By Desire Emmanuel
Two Nigerians living in the United Kingdom, Emmanuel Popoola and Tayvon Etefia, have been convicted of murdering 18-year-old Keanu Harker, who was shot dead in Enfield following a dispute on social media.
Officers arrested one of them two minutes before his train was due to leave for France, before building the case against the killers with the help of digital forensics teams.
It resulted in the two men getting convicted on Monday, July 6, of the murder of Keanu Harker following a six-week trial at the Old Bailey. They will be sentenced on Thursday and Friday, July 9 and 10.
According to the British Metropolitan Police in a statement on its website on Tuesday, July 7, police were called at around 8:45 p.m. on June 26, 2025, to reports of a shooting in Great Cambridge Road, Enfield.
Keanu Harker, from Enfield, had suffered gunshot wounds to his head and chest. He was taken to hospital but despite the efforts of medical staff, he was pronounced dead later that evening.
An investigation was launched by homicide detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command.
Early investigations established that Keanu was shot while cycling his bicycle. He had been tailed by the two men on a Sur-ron e-bike.
Tayvon Etefia, then 17, was behind the controls of the e-bike. His passenger, Emmanuel Popoola, also then aged 17, was the gunman.
After shooting Keanu, the pair sped off towards Enfield Town Park, where they dumped the e-bike, discarded clothing and Etefia got rid of a machete in a neighbouring garden.
Eyewitnesses saw them walking away from the park, noting that both were wearing balaclavas despite it having been a hot, June day.
A woman saw that one of the men – who police later established from CCTV enquiries was Etefia – had stripped to shorts and t-shirt, and had a gun-shaped object in his pocket.
In the days after the murder, officers reviewed hundreds of hours of CCTV footage from the area and were able to identify Etefia and Popoola as the men on the e-bike.
Footage showed both men speaking with friends at a sports court in Enfield Town Park minutes before the murder. Popoola showed off an item inside a plastic bag he was holding, which detectives believed concealed the gun that killed Keanu.
Digital forensics experts were able to access mobile phones belonging to the victim and Popoola. They revealed a series of voice messages between the youths, shared on a Snapchat ‘group chat’ for members of rival street gangs in the Enfield area.
The group chat messages, which had been saved on the devices’ hard drives, showed how Popoola was angered by comments implying that he did not have the money to buy data for his mobile phone.
Prosecutors played the messages at the killers’ trial this month, together with drill rap videos that showed gang members bragging about Keanu’s murder.
On June 28, 2025, two days after the killing, Popoola’s girlfriend, Anais King, paid £269 for a one-way train ticket to take the killer from London St Pancras to Paris. He left the UK for Paris on the 19:00hrs service on June 28.
Etefia booked himself a train ticket to Paris on June 29. His train was due to leave around 90 minutes later at 20:31hrs.
Detectives were tracking Etefia’s spending and received information about the booking. He went through security at London St Pancras station at 20:05hrs and boarded the train five minutes later.
But he never made it to Paris. The investigation team alerted British Transport Police and officers boarded the train and arrested him at 20:29hrs – two minutes before the service was due to depart.
While Popoola remained in the French capital, police focused their attention on the suspect’s girlfriend.
They made plans to meet each other in Paris, with Popoola providing her with a list of items he wanted her to bring, including nail clippers, a comb and deodorant.
On July 31, 2025, King booked a Eurostar ticket for August3. Detectives received information about the booking and devised a plan to get the girlfriend to lead them to Popoola.
Met officers worked alongside French police, who monitored King on her arrival at Gare du Nord on August 3, 2025. She took a taxi to Popoola’s apartment, where he was arrested by the Paris gendarmes. He was extradited from France to London on August 14.
