NYC NOW - NYC Taxi Scam Exposed: How Travelers Get Hustled By Illegal Cabbies

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

A tourist who landed at JFK says she was charged $800 for a ride from the airport to Times Square after she fell victim to a notorious New York City scam. WNYC’s Ramsey Khalifeh joins us to explain how a network of unlicensed drivers and dispatchers target exhausted travelers in a hustle that's been going on for decades. -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail]

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre. Taxi hustlers, drivers who swindled tourists out of illegally high fares at New York City airports, have been scamming for decades. But now, they're running schemes far more sophisticated than ever. On today's episode, we look into these taxi scams, why it's been going on for so long, and what the Port Authority police are doing to stop it. But first, here's what's happening in our region.

The Mumdani administration is relocating the intake center where homeless New Yorkers can ask for a bed to sleep for the night. Beginning May 1st, homeless men and families without minor children will no longer travel to Midtown to ask for a shelter bed. Instead, they'll be rerouted to two new Lower Manhattan locations. The overhaul of the city's intake services comes after Mayor Zoran Mamdani moved to shut down an aging shelter along the city. 30th Street, citing its disrepair. But the coalition for the homeless says the city is moving too fast. They say the new men's intake center on 3rd Street isn't accessible to people with mobility issues. The elevator isn't ADA accessible and there's no ramp to get indoors. City officials didn't answer questions on accessibility. Massive crowds are expected in New York City for the World

Cup, which means more people will be on the lookout for restrooms. City Council Majority Leader Sean Abraeu introduced legislation that would require the city to make a plan to expand public bathroom access for the World Cup. This is about dignity, cleanliness, and public health as much as convenience. No one should have to scramble for her bathroom or cut their day short because they can't find one in a global city like New York. The proposed legislation calls for installing temporary restrooms in high traffic areas and increasing the frequency of bathroom maintenance. It also calls for more signage to direct the public toward restrooms. If passed, the city would need to have a bathroom plan ready by June 1st. That's just about a week before the World Cup starts.

Air Canada is suspending service to JFK International Airport for several months, as jet fuel shortages cause prices to rise. The airline will halt flights from Toronto and Montreal to JFK from June 1st to October 25th. Air Canada's service to LaGuardia and Newark Airport will continue with 34, daily flights from six Canadian cities. The airline says it's reaching out to customers whose flights will be affected by the change to provide them with backup travel plans. Fuel shortages and rising costs are directly related to the war in Iran. Let's keep it here at JFK International Airport. The major global hub and other area airports are fighting to combat illegal taxi scams.

We'll get into that after a quick break. Janae, I want to tell you about a woman from Kenya named Tabitha Abed. Okay. She's a tourist visiting New York City with her husband. This was back in January. And she just got off a 14-hour trip. We like visiting countries. So we've been to different countries so far.

It's our first time in the U.S. We have been longing to be in this country for the longest period. And we were so happy to get the visa to come here. So they clear customs, they grab their bags, and a man walks up to them at the international rivals at Terminal 1. He's really friendly, and she actually sent me a video of their interaction. Why don't you check it out? Oh, brother. Wow, how you doing this?

You're so kidding. He has to want something here. Yeah, it sounds like he's trying to butter her up. He greeted us. He told me you look so beautiful. I was like, wow, these are the things. I want to hear. He said, welcome to the New York. He was so happy.

And it worked. He offers to get them a cab. He leads them to another driver. The man asks them where they're going. They say Times Square, the Intercontinental. So they get in the car. And to make a long story short, after the ride, this driver locks Tabitha and her husband in his car

and hits them with a crazy price. So he said, your bill is $598. Plus passing through the bridge, we charge $180. We were like, what? So it came to a total of $800. So they actually pay it. They happened to have cash on hand when they converted some currency at the airport. But that charge wiped them out of their entire budget for the trip.

We were so frustrated. At a point I told my husband, why don't we just cancel everything? Tabitha assumed that the guy who greeted her maybe worked for the airport because of just how friendly he was, because he also had a walkie-talkie. We trusted him. He had a walkie-talkie. So we trusted he's a staff. So he's a good man.

