ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – He’s accused of terrorizing the Albuquerque community for weeks, gunning down three Muslim men in the summer of 2022. Investigators once referred to Muhammad Syed as a serial killer. With his motive still unknown, several questions remain about his alleged shooting spree. KRQE Investigates uncovered newly unsealed federal documents revealing federal investigators believed Syed may have had more victims.
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Police arrested Syed in August 2022 for the murders of Aftab Hussein, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, and Naeem Hussain. The three unrelated men were killed within days of each other.
In March 2024, a jury convicted Syed of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Aftab Hussein. Albuquerque Police found Aftab Hussein dead from multiple gunshot wounds on Rhode Island Street NE, near Copper Avenue NE on July 26, 2022.
Muhammad Afzaal Hussain died less than a week after Aftab Hussein. Police found him on the sidewalk near Cornell Drive SE and Coal Avenue SE on August 1, 2022. He had been shot multiple times. Just four days later, Albuquerque police responded to Truman Street NE and Grand Avenue NE where they found Naeem Hussain shot to death. Syed is expected to take a plea rather than go to trial for their murders.
Syed’s 2022 arrest had another family questioning if he killed their brother months earlier. On November 7, 2021, police report Mohammad Zahir Ahmadi was shot and killed behind the halal market he ran with his brother on San Mateo Boulevard. “It’s getting tougher and tougher and tougher every day for me. Every day,” Sharief Hadi, Ahmadi’s brother told KRQE Investigates.
Hadi is confident Syed is responsible for his brother’s death. “No doubt. No, we don’t have any enemies,” Hadi explained. But he pointed out he and his brother had multiple bad run-ins with Syed and his wife at the store prior to his brother’s death. “The last time I talked with him, I told him go. And then I called the cops. The cops didn’t come. They didn’t show up,” Hadi said. As KRQE has previously reported, surveillance cameras outside the Islamic Center in Albuquerque caught a man police identified as Syed slashing the tires on Hadi’s wife’s car in 2020. “This guy caused a problem all the time. All the time. Not one time, not two times,” Hadi added.
After Syed’s arrest, Albuquerque Police did say detectives were looking at him in Hadi’s brother’s case. A two-year-old search warrant just made public reveals federal investigators were too. In it, the FBI asked Google for the location history of Syed’s account because they suspected he was actually connected to six incidents within that year – five murders and a drive-by shooting.
The search warrant noted the feds were investigating whether Syed should be charged with a hate crime because five of the victims “are/were of Afghan and Pakistani national origin and/or belong to local Muslim communities.”
We know Aftab Hussein, Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, and Naeem Hussain were all Pakistani. The search warrant reveals five days before those murders, just blocks away from the Islamic Center, an Afghan man reported someone in a car shot at him multiple times before speeding away. He was not hit. The FBI pointed out the suspect vehicle description and how that shooting was carried out matched the MO in the other shootings.
Sharief’s brother is also Afghan. The document states investigators found the same type of bullet casing near his body that they found at the scenes of Aftab Hussein’s and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain’s murders.
As for the sixth victim, the search warrant describes her as a Chinese woman. But the FBI agent explained to the judge her case could be connected because she was killed around the same time – in July 2022, at the same location as Naeem Hussain, and similarly to the others.
But in response to the search warrant, Google said there was no location data for Syed’s account. So, it could not help the feds tie Syed to the crime scenes. “Be honest with you, if I find out about my brother’s murder, I want to take off from this country. I’m going to go,” Hadi said. He explained the America he fled to years ago is no longer safe. But, because investigators have not reached out in more than a year, he feels like his brother has been forgotten. Through tears he added, “If I put my head every day in the pillow, I’m crying. I am living and he’s in the grave.”
KRQE Investigates asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office about new charges. They would not comment. APD said Ahmadi’s case, the woman’s murder, and the drive-by shooting are still open and under investigation. They cannot say if Syed is considered a suspect.
