When Mohamed Al-Rahawi looks back on the past two years, he says he doesn’t feel inspired by his journey, but rather very sad.
“I wish I could go back to this, to the old me before the accident,” Al-Rahawi told Global News, as he looked at a photo of him next to his motorbike.
The Toronto man, who worked as an Uber Eats driver, recounted the night of May 15, 2022, which stripped him of his ability to ride his bike or walk at all.
The then-35-year-old was headed to a party near Church and Gerrard, and hailed what he thought was a cab.
After the driver took his debit card for payment, the card Al-Rahawi got back wasn’t his. He then leaned into the car, showing the driver his banking app and told him the cards didn’t match up.
“As soon as I did that, he didn’t say anything to me. He just pressed the gas right away,” he said.
Still hanging on to the car, Al-Rahawi says he was dragged four blocks, before being slammed into a roadside patio on Wood Street. The driver fled the scene.
As he lay on the ground, Al-Rahawi remembers not being able to open his eyes or move his limbs. He screamed for help before falling unconscious.
It took the man nine months to be able to walk short distances without his walker or cane.
The incident left the man in a coma for two weeks with two-fractured legs, and risk of needing an amputation at one point.
Al-Rahawi described regaining consciousness as “coming back from the dead.”
Nearly two years later, he now has two painful metal rods in both his legs, which he is working to get removed in upcoming surgeries.
Although he calls his recovery ‘miraculous,’ Al-Rahawi’s trauma lives on.
“I swear it destroyed me. I’d rather be dead than alive sometimes,” he said.
Al-Rahawi is just one victim of the so-called ‘taxi scams’.
On Tuesday, Toronto Police issued a warning on the ongoing scam, in which more than $40,000 was lost in more than 60 incidents since last June.
“It’s absolutely pretend. Our investigation leads us to believe these are not in fact taxi cab drivers,” said Det. David Coffey, