Cancún Taxi Driver Faces Up to 40 Years in Uber Extortion Case

Cancún, Quintana Roo — A Cancún taxi driver accused of extorting an Uber operator could be sentenced to as many as 40 years in prison, his defense lawyers said, accusing state prosecutors and the courts of siding with the complainant in a case that has dragged on for more than four years.

Lawyers David Vázquez and Auria Palacios went to the offices of the Human Rights Delegation in Cancún to file a complaint, arguing that the rights of their client, taxi driver Alexander Contreras, have been violated in the extortion case first filed in 2019. Contreras is a member of the Andrés Quintana Roo taxi union.

“We are here at the human rights office so that his rights are respected, since they have been violated throughout this process,” Palacios said in an interview. “The whole case is based on an Uber operator who wanted to pick up passengers at a taxi stand in the Zona Continental of Isla Mujeres. Because he was told that was not allowed, the driver put together a file full of falsehoods to send an innocent person to jail.”

The defense says the case is before the Fourth Criminal Court and that everything suggests their client will be found guilty of simple extortion. The Uber operator accused him of extorting $50, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 40 years.

According to the lawyers, the dispute began at a taxi stand in the Zona Continental of Isla Mujeres, where the alleged Uber operator arrived in a black Suburban. Contreras told him he could not pick up passengers at that location, and the Uber driver then followed the taxi drivers, verbally attacked them and stopped his vehicle to threaten them, saying they did not know who they were dealing with because he was the son of a very influential person, the lawyers said. The Uber driver later filed the complaint alleging the $50 extortion.

“We have been in this trial for more than four years and we feel the State Prosecutor’s Office has not been impartial and has backed the complainant all along,” Palacios said. “At the last hearing they assigned Investigation Police officers to watch over us, and they did it in an intimidating way — the videos are there. The magistrate of the ninth criminal court says the taxi driver is guilty simply because they followed the complainant, even though there is no evidence and no witness who saw him collecting the money.”

The lawyers said they planned to hold a news conference on Wednesday to present documents they say back up their complaints.