His younger brother Christophe Coulibaly, 65, told The City Reporter he had not seen Richard since he left Ivory Coast for the United States in 1996, but the two kept in touch by phone and last spoke a week or two before he died. Yet, Christophe said he was unaware his brother was a cabbie until others informed him after his death.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me he was doing other things,\u201d the 65-year-old said in French in a phone interview this week.<\/p>\n
He added that he was surprised to learn of his brother\u2019s demise through the outreach from New York because he hadn\u2019t seemed sick. The NYPD identified Richard as 68 years old, while his brother said he was 73.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it too hot, did that have an effect on him?\u201d Christophe said. \u201cI really don\u2019t know everything that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
The father of four\u2019s remains are set to be shipped in the coming days to the city of Abidjan, according to the Taxi Workers Alliance. As his loved ones await more details about when his body will arrive, Christophe said he is grateful to those who have pushed to return his brother to the family\u2019s home village for burial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have bled themselves dry, they have made an effort,\u201d he said. \u201cMay God bless them and may their souls sanctify us for everything they have done.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Yeoman\u2019s Effort to Find His Family<\/p>\n
The search to locate Coulibaly\u2019s relatives began taking shape in the hours after he was discovered in his cab at Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 116th Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started to get phone calls from drivers, like one who called and said, \u2018I see a taxi pulled over, a lot of police there, an ambulance, looks like a driver died in his taxi,\u2019\u201d recalled Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the Taxi Workers Alliance. \u201cSo I went out there with another of our members.\u201d<\/p>\n
While they were initially unable to learn the man\u2019s identity or get access to his phone from police because they weren\u2019t next of kin, Desai said they confirmed Coulibaly\u2019s name through a Queens taxi-medallion management company he worked with.<\/p>\n
Connecting with his family in West Africa, however, presented a complex challenge that played out over several days. The cabbie\u2019s last name provided a clue as to the southeastern region of Ivory Coast where some of his relatives live, but offered little else in the way of information.<\/p>\n
The search was also hindered by Coulibaly\u2019s largely solitary lifestyle, according to those involved in the endeavor.<\/p>\n
Aboubacar Diakit\u00e9, a Harlem small business owner whom Coulibaly had befriended over the years, acknowledged the cabbie led a \u201cdifficult\u201d life centered around his job and would \u201cstart to cry\u201d when he talked about his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just go home, sleep, come back to work,\u201d said Diakit\u00e9, who came to know Coulibaly after doing his taxes. \u201cHe was working, working, working, working, every day working.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was isolated, his life was closed,\u201d said Abdul Traore, 52, a fellow taxi driver who did not know Coulibaly but served as a contact to the Ivorian community and consulate.<\/p>\n
Still, his last name was enough to start a search through Facebook and WhatsApp groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wrote a big note saying, \u2018OK, we have a brother who just passed away in his yellow cab, and we wanted to know if anybody knows about his family or their whereabouts, they can contact me,\u2019\u201d said Saibou Sidib\u00e9, a one-time Uber driver from Ivory Coast. \u201cI gave my phone number.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within days, he said, he received a call from a woman who turned out to be Coulibaly\u2019s niece. Desai said the woman\u2019s boyfriend had spotted a Facebook post<\/a> about the driver\u2019s death and flagged the last name for her.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said, \u2018This picture looks like my uncle, so I want to confirm with you if this is him,\u2019\u201d Sidib\u00e9 said. \u201cI told her, \u2018OK, I don\u2019t have enough information, but I have his phone number. So if it\u2019s your uncle, maybe you might know his phone number if he used to call you back home.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sidib\u00e9 said he heard back from her soon after the call ended, confirming the family connection. Then, he connected with Christophe Coulibaly to begin charting Richard\u2019s long trip home.<\/p>\n \u2018This Is a Situation No One Will Forget\u2019<\/p>\n An estimated 5,700 Ivorians live in the city, according to city Planning Department data<\/a>. Among the 180,000 drivers licensed by the city\u2019s Taxi & Limousine Commission, 1,179 \u2014 or just over a half-percent \u2014 identify their native country as Ivory Coast, TLC numbers<\/a> show.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s such a small community here, it truly was a needle in a haystack,\u201d Desai said. \u201cWe are so grateful that there was a miracle that we were able to reach the family.\u201d<\/p>\n Sidib\u00e9 praised the Taxi Workers Alliance\u2019s follow-through on a goal that seemed unlikely in the immediate wake of Richard Coulibaly\u2019s death.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a situation no one will forget,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you pass away, we know how hard it is for people here, especially immigrants who know nobody. It\u2019s luck, because some people pass away and the body\u2019s there at the hospital, but nobody claims it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the sad part of the story in the United States. Sometimes you\u2019re by yourself and you\u2019re just here to work and take care of your family,\u201d Sidib\u00e9 added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Christophe Coulibaly said his family will set a date for his brother\u2019s burial once his remains return home.<\/p>\n After that, Christophe said he will write a letter to \u201cinfinitely\u201d express the family\u2019s appreciation for everyone who helped Richard come back to Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you to all the communities, all the religious communities, all the professional communities,\u201d the younger brother said. \u201cThank you to the population, everyone who made an effort to gather the money to transfer his body to Abidjan.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After driving a New York City taxi for nearly 20 years, the last trip Richard Coulibaly will take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64,5260],"class_list":["post-332902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-taxis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cab](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/082526_saibou_sidibe-2.jpg\")
One-time Uber driver Saibou Sidib\u00e9 helped locate relatives in Ivory Coast of cabbie Richard Coulibaly, who passed away in early July, Aug. 25, 2026. Credit: Alex Krales\/The City Reporter<\/p>\n