Taxi driver disguised as woman stole $200k

A Maryland man who dressed up as a woman to fleece intoxicated passengers for more than $200,000 (€150,000) while driving a taxi in Washington DC has pleaded guilty to first-degree felony fraud, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Nyerere Mitchell, 50, of Clinton, Maryland, stole pin codes and ATM cards from more than 60 people, often focusing on young drinkers, between April 2009 and November 2013, prosecutors said.

Wearing a disguise of a woman’s wig and a padded bra, Mitchell drove a silver Range Rover SUV and focused on picking up passengers near popular bar and nightclub areas in Washington DC.

Mitchell was charged with five counts of fraud, with each charge carrying a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison. The plea agreement also calls for him to pay $228,036 in restitution.

Mitchell will be held in jail until his sentencing on October 10.

Once passengers were in Mitchell’s vehicle, typically believing that it was a taxi, he would head to drive-through ATMs on Wisconsin Avenue or Pennsylvania Avenue. He would tell his passengers that they needed to tell him their pins, since only the driver could reach the banking machine and he needed to withdraw money for their taxi fares.

The victims believed Mitchell was withdrawing $10 to $40 to pay for their taxi rides. In fact, he often took hundreds of dollars. He sometimes handed back a bank card that looked similar to the victim’s card, one that he had stolen from an earlier passenger, so that the victim did not notice his or her own card had been stolen.

Mitchell would then purchase money orders to deposit in his own account or make large purchases on the victim’s card over the next several days. Once the victim figured out that the card had been stolen and deactivated it, Mitchell would hand off the inactive card to another passenger.