Cabbie caught after taking tourist for ride
In what has already been a bad year for Athenian taxi drivers’ public relations, events took a turn for the worse on Saturday when a cabbie was arrested for allegedly charging a German tourist almost 1,000 euros for a short ride. The unnamed driver was taken into custody after asking for 978.88 euros from the visitor for taking him from Syntagma Square to the bus station on Liosion Street, which is a distance of some 5 kilometers. No further details were made public but it is the latest piece of bad publicity for cab drivers this year. Taxi fares increased by more than double the rate of inflation in January. A 45-year-old cabbie was arrested in June for driving off with the belongings of Liverpool fans in Athens for the Champions League final. The Piraeus Prefecture revealed in September that it had fined 155 drivers almost 80,000 euros for a range of offenses.
