Saturday December 28th. A family arrives late to catch the plane and hires a Cabify vehicle to the Seville airport. At the entrance, there are two lanes: one exclusive for taxis and another for the community, which is usually saturated. To save time, the VTC driver decides to take advantage of the fact that the taxi lane is empty and thus manages to park earlier at the airport gate. At that moment, a taxi driver gets out of his vehicle with an iron rod and hits the rear window of the VTC, while the family remains inside the car.
This type of vandalism – also perpetrated against the union’s own colleagues – has been repeated for years in the vicinity of the San Pablo airport. Behind it is Solidaridad Hispalense del Taxi, an association prosecuted by criminal organizationwhich barely represents 7.5% of the sector in Andalusian capital, but has managed to gain the monopoly of the airport stop “by force and with coercive means”, as stated years ago by the judge who instructed the first macro-case against said entity started in 2017.
Now the National Police has arrested at least 18 people for possible crimes of coercion, threats, damage and membership in a criminal organization within the framework of an operation against the so-called “taxi mafia” that they have been investigating for months. The other two associations represented in the Seville Taxi Institute regret this news, aware that it negatively affects the image of an already tense sector in the city. “We are 2,000 taxi drivers, not just a taxi rank,” defends the president of the Sevillian Taxi Union, David Capelo, recalling that the investigated association has around 150 members, according to calculations by the taxi drivers’ entities themselves.
More than 20 years of “organized mafia” at the airport
The president of the VTC Andalusia Business AssociationPablo García-Trespalacios assures that Solidaridad Hispalense del Taxi is “a true organized mafia” that has been “operating as a monopoly at the Seville airport for more than 23 years.” He says it “with knowledge of the facts” because his entity was the one that reported the attacks, threats and persecutions that motivated the judge to initiate the macro-case around what the judge herself called the “airport taxi mafia.”
“There is nothing like it in all of Spain,” says Pablo García-Trespalacios, referring to the exclusive use they make of the airport stop in the Andalusian capital. Rafael Baena, president of Élite Taxi Sevilla, has been in the sector for 33 years and confirms that the threats and coercion attributed to the members of Solidaridad Hispalense del Taxi have been happening for “more than 20 years.”
However, this taxi driver has observed that these practices that were previously “systematic” have been “radicalizing” since the last mobilizations called in June by the Unión Sevillana del Taxi and Solidaridad Hispalense del Taxi so as not to lose the control that they also exercise over the sale. of licenses. The result, “continuous lynchings”, threats and attacks on both VTC drivers and taxi drivers who are not part of the association, since “for them the problem is the rest of the union’s colleagues,” according to Baena’s diagnosis.
As a result of this radicalization, a series of complaints have been registered by other taxi drivers, drivers of arranged transport vehicles (VTC) and even individuals, as reported this Thursday by the Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández, who specified that these complaints are what motivated the opening of the so-called ‘Aertase’ operation, which the Provincial Information Brigade of Seville has been investigating for months and which remains open.
Rotating shifts to stop the “monster”
From the VTC Andalucía Business Association, Pablo García-Trespalacios conveys all his support to the complainants and trusts that “the weight of the law will fall on these criminals.” “The city council has to take action on the matter because it affects both Sevillians, tourists, and the union itself, whose name is being tarnished,” he says, agreeing with the president of Élite Taxi in pointing out the Seville City Council. as responsible, as a competent administration.
Beyond eroding the image of the taxi sector, Baena regrets that the main “harmed” is the user, who suffers an “abusive charge that they have already institutionalized.” For this reason, the president of Elite Taxi also asks the local administration to “put a stop to” “a monster” that has become stronger over the years thanks to the fact that “no municipal government has dared to get its hands on it.” .
For Élite Taxi and the VTC Andalucía Business Association, the solution is to implement the rotating shifts that worked years ago and that are in force in the rest of the airports in Spain. Municipal sources consulted by this newspaper indicate that they are studying “all possible formulas to address taxi problems and offer solutions that improve both their situation and the service” and, they assure, all decisions will be made “hand in hand with the sector.” through the Taxi Institute.” A body dependent on the Seville City Council, but in practice it functions as a “private” entity, in the hands of the majority taxi organizations.
#taxi #mafia #Seville #airport #years #monopolizing #stop #coercion #threats
