Feds say 2 New York City men set up an elaborate scheme using bribes and Russian hackers to rig the cab line at JFK airport

• Two NYC men were accused of hacking the taxi dispatch system at JFK airport.
• The feds accused the men of working with Russian nationals to hack the taxi dispatch system.

Authorities have accused two New York City men of working with Russian nationals to hack the taxi dispatch system at the bustling John F. Kennedy International Airport in an elaborate money-making scheme, officials announced on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors alleged that the duo and the Russian hackers attempted various ways to rig the cab line at the Queens, New York, airport, which included the bribing of someone to insert a flash drive containing malware into computers linked up to the taxi dispatch system, giving them access, and stealing connected tablets.

Queens residents Daniel Abayev, 48, and Peter Leyman, 48, were arrested and charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in connection to the September 2019 to September 2021 scheme. They each face 10 years in prison if convicted.

Abayev and Leyman, along with the Russian nationals, "successfully hacked" the taxi dispatch system at the JFK airport at various times between November 2019 and November 2020 "and used their unauthorized access" to allow specific taxis to move to the front of the line, according to an indictment against the pair.

Taxi drivers are frequently required to wait for several hours in a holding lot at the airport before they are dispatched to pick up a fare. A computer system makes sure that taxis are dispatched in the order in which they arrived, prosecutors said.

Cabbies who benefitted from the hacking scheme were charged $10 each time they were bumped to the front of the cab line, according to the indictment.

"Taxi drivers learned that they could skip the taxi line by paying $10 to members of the Hacking Scheme through word of mouth, and members of the Hacking Scheme offered some taxi drivers waivers of the $10 fee in exchange for recruiting other taxi drivers to pay the $10 fee to skip the taxi line," the indictment says.

Some days when the hackers had access to the taxi dispatch system, drivers would be alerted in large group chats with the message "shop open," according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said that over the duration of the scheme, the suspects "enabled as many as 1,000 fraudulently expedited taxi trips a day."

Abayev and Leyman collected money from the taxi drivers in New York and later transferred more than $100,000 "of the criminal proceeds" back to their hacker helpers in Russia, according to prosecutors.

"As alleged in the indictment, these two defendants — with the help of Russian hackers — took the Port Authority for a ride," Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

Williams added, "For years, the defendants' hacking kept honest cab drivers from being able to pick up fares at JFK in the order in which they arrived. Now, thanks to this Office's teamwork with the Port Authority, these defendants are facing serious criminal charges for their alleged cybercrimes."

It was not immediately clear whether Abayev and Leyman had retained lawyers.