He misled us. But he wasn't staff, right? No, he was actually a player in a very sophisticated taxi scam that has existed well before you and I were born. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. When Tabitha Abed landed in New York, she thought she was getting help finding a cab. Instead, she walked straight into a scam designed to take advantage of people

like her, first-time visitors coming off of long flights trying to get where they're going. And despite years of enforcement, people are still being scammed. Port Authority police issued more than 2400 summonses for illegal solicitation at JFK in the first 11 months of last year. WNYC's Ramsey-K takes us inside that world. Who these hustlers are. how the operation has evolved. And he owned in days, it was easy-peasy pickings. It wasn't overcharging people. It was just a way of hustling, being a hustler.

And why one of the busiest airports in the world hasn't been able to stop it. Ramsey, tell me about this scam. What is it and how did this happen to Tabitha? Well, Janay, it's essentially a scam where unlicensed cab drivers target unsuspecting victims at JFK. like Tabitha, and they upcharge them for the cost of a cab ride to the destination, oftentimes hundreds and hundreds of dollars, whether that's to the city, to another airport, or somewhere else in the boroughs.

Yeah, so tourists. Essentially. And it's been happening for decades. I want to tell you about this guy, he's been running these kind of scams for almost 50 years. He wanted to show me around Manhattan, so one day he picked me up in his car near the WNYC station, and his name is James. An Uzo.

But guys like him always used to go by nicknames back in the day. Jimmy Rocco. Cool name. Where's that accent coming from? Old school Brooklyn kind of guy. I got it.

So what did y'all discuss? So I wanted to learn about this taxi scam and really how people fall for it. So I told him about Tabitha's story, the $800 cab ride, the locked doors, the dispatcher with the Waki-Taki. Rocco was not surprised at all. So what took

place with the $800 driver is that he drove them what his MO is. I don't know. But to get $800 out of people, now I read your article, that's intimidation. So an $800 overcharge or robbery has to be an intimidation factor. Sounds like Jimmy Rocco knows a thing or two about this. Exactly. He's been a player in the scam for a long time, but he's recently retired, and he's seen how the scam has kind of changed to what it is today. He told me he first started driving a legal yellow cab back in 1974. I would drive up and down the streets in New York City, like any other normal cab driver, working 10-hour shifts, and basically making $18 on tips, $19 on those. Because back in those days, a cab ride from New York City to JFK was like a $13 ride. Rocco told me that he'd eventually lose his TLC license and started hustling at the airports in his own car.

All right, wait, I'm nosey Ramsey. Why did he lose his license? Listen, he didn't tell me, and I didn't want to push him on that one. Okay. In the TLC, they couldn't wait the area to me. So we drove around Manhattan's bus bus bus terminal, Grand Central, Penn Station, Penn Station. He wanted to show me that this wasn't just a JFK problem. It's all the city's airports, all the biggest transit hubs. But I should say back in his day, his bread and butter was JFK airport. I'm going to guess that it's probably because of how hectic JFK can be at times.

For sure. If you've been there recently, it's chaotic and a confusing place, even for New Yorkers. Terminal 1, that's where Tabith arrived. It's actually quite cramped. There are signs pointing to the air train. There's a yellow cab stand, but none of it is easy to find if you've never been there before. So that confusion is exactly what Rocco looked to exploit. I'd walk in the Kennedy Airport like I owned it because I was there to do one thing and one thing

and only capture my lolly and get the f*** out. Lolly, like a lollipop? Yeah, like a lollipop, like a sucker. How would you characterize somebody as a lulley? How would you describe them? Somebody who's never been here before. Somebody who's been on an airplane for nine, ten hours. They're exhausted.

They're in a city of dreams. And you can basically tell them anything you like. And they're not going to disagree with you. So he's really praying on these folks, these lollies. That's how he did it. Rocco and his crew would spot them together. They'd point them out, hey, there you go. And they'd call out the targets in real time.

