Airbnb’s million-dollar safety team hired to sweep crimes under the carpet

Australian woman was paid $9m over alleged rape in Manhattan after Airbnb ‘safety team’ was called in, report says.

Airbnb arranges payments to victims to safeguard public trust, it has emerged. Picture: AFP

Airbnb employs a “safety team” of 100 agents around the world who respond to crimes committed in properties listed on its website.

The rental company also ­arranges payments to victims in an effort to safeguard public trust, it has emerged.

In one case Airbnb paid $US7m ($9.1m) to an Australian woman who was allegedly raped in a Manhattan flat. The safety team arranged for flights and hotel accommodation, as well as investigating the incident, Bloomberg reported.

Team members, including former emergency service workers and military veterans, can pay for flights, accommodation, counselling and healthcare costs in ­response to the most serious incidents in a strategy known as “shooting the money cannon”, ­according to the news agency, which cited accounts from former team members.

Some were said to have dealt with victims who were hiding or fleeing from an assault, or to have hired clean-up crews to remove blood from carpets or patch bullet holes in walls.

Nick Shapiro, a former deputy chief of staff at the CIA and a ­National Security Council adviser in the Obama administration, who was Airbnb’s head of crisis management from December 2015 to September 2019, said he led the team’s response to the ­alleged rape. The incident, which occurred weeks after he took over as Airbnb’s global head of crisis management, “brought me back to feelings of confronting truly horrific matters at Langley (CIA headquarters) and in the situation room of the White House,” he told Bloomberg.

Airbnb's former head of crisis management, Nick Shapiro. Source: Supplied.

The victim, who was 29, was one of a group of friends said to have picked up the keys to the flat, as arranged, from a nearby shop. Returning to the flat alone early on New Year’s Day, she was allegedly attacked by a man hiding in the bathroom. Police were said to have caught a suspect that morning and found him with a knife, one of her earrings and a set of keys to the flat.

Junior Lee, 24, was arrested for sexual assault and other charges, according to court records. He has pleaded not guilty and is due back in court next month.

Airbnb flew the alleged victim’s mother to New York, arranged for them to fly back to Australia and paid the woman $US7m, in an exchange for an agreement not to talk about the settlement or “imply responsibility or liability”. A spokesman for the company said he could not comment on the case.

Airbnb was founded in 2008 by two design students and a computer scientist, offering a means for homeowners to rent rooms or the whole property. From the start there were concerns that crimes may be committed.

Early challenges to the model came in 2011. In San Francisco a host wrote a blog post about guests who wrecked her home and stole valuables including her grandmother’s jewellery.

In Barcelona, a man hosting two US tourists plied them with ­alcohol and then raped them. “The two victims found themselves unable to physically repel the desires of the accused,” a Spanish court said in 2014. He was sentenced to 11 years and nine months. Airbnb banned him as a host for life and paid the women an undisclosed sum.

Bloomberg reported that as Airbnb grew and its bookings swelled to tens of millions a year, it began training contractors to ­respond to complaints and an ­internal safety team that would take on serious cases. In a policy statement this month, Airbnb said that only 0.086 per cent of trips “included a safety issue reported by a host or guest”. It also said it had expanded an English-language helpline for urgent cases.

The Times