New York City cab drivers were like, “Hey, hold up!” on Thursday, raising concerns about a string of robberies supposedly carried out by a gang of youngsters from the beginning of 2025. Fernando Mateo, from the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, spilled the tea that a sketchy crew of about three peeps, aged between 17 and 19 and described as transgender, have been pulling a fast one on cab drivers since January. The deal is always the same: they call for a ride from one of the outer boroughs to Manhattan, and when the driver shows up, they hit ’em with pepper spray and dip with the driver’s cash and stuff.
The total number of targeted muggings has now hit 19, with a spike happening between April 25 and May 4. One incident left a 73-year-old driver hurt after getting pepper-sprayed. Mateo was not having it and called out the NYPD for not keeping drivers in the loop. He also warned cabbies about the robbery routine. “It’s a breakdown in communication between the NYPD and our organization. If we know that these things are happening, we put out an alert, we let drivers in the vicinity know what’s going on. We put out pamphlets. We make our drivers aware, so that they can react in a certain way if this group of teenagers goes in their vehicle,” Mateo said. “It’s like pulling teeth trying to get information.”
In a recent incident, 32-year-old driver Juan Grullon from High Class car service picked up a bunch of youngsters in the Bronx headed to 77th Street and Madison Avenue. When he stopped to drop them off, one of the suspects sprayed Grullon’s face with pepper spray, then went through his pockets and car searching for valuables. Grullon had a gnarly reaction to the chemical, causing blisters on his lips. While Grullon was talking with detectives, he got a notification that the suspects were using his credit cards. The heads up helped cops nab a few of them. Grullon shared, “I’m scared now to even talk about it. At the time, you don’t know if they have a knife or something, you don’t because your eyes are closed, so you don’t know what’s happening around you. You just now feel somebody touching you and reaching into your pocket. It was very difficult to breathe. My eyes were burning, everything was burning.”
Even after the arrests, the drivers found out that the suspects didn’t face real consequences for their actions. One of the suspects, Lamonte Williams, had already been busted for a few of these attacks but still got let off the hook, leaving Mateo to go off on New York judges. “We spoke to [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg’s office yesterday. We had a very detailed, deep dive into the situation, and we realized that DA Bragg had asked for $300,000 bail on one of the minors by the name of Williams. The judge paid no attention to the District Attorney and released the kid,” Mateo fumed. “The kid went right back to doing the same thing, this time he got caught in Queens.”