But there's a good lolly. Go get that. You know what I'm saying? That's what we'd say to each other. As a group of guys standing together when I was standing with my crew, oh, there's a lorry rock. Go get that. Because we all called each other a rock. And once he had them in the car.

Well, he had a whole system for it. In those days, have what was called the Shorty line. And that was for taxi drivers to sit and wait for parents. passengers were only going within the airport to catch another flight, or perhaps to maybe a hotel on the outskirts of the airport. If I took somebody from Pan American Airlines to the other side of the airport because they were transferring to another airline, and it's a $4 shorty ride, I charge them $1,000.

and they would pay you. I'd get away with that. People didn't know. There were lollies. Now, there was a time when you couldn't get out of my car. If I put you in this car, you would not be able to get out of this car until I wanted you to get out of this car.

You would not be able to open your window until I opened that window because I didn't want you being able to get the attention of any bystanders, because I've had people. Help. Help. Or policemen. Okay? This is getting a little scary. It's intense. And we're talking about the 80s and 90s in New York City, kind of rougher than it is today.

Yeah, where I can't share my location with anyone. Exactly. So Rocco told me how he'd always point to apartments and nice neighborhoods, make them guess how much the rent was, how expensive. the city is so he could justify the price he was about to charge them. Give them waters, give their kids candy, point to shops and restaurants, make recommendations. You know, really show himself to be a nice guy who's just showing them around New York City.

I want people to feel that at the end of the ride, that even though they know they're overcharged, that they feel that the ride was worth it. Even though what he was ultimately doing was taking a lot of money out of them. Right, but listen, He agreed to speak with me because he stopped doing this. He has regrets for the people he's heard, all the people he's scammed.

And he believes that this level of scamming that we're seeing today at JFK Airport is because of just how the industry has been decimated, specifically the yellow cap industry. When apps like Uber and Lyft came in, it completely decimated a lot of people's incomes who were doing this legally. All hustlers are not thieves. Kennedy Airport has now in the last several years, I'm just a reflection of the city of this country. People are desperate.

So it's always been bad. Yes. Enforcement efforts date back to at least the 1980s. But since the pandemic, it has really exploded. I interviewed airport workers, legal cab drivers, and even some other hustlers themselves. Overall, they estimate that there are more than 500 of these people operating across all of JFK's terminals. So for Rocco, who's, you know, been in this game for 50 years, has he noticed anything changing? So when Rocco actually coincidentally went back to Terminal 1, he recently said he saw the same thing that we've been talking about.

The one major difference is that he says there are now illegal dispatchers and illegal taxi drivers who coordinate with each other. Those are the walkie-talkie guys. They spot somebody who might be a lolly in the old-school way as we described it. Yeah. coordinates with people, hey, I got a job for you. They get a cut of it and both people come home with a lot of money. And before, was it just the drivers themselves? Pretty much, guys like Rocco who would just wait around outside. You still do see some individual drivers asking for rides, but now this organization, this coordination is a lot

stronger. Yeah, that's what happened to Tabitha. Seems so, you know, she got charged almost $800. The man approached her, like we said, with a walkie-talkie. He wasn't a driver. He was the dispatcher. You also spoke to someone who sees this thing happen every single day from inside the airport. Can you tell me about that? That's right. I met a man named Michael Carey, and he's one of those customer service representatives at Terminal 1 at JFK. Michael's worked at JFK for 19 years.

He wears their red jackets. You might see him as you walk out the door. Yeah. It needs to be stopped. This is bad. This terminal here is bad. I'm telling you a lot of robbing going on over here. Oh, so he's seen a lot.

He is seen a lot, and he is constantly watching these hustlers. One thing he told me is the second he gets into the terminal, they kind of like run away because they know he might get them in trouble. So how do you know this? Because you're seeing it yourself or somebody tells you? I'm known. I'm seeing. I'm here. I'm the one that's stopping them from taking people. You see these guys behind me that stand up with you all?

