the truck was still an open question in the police report he reviewed.
At the time, FOX 5 Atlanta reported that Kemal faced identity fraud, forgery, and theft charges. Addow faced identity fraud and obstruction charges; police said he was not part of the first Tesla purchase.
The creator’s court review cites plea and probation entries for both men. It also lists four of Kemal’s six original counts as dropped. Those entries do not show that his whole case was dropped or give either man’s full sentence.
All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.