The Public Ministry (MP) It has received four complaints this year, until last October 5, against pilots of sedan-type vehicles for alleged cases of rape. Of these, one is against a collective taxi driver, two more against drivers of taxi companies by application and a fourth against a passenger, informed its department of Social Communication.
Of these, none have reached the courts of jurisdictional bodies; nevertheless, “all complaints were duly addressed and processed” and they continue in the investigation to achieve their judicialization, he affirmed.
Nevertheless, Some of the victims have expressed fear of filing complaints because they fear that the aggressors will have access to their sensitive data, and because they do not want to put their families at risk.
EITHERafter victims do not trust the judicial system because the processes are too slow and they do not have enough resources to file criminal complaints and continue with the processes.
About 500 vehicles sanctioned
The Transit Mayor of the capital, Amílcar Montejo, indicated that some 500 vehicles have been sanctioned for operating as taxis without being authorized. The administrative fine is Q2 thousand and in case of reoffending it can reach Q4 thousand.
He added that they have received “several requests” from the MP and the National Civil Police (PNC) about vehicles possibly involved in crimes and “sometimes they request videos of various routes to fit their investigation.”.
Montejo explained that there are “several complaints, especially in videos on social networks” for theft of belongings, outrages or sexual violence, involving private vehicles and some identified as taxis.
“There are not many cases. But there are more alerts due to the same dynamics of social networks, each one with different versions”, explained the spokesman, who added that there is no estimate of how many unauthorized taxis circulate in the city.
The areas where the most criminal acts are recorded are the Roosevelt road, the Liberación boulevard, Bolívar avenue, the Atlantic route and some sectors of zone 1.
poor service
For its part, the Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH), after monitoring the public transport service, managed to detect that most of the units “did not present the minimum conditions to reactivate transport in an adequate and responsible manner,” thus In addition, the collective taxi service was activated in parallel, said Edgar Guerra, defender of the Public Transport User.
Guerra stressed that collective taxis are not authorized, but due to “the need of the population to mobilize, the number of units that circulate has been increasing -and- until today it is not known how many of these vehicles operate.”
He remarked that they charge from Q10 to Q20 per person. Variants have also emerged, such as motorcycle taxis and microbuses that do not have authorization to circulate or to provide this type of service.
The defender shared that in recent months there has been an increase in these units in at least 12 municipalities, among them, Chinautla, Mixco, Villa Nueva, San Miguel Petapa, Villa Canales, Santa Catarina Pinula and in zones 21, 18, 12, 6, 1 and 2 of the city.
The PDH has not received complaints from women victims of rape by collective taxi drivers, affirmed Guerra, which could respond to the fact that “They perceive that they are going to put themselves at risk because they frequently use this type of transport, or it may be that they believe that the State institutions are not working”.
The PDH has received information about the drivers of the collective taxis and warns that “There are indications that some of these unauthorized taxi operators could be part of gangs,” he said. War.
Inquire about operations
A police investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity shared with Free Press that they are currently investigating possible members and collaborators of illicit groups that engage in rape and use collective taxi units to commit the acts.
So far they have managed to identify that the possible routes where they circulate are: the Roosevelt, San Juan and Atanasio roads, El Trébol, Bolívar avenue, as well as San Miguel Petapa and San Juan Sacatepéquez routes, however, they do not report arrests for these facts.
Last October 4 Free Press published the case of Alejandra, a young woman who narrated how one morning she boarded a collective taxi from zone 21 to the clover.
When passing by the University of San Carlos, in zone 12, the driver sprayed a spray inside the vehicle and said it was alcohol to disinfect. The victim does not remember if “minutes or seconds” passed, but he was left unconscious. When he woke up he was in an area he didn’t know, his clothes were dirty and he had a headache. After being helped, she learned that she had been abandoned in San Juan Sacatepéquez and abused.
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