These are illegal drivers. These are the ones that soliciting the passage. But when I'm here, the candidate in front of me, because I oppose to that. So they will leave me and go outside. And when the passenger come outside, they try again. And they fall for it. One thing Kerry said throughout me speaking with him

is he questioned why these hustlers keep coming back even after, let's say, being arrested or getting a ticket. If the police can't do nothing about it. They arrest them, but they come back same way. We've heard from someone who ran this game for nearly 50 years. And we've seen how organized it's become. Now we wanted to find out who's supposed to. to stop it. So Ramsey, you and I decided to go to JFK Airport to meet the people whose job it is

to actually stop these taxi scams. And that's the Port Authority Police Department. They oversee the entire security situation at JFK. And while we were there, we met Officer Scott Pomerantz, and he's the commanding officer of the Port Authority Police for JFK Airport. Officer Pomerantz took us to the airport's new Operation Center. The Operation Center runs 24-7. Plain Clothes and uniform officers patrol the terminals, while a supervisor monitors live camera feeds and directs them in real time. So I will have a supervisor back here in this room, monitor the cameras, and they're able to direct the offices to specific locations based on what they're seeing.

So this way the offices could respond there, see it, take action, and then that action could be a summons. When someone gets stopped, their name gets run through criminal databases. And if there's a warrant, what started at, a solicitation ticket can turn into something bigger. We would elevate the crime and they would be removed from that area, brought back to our police building for investigation. It's like a cat and mouse game sometimes.

Then after we saw this operation center, Officer Pomerant took us to Terminal 8 arrivals. And when we got there, there were already plain-closed officers patrolling the area. And this is all happening in the middle of the day. Walking over now to a car stop. A car stop, meaning one of your officers has stopped, somebody? Yes. So the driver of that vehicle was actually soliciting through the window of his

vehicle as people were passing by. He tried to enter into an agreement with a female passenger. When my offices stopped him, he was issued a summons for 1220B, which is a VTL summons. Got to be honest. Didn't know what a 1220B was until you told me, Ramsey, can you share with our listeners? So a VTL summons is a vehicle and traffic loss summons, just like getting a speeding ticket. And a 1220B is for soliciting, asking for illegal rides at the airports. People are brazen a lot of these individuals. This is their main source of employment. And that's why we have our patrols out from early morning to throughout the day at all the different locations. And it's random. So this way people don't know where we're going to be.

when we're going to be, and this way we're most effective. So Port Authority officers at patrols set up through the terminals. Is it working? Well, it depends on what you consider working. You'd mentioned before that they've issued more than 2,400 summonses through January, November of last year. That's up from 1,400 the year before that, so it's almost doubled. But a summons is the same level of penalty as running a red light, parking ticket.

We had one individual last year that we issued almost 100 summons as two. And that was a combination of, you know, parking summonses and, you know, moving, you know, B summonses, as well as C summonses based on different violations that occur. And, you know, just to show you that that person, of course, of doing business, is still here operating. It sounds like from your perspective running the police department here at JFK, all you can do is give tickets. If somebody gets 100 tickets, there's nothing else you can do? Well, you know, we're doing our portion of the work here. at the airport, which is the enforcement portion, and now it's up to the courts to do their portion

of the work. So once the courts get a ticket, it's up to a judge to decide what the penalties are, whether it's a fee or, in some cases, the rare jail time. But the law has actually changed, and these 1220B summonses we've been talking about are just the main way that people get in trouble for doing this thing. A number of years ago, mostly due to the reform in 2020, it's now a... a motor vehicle violation. So now you basically get a summons as if you were driving and went to a red light or, you know,

something similar to that. Guess what, Ramsey, I got to say. If I was charging someone $800 for a car ride from JFK to Midtown, I'd happily pay my ticket. It's the price to pay. It's a price of business. So we'd watch someone get a ticket for doing this in broad daylight. Now, if I'm a traveler coming through JFK, Okay, how do I protect myself?

The first and most important rule, which we've been saying a lot now, if anybody approaches you asking you if you need a ride, no matter where you are in New York City, no matter if they're a legal driver or they don't have the right place, it is illegal. It doesn't matter who they are, how convincing they sound, no licensed driver in New York City can even solicit fares directly. Yellow cabs have that four-digit medallion number on the roofs,

on the sides of the car, and the backseat tags and on the hood. They also have that medallion that's bolted to the hood so you can see it as a sign of an official driver. And they have to run the meter every time when there's a trip. And if the meter isn't running, that's your first red flag. What you can do is get out the car, if they let you, and call 311 and tell them about what's going on.

But let's say you want to ride an Uber or Lyft, which is legal. Those plates need to match the plates in the app. Right. They start with a T and end with a C, for Taxi and Limousine Commission, but they also have a small T and LC symbol at the bottom center of their license plates. And it's only legal to be picked up via the apps.

Another thing that the TLC told us, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, when we asked what to look out for, is that some hustlers or even yellow cap drivers are using square, that little tap-to-pay brick to do payments. They're using that for you to pay instead of a meter. Those transactions are off the record.

they're not official. You need to pay through the official reader if they have a meter. And remember, like we said, hustlers don't just work at airports. They can be at these big train stations, concert venues where there's a lot of people trying to get home, big tourist attractions,

and we have a lot of those in New York City, like Broadway shows, and also hotels. You know, Ramsey, I'm thinking of big picture here in what's being done at the higher level to stop this. So the Port Authority actually reads, recently approved $100 million in this initiative called Operation Legal Ride. So it's going to expand the use of those license plate readers that we saw, that operation center that we spent time in, including using artificial intelligence to aid surveillance

and look at data. It's not really clear what that is yet. I don't think we know what it is yet. And at the same time, there's also a new director of the Port Authority. Her name is Catherine Garcia. She was just sworn in to officially lead the agency in February. And one of her first priorities, what she said, was cracking down on these hustlers. I think we need to look at it really much more incredibly holistically. If there are not arrest being made, are they actually identifying something that is an arrestable offense that they will not just get a desk appearance ticket for? Are you going to actually have meaningful consequences from it?

So that was at a board meeting in February when she officially became the executive. director. And she was directly responding to our reporting that showed all this and that this problem is still happening. What that means is the Port Authority will start reviewing statutes, maybe redeploying more undercover cops and uniform forces, implementing this new technology that we're still trying to find out about. And she would also consider pushing state legislators to create a new law that creates tougher penalties if the crackdown maybe doesn't work. So $100 million, a new boss at the Port Authority, And a brand new operations center.

And hustlers are out of there? Is that how it works? Well, like Officer Palmeran said, they're doing their part, enforcing it, with what the law is. And it's up to the courts now to enforce it, to give penalties, and maybe up to the state legislator to change the way this whole system works. But meanwhile, folks like Tabitha are still out there losing money. They are, but a good story about Tabitha is after her and her husband were scanned, they decided to go back to JFK airport the next day and look for somebody who could help.

That's where they found Michael Carey, that employee we had heard from before, who works as a customer service representative. And what he did is because he knows everybody at that airport, he found the hustlers who scammed them less than 15 minutes later. He emerges with the cash in hand and gives it back to them. So it took Mike less than 15 minutes.

It was so helpful and it was so pissed. Pist of, and within 10 minutes the money was brought. People here are so good. The country is so lovely. But only these scammers if they can be withdrawn from that airport. Wow, Michael's a real hero in this one. And the irony of this is he's not law enforcement. He's a customer service worker.

The question is, what happens, for example, when he retires? So what do you think the city can do? They need to be more strict? How do they enforce it? They got to be more. They got to lack. up these guys. Michael is just one guy in one terminal who's just trying to do his best.

It means that for the time being, until we can figure this out, there's going to be more people getting at the short end of the stick. Man, that sucks. But I guess that's why they say, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Yeah, I guess if you were to avoid an illegal taxi at JFK Airport, maybe you're one step closer to becoming a real New Yorker. Maybe that's it. That's WMY and C's Ramsey Caliphate.

Thanks a lot, Ramsey. Thanks, Janay. Thanks for listening. to NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next time.