Suarez’s innocent mistake unearthed a side of Tulum that until recently was only talked about amongst friends recounting their terrible holiday stories: the local taxi transportation industry has safety concerns. In fact it can be a dangerous thing. So much so that on January 23, the U.S. Department of State put out a security alert specifically for Quintana Roo about taxi and Uber services there.
It’s not just that Suarez left her phone in the taxi. You see, the transaction was just ending when she realized it was still inside, yet as she called out to the driver and to get back in, he took off fast. It was more of a theft.
After Suarez’s phone took off she and her boyfriend got to the business trying to get it back, an experience over the next four days they called “cartel” like. Having paid in cash for the taxi – which was its own extortion, as the driver demanded $50 for a drive of a couple minutes, for which they paid nearly half in the end – and the cellphone being turned off, they were relieved their next taxi driver seemed sincere in wanting to help them. What they discovered was actually finding the cell phone not that hard because the taxi drivers know each other. There’s a network. A cartel.
