I drove 187 kilometers in the rain, and…’taxi fraud’ monk, where are you going?

Passengers who took a taxi from Pohang to Daejeon and then fled without paying the fare recently became a controversy안전놀이터.

The same ‘cheating’ passengers have emerged again.

A monk who took a taxi from Seoul to a temple in Chungnam Province disappeared without paying 200,000 won, and his whereabouts are being hunted.

Reporter Jeong Ju-hoo reports.

[Report]

On the sixth of this month, when rain poured across the country, a man dressed in a robe with sunglasses gets into a taxi.

Introducing himself as a “monk,” the man asks for a ride to a temple in Cheongyang, Chungnam Province.

[Passenger: “How many kilometers out? (187 kilometers.) Let’s go.”]

After four hours of driving through the rain, the taxi reaches its destination.

But this man gets out without paying the fare.

And then he said, “The big monk is not here.

[ImOO/Taxi driver: “When will (the monk) come? I have to go to Seoul, so I don’t answer and….”]

The police were called, but the man insisted that he had no cash and no card.

Eventually, he was promised a ‘deposit within a week’ and the police said, ‘Trust me, he has no criminal record,’ so he returned to Seoul, where he hasn’t been seen for over 20 days.

The temple that was my destination said it was a man they didn’t recognize.

Recently, women who traveled from Pohang to Daejeon and then fled without paying the 280,000 won taxi fare were caught by police.

The taxi drivers who lost their day’s pay and wasted hours of their time would be furious, but under the current law, taking a taxi without paying is a misdemeanor, so even if you get caught, you can only get a fine of 100,000 won or less.

Heavier penalties require further investigation to prove the fraud was intentional or habitual.

[ImOO/Taxi Driver: “You can’t ask the passengers if they have money or not, how are they going to pay, you can’t just forget about it and think that you’d rather be working at that time….”]

Police are hunting for a missing monk after receiving a complaint from a taxi driver.

This is KBS News’ Jeong Joo-ju.