Taxi Smuggler

The yellow American taxi is synonymous with the big apple, that being New York City. A place many movies are made every single year, most of which are romantic comedies portraying the city as a bustling, beautiful place full of life and opportunity. Other films depict the often unseen or spoken crime and grime within this place, as a city this big is bound to have a lot of diverse characters. From big hat, wall street businessmen who run entire empires and companies, to the common street thug who sells homemade heroin. There is a lot to see and love (or hate) about New York, but this particular story will stray away from the Hollywood vision of New York, that being handsome people and ridiculously expensive fashion shows. To instead reveal one of the greatest (or more accurately infamous) smugglers to ever grace (or taint) the city.

The Taxi Smuggler went undetected for almost a decade, using his iconic taxi cab to deliver not just passengers, but mountains and mountains of cocaine, meth and speed beneath the seats of his car and buried within the trunk. His name was Travis Deniro and he had kept this criminal venture hidden from even his own taxi firm. He actually hid and removed the drugs on a daily basis, often smuggling these narcotics in-between his regular routines as a genuine taxi driver. Nobody suspected a thing, except the Italian American Mafia of course, who he often traded with in the utmost secrecy. They kept a good eye on the young criminal, making sure he never double crossed them, sold his drugs to any rival gangs or betrayed them in any way whatsoever. At first, Travis was alarmed by their surveillance, but in time they welcomed him as one of the "family" oftentimes protecting when gunmen tried to steal his cab or run off without paying. He even attended the Don's dinner parties and at first he was beyond nervous attending these events, barely sipping his alcohol in case he accidentally offended any of the armed gangsters that always carried heat under their blazers and black leather jackets. In time, he also became more comfortable with getting drunk alongside them too, laughing along the gang's dark humour which often consisted of grotesque criminal activities such as savage beatings, murders and vivid descriptions about how they exactly had sex with their wives or street hookers, going into exact detail like how big their ass and breasts were, what their lipstick tasted like, etc. In time Travis wanted to be just like them, to know how it feels to stick up a bank and run away with thousands of dollars. Yet, the Mafia was adamant that Travis remain "The Taxi Smuggler" as they had soon come to nickname him. Travis wouldn't dare step out of line, obeying the gangsters demands.

Eventually his days as a freelance drug smuggler were no more, his payroll through the Mafia was far more than he ever earned solo, but they demanded more and more of him everyday. Eventually Travis was so rich from this criminal activity, he no longer needed to drug smuggle to live comfortably anymore. This illegal job had earned him a big private estate, three neon coloured sports cars, he even had a trophy wife, some hot chicks related to somebody else who was involved with the Mafia. His personal life became one with his criminal life and keeping up appearances as an honest taxi driver was becoming all too difficult.

One day police found it suspicious that a man as rich as Travis would continue driving drinks around the big apple night and day, when they first came knocking, Travis said he worked night and day and gambled a lot in his spare time, that he was extraordinarily good at it and that's how he managed to become a millionaire. Yet that still seemed suspicious and completely unbelievable, perhaps not impossible but certainly beyond reasonable expectations. They had bought the story "for now!" warned the detective interrogating, letting Travis off without any further trouble. Little did he know, that the NYPD would begin tracking his every move. It didn't take long for Travis to slip up, as an undercover police officer by the name of Jeff Davidson had tailed (discreetly without Travis' knowledge) to a drug trade with the Mafia. He photographed the exchange and returned to his superiors (engaging combat against a big gang like that would've been suicide). Those photographs were all the evidence the police needed.

So after 8 long years of smuggling drugs between criminals (not just the Mafia but common street thugs too), Travis Deniro was finally charged for his crimes 2018. He was charged with 27 years behind bars and won't be released until 2044, by then he'll be an old man, incapable of making love to his then 53 year old wife who has already up and left him for another millionaire completely unconnected from the Italian American Mafia. The moral of the story is that most times, crime doesn't pay!