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Two Men Arrested for Conspiring With Russians in JFK Taxi Dispatch Scam

Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman allegedly hacked into the dispatch system and made drivers pay them $10 to move to the front.

Two men have been arrested for allegedly conspiring with Russian nationals to hack the taxi dispatch system at New York City’s JFK International Airport, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Taxis in the airport are supposed to be dispatched in the order they arrive, but the accused hackers would allegedly move certain taxis up in line in exchange for $10. The operation ran from at least September 2019 to September 2021, with the accused hackers, Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman, allegedly utilizing methods including bribing someone to insert a flash drive coded with malware into computers in the system. The two profited from up to 1,000 fraudulent taxi trips, according to the DOJ. Both men have been charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.