A taxi driver who stole bank cards from drunk passengers before using them to redeem his 27,000 victims was arrested today on charges of “egregious fraud”.
When Garrett Taggart was sentenced to 14 months in prison in Belfast Crown Court, Judge Richard Green revealed that the 32-year-old had used the same system against more than 50 passengers.
From February 2018 to July 2019, Taggart aims to see passengers intoxicated based on the PIN they were paying for their taxi fare.
He was unable to retrieve drunk customers’ cards from his car readers, so he used their PIN numbers to withdraw cash from bank accounts.
Taggart repeated the process 60 times against about 50 passengers and only took $26,800 in scams.
Upon his arrest in July 2019, Taggart said he was acting under duress.
He claimed that his confession was extracted under torture and that his confession was extracted under torture.
The father-of-two, from York Park in Belfast, said that in most cases he simply handed a stolen credit card to a “third party” who then withdrew the money from various accounts.
This version of events was rejected by both PSNI and Judge Green. When Taggart was sent to prison, the judge was motivated by greed, saying, “Everyone was drunk and weak, and therefore easy prey.”
Prior to the ruling, Judge Greene was told Taggart had been arrested after police opened an investigation into the loss of bank cards and subsequent unauthorized withdrawals from a limited number of Belfast ATMs.
All the victims had one thing in common – they were in Belfast drinking and making friends – and while some remembered taking a taxi home, others did not remember how they got home.
The case was investigated and the police identified Taggart, who was a taxi driver at the time, as an alleged suspect.
He was arrested on July 14, 2019 in an automated teller machine used for fraud, he was in possession of four bank cards and 1,000,000 cash upon his arrest.
While some banks compensate the people involved, others who have fallen victim to Taggart fraud are left out of their money.
Defense attorney John O’Connor said his client said he acted under duress on behalf of people who owed money for gambling debts.
Citing his client as a well-mannered man with a clear criminal record, Mr O’Connor said Taggart still owed 8,000,000 in loans and had “lost everything” due to his abuse.
The defense attorney added that Taggart has since expressed real remorse and regret and has been appointed by the call center to be able to compensate the victims of his crime.
When Taggart was sent to prison, Judge Greene spoke of a large number of victims who, according to him, were “deliberately targeted” for their poisoning.
The judge also spoke of abusing his position of trust, in which Taggart was supposed to make sure taxi drivers could be taken home safely, but instead “ruined them”.
His 14-month prison sentence was split up to seven months, followed by seven months’ leave when he was released from prison.
After Taggart’s conviction, Judge Green approached the prison staff and asked them to “shoot him.”
Source: Belfastlive
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