A TAXI driver is now on the run after allegedly making off with a customer’s valuables in the wee hours of the morning on Monday, and later in the day eluding lawmen on his trail.According to the customer, who gave her name as “Sasha”, it all began around 01:30hrs on Monday when she and some friends flagged down a taxi, HC 2302, outside the Everest Cricket Ground on Carifesta Avenue.

Sasha said when one of her friends reached home, she and the others went to help her inside, and in doing so, she thoughtlessly left behind her handbag with all her belongings in the waiting taxi.

“When my other friends and I turned around to go back in the taxi,” she said, “we realised he’d fled with my stuff, including my iPhone and my handbag with my belongings, such as money, ID etc.”

The young lady said she managed to track down the vehicle, using the GPS on her iPhone, and contacted the police for assistance.

“I tracked him down, using my iPhone, and got the police to accompany me to confront him,” she said, adding:
“After two hours of trying to catch up to him, I finally caught him at Stabroek Market parked in the taxi area.

“I approached him and asked if he had just picked up me and my friends, to which he admitted. I then asked for my belongings, and he pretended not to know what I was talking about, but eventually reached over into the passenger side floor and picked up my phone.”

When she asked for the rest of her things, he tried bluffing his way out.
“When I asked for my bag,” Sasha said, “he claimed he didn’t know I’d left it, and that a passenger he’d just dropped off might have gone with it.

“I called him out on his bull!@#$ and kept asking for my bag, but he kept denying having seen it. I asked why he left with my things after we asked him to wait, to which he lied saying one of my friends paid him and told him to leave.

“This was untrue, since I was the last person to leave the car and no one ever turned back,” she explained.

The young lady said she is disappointed in the action taken by the police, who could have arrested him on the spot, however, the ranks asked him to drive to the police station, but the taximan fled.

“The police that accompanied me told him to go to the station, and that he was getting locked up,” she said. “They attempted to drive behind him, but, of course, he got away. I also think the police should’ve searched his car and arrested him there and then, since it was obvious he stole my belongings.

“He had already begun to charge my phone! But they didn’t even ride with him to the station; they foolishly gave him the opportunity to get away,” the young lady noted.