Working With Russian Hackers To Skip NYC Airport Cab Lines Will Definitely Get You Put In Jail

NY Post- This hack for hacks backfired big time. A pair of Queens cab drivers were handed prison sentences on Monday after they admitted to working with Russian hackers to breach the JFK Airport taxi dispatch system and help their fellow cabbies skip to the front of the pick-up line. Daniel Abayev, 47, and Peter Layman, 49, charged other cab drivers $10 a pop to skip to the front of the queue at the bustling airport — where cabbies regularly wait several hours in a holding lot before being dispatched to a terminal, according to Manhattan federal prosecutors. Abayev and Layman allegedly earned kickbacks from the drivers after helping them to skip the line. The two cabbies sent part of their ill-gotten haul to two Russia-based hackers who helped them secure access to the Port Authority of New York’s dispatch system between November 2019 and November 2020, court papers alleged.

What a story this morning coming out of our great city of New York! On the surface a New York City cabbie scheme truly sounds like a scenario out of the Sopranos where say Silvio figures out a way to get cabbies more action with the mob getting a piece of that action, but nope...This right here? This goes WAY deeper than that. These dudes Daniel Abayev and Peter Layman were quite literally working with RUSSIAN HACKERS at the helm of a JFK cab scheme where the hackers would, well, hack the cab systems at John F. Kennedy airport where everyone would normally wait in a lot waiting to be summoned to get that sweet cab fare home of people home!

The hackers' purpose was seemingly to change the system so the cabbies who paid Danny & Petey $10 to skip to the front of the line thanks to the aforementioned hacking which would a portion of would then be sent back to mother Russia. This one does definitely hit home for me as I ALWAYS notice these cab lots at JFK and LaGuardia and constantly wonder what's happening as they sit there and barely move. I guess now we know that it really is some mafia-type stuff! All of this does beg me to wonder though just how many schemes are going on like this within the world that DON'T get caught? 

Are there street vendor schemes going on? Is the mob still involved in the ports? Are Russian Hackers dictating door dash? The possibilities are endless. I'd love to find out.