Angry cabbies are offering a cash reward for info about a “tap and snatch” crew that’s ripped off 22 drivers in 22 precincts over the last eight weeks in a crime spree the union spokesman called “unheard of.”
Fernando Mateo of New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers said the NYPD should have told cabbies about the spree — which often relies on crooks seizing the driver’s phone and wiring cash through apps like Zelle or Venmo.
Other times, they’ll ask to see the driver’s phone so they can type an address or change their destination — and then they run, according to the NYPD.
“Cell phones today are the equivalent of cash, and criminals out there know this,” Mateo said. “So they’re no longer putting a gun to your head and saying, ‘Give me your cash’. Instead, they’re saying, ‘Give me your phone.’
“Then they either Zelle, Venmo or do whatever they have to do to take all the cash you have,” he said. “It’s no longer $100 you may have in your pocket, now it’s thousands of dollars.”
One unfortunate victim lost $7,000 to the crew, whose members either hail a cab or just jump in the backseat when the driver slows down, he said.
“Most of them are either armed with a knife, or they pretend to be armed,” Mateo said. “If the driver is facing forward and if somebody puts something here to his neck, he doesn’t know if it’s a toothpick or a knife.”
Mateo also pilloried the NYPD for not telling cabbies about the crimes earlier.
“This is a pattern we should have been advised about in early January, after the third or fourth robbery of cell phones,” he said.
“But if the NYPD doesn’t tell us anything, there’s no way for us to communicate to our 30,000 drivers that are out there hustling every day and being robbed every day,” he continued. “We demand … the NYPD lets us know when patterns arise so that we can stop [them] from going forward.”
The department is investigating the crimes, he said. And the union is offering $2,000 to anyone who can tell officials who’s behind the crimes.
“They’re very smart … because they’ve hit 22 times in 22 different precincts,” Mateo said. “They don’t do it in the same neighborhood.”
“There are 200,000 taxi drivers in New York City so they have 200,000 possible targets that they can target at any given moment.”
Mateo also slammed bail reform, and said authorities should get “harder, stronger, more demanding on crimes and protect the victims that are suffering.”
“It doesn’t matter if he’s black, Chinese, Spanish, white, whatever,” he said. “If you commit a crime, you should get locked up.”
