Rogue taxi driver attempted to extort HKD3,000 from tourists

This Dec. 1, 2015, agency photo shows a local taxi driver driving along a street at night. We blurred his ID, since it is unrelated to this case

The same taxi driver who overcharged a Hong Kong family last week also tried to extort HKD3,000 from the two tourists.

A source familiar with the case told the Times that the police officer at the scene (outside Wynn Palace) told the Hong Kong couple that the taxi driver would not press charges against them in exchange for a HKD3,000 “compensation.”

When the couple refused the proposal, the agent escorted everyone to the station.

The couple – who planned to spend the third day of the Chinese New Year in Macau – said the taxi meter had not been engaged and asked the driver to turn it on, as previously reported by MDT.

However, the driver declined, claiming that there was no meter over the Chinese New Year period and that the fee would be MOP100.

On Thursday, the husband wrote a two-page letter of complaint to the Hong Kong office of the Macau Government Tourism Office. However, the office redirected them to the Transport Bureau (DSAT).

The couple was escorted to Taipa Police Station via police van at around 1:30 p.m. on January 30, where the husband said his wife was forced to have her fingerprint impressions taken, and that they had refused to comply.

“We weren’t allowed to leave the police station until around 6:30 p.m., and we left the police station in the company of our lawyer,” said the Hong Kong resident, who is also a British national.

He said they were distressed by the heated argument in the station, during which the police presented them with legal books written in Portuguese and Chinese.

“We don’t know what they’re denying,” he said, adding that the authorities had told them that they would be detained that night and would meet the magistrate before the morning.

“To deny that we were detained there [is absurd]. Nobody spends five hours in a police station […] voluntarily,” he lamented. LV