After a long, unpleasant flight you've landed at one of our local airports and just want to get home. You really aren't feeling our airports "mass transit" options and the line for cabs looks long. Still! Please, please, please, don't just take a ride from one of the hustlers calling out to you. Because you will get ripped off. Plus, the Port Authority would much rather arrest those guys. And then arrest them again and again and again.
Just ask 47-year-old Odalis De Los Andeles who, the Daily News reports, has been arrested more than 20 times for hustling fares from the airport. He's been known to charge more than $100 for a rides that should be a flat rate of $45. The man has been arrested so many times that multiple PAPD officers can apparently spot him without trouble from a distance (at which point he goes running). But he keeps going back—because another sucker lands every few minutes, weather and air traffic controllers willing.
Still, the PAPD really wants to put a stop to this stuff—they've recently doubled the number of sting operations—and to do so they need your help (as well as the help of your Aunt Petunia from Peoria). If you want a ride home from the airport: Call a friend, call a car service or take a yellow cab. But don't trust the guys offering to let you skip the line so you can avoid these stories.
