Two Queens men are accused of working with Russian nationals to help cab drivers cut the dispatch line, for a fee.
(Bloomberg) — With a flat fee of $70 for trips into Manhattan and a guaranteed stream of passengers, a ride to and from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport is one of the more lucrative journeys for the city’s cab drivers.
But federal prosecutors say two 48-year-old Queens men found another way to profit from the crowd of taxis waiting long hours for passengers at the airport, conspiring with Russians to hack the dispatch system and allow drivers to cut ahead in line for a $10 payment.
The two men, Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman, were arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions for hacking into the system from November 2019 to November 2020.
Prosecutors said the pair worked with Russian nationals to access the system through various methods, including bribing someone to insert a flash drive into computers that allowed them to enter the system via Wifi and stealing tablets connected to the dispatch operation.
They then used their access to move certain taxis to the front of the line for $10 each, allowing drivers to bypass a holding lot that frequently required hours-long waits before they were dispatched to a terminal, and waived the fee for drivers who recruited others, according to prosecutors.
The members of the scheme allegedly discussed the plan in text messages and spread the word to drivers via large group chats, enabling as many as 1,000 expedited trips a day on certain days.
“I know that the Pentagon is being hacked,” Abayev allegedly told one of the Russian hackers in November 2019. “So why can’t we hack the taxi industry?”
Both men face as much as 10 years in prison if convicted. They are scheduled to appear before a magistrate judge in Manhattan later Tuesday.
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