Violence against Veracruz taxi drivers has intensified in recent days, amid extortion, threats, and murders.
The most recent case occurred in Tuxpan, where a driver was shot on Monday. Since he survived, the next day a hitman pretended to be a relative and entered the hospital’s emergency room to finish him off. His father, a colleague who was with him at the IMSS Bienestar clinic, intervened and died.
The targeted taxi driver was wounded but survived. All this occurred just over 30 kilometers from Álamo Temapache, the municipality where Irma Hernández, also a taxi driver and retired teacher, was kidnapped for refusing to pay the installments demanded by the Veracruz Mafia. His body was found last week, and his story put a face to the horror faced by transport workers in the region.
Germán Cruz, a retired lieutenant, was the man caring for his son at the Emilio Alcázar Hospital in downtown Tuxpan when he was murdered. The State Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of Eber Abraham for the homicide.
The first attack against the taxi driver, whose name has not yet been released, occurred Monday afternoon in the Luis Donaldo Colosio neighborhood. Just over the weekend, another driver was murdered in the same region. He was traveling along the Tuxpan-Cazones highway when armed men on motorcycles opened fire on his vehicle. One passenger was injured, and the taxi driver died in the vehicle.
