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The taxi hustlers who bilk unsuspecting tourists out of illegally high fares at New York City airports are now running schemes far more sophisticated — and brazen — than ever, says a swindler who drove an illegal cab for a half-century before hanging it up last year.
Jan “Rocco” Uzzo is one in a long line of drivers who have made a living over the years by skirting city regulations that require any taxi or for-hire vehicle trip to be operated by a car licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. From the 1970s until he retired last summer, Uzzo would coax tourists into his car at major travel hubs across the city, and charge them a rate higher than what’s legally allowed.
He said he used to work mostly alone. But in recent years, Uzzo said he’s noticed a growing trend of scammers roaming airport terminals with walkie talkies, acting as illegal dispatchers who connect taxi hustlers with their marks and take a cut of the fare.
“Illegal dispatchers are out there hunting for rides and they have their drivers lined up,” said Uzzo. “We never had that, that never existed.”
Gothamist recently found that the number of hustlers at the airports has boomed since the COVID-19 pandemic. We reported on a Kenyan couple who were charged $800 for a ride from JFK to Times Square, more than 10 times the legal rate. Tabitha Abed, who took the ride with her husband, said she was approached by one of the illegal dispatchers at the airport.
“He told me, ‘You look so beautiful’ and I was like ‘Wow, these are things I want to hear,’” she recalled. “He said, ‘Welcome to New York.’ We were so happy to be received like that.”
A few minutes later, the man led them to another driver who gave them a ride into the city, where they were overcharged. The couple later got their money back after an airport worker helped them track down their driver.
Uzzo said he got into the unlicensed taxi game in 1974 when he was driving a yellow cab. He said a friend introduced him to the “shorty line” at JFK Airport, where travelers would hail rides between the terminals for several bucks, years before the AirTrain opened. He had to ditch the shorty line after he lost his TLC license, and started scouring the airports in his own car looking for people to take into the city.
He and his friends would call their targets “lollys,” like a lollipop, because he said they were suckers who didn’t know their way around New York. Uzzo said they’re the people who are “exhausted” and you could “tell them anything you like and they’re not going to disagree with you.” He said he’d charge some people hundreds of dollars.
“ I'd walk into Kennedy Airport like I owned it, wouldn't talk to any other drivers, even guys that I personally knew,” he said. “'Cause I was there to do one thing and one thing only: Capture my lolly and get the f— out.”
Uzzo acknowledged he was scamming tourists, but nowhere near the level that’s happening today.
“ All hustlers are not thieves,” Uzzo said. “Kennedy Airport has now, in the last several years, become just a reflection of the city of this country. People are desperate.”
NYC transportation news this week
Gas prices. They’re steep — over $4 — but not steep enough to deter drivers from clogging the roads for spring break. Meanwhile, security lines at local airports are easing up after some TSA workers began receiving backpay amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, but callout rates still remain well above-average. So give yourself extra time if you plan on getting out of town this weekend.
The new “Boulevard of Death?” Linden Boulevard, a 6-mile, eight-lane thoroughfare running from Flatbush to Ozone Park, was the site of two hit-and-run deaths last month, prompting the local city councilmember to call for safety redesigns.
Free fares for the needy. Under the City Council’s latest budget proposal, nearly 1 million low-income New Yorkers who currently qualify for half-priced bus and subway fares wouldn’t have to pay at all.
Student OMNY cards. Kids are complaining that their city-issued OMNY cards are flimsy and don’t function consistently, a problem that in turn encourages fare evasion.
Curious Commuter
Question from Louis in Manhattan
Are the "fare required" signs on MTA buses a result of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's campaign proposal to make buses free?
Answer
No. Those digital messages on the city's fleet of buses date back to 2020, when state officials suspended fare collection for six months in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The MTA opted to make the fare free to protect bus drivers from getting sick by requiring passengers to board through the rear door. After that six-month period, the transit agency brought fares back to the buses and began displaying the “fare required” messages, which officials said was necessary because many people didn’t realize they had to keep paying.
Louis’ question comes as New York Post reporter Craig McCarthy posed a similar query on social media, wondering if the digital signs on the buses were prompted by the mayor’s campaign pledge to make all the city’s buses free. But in reality, New Yorkers have been seeing those messages for nearly six years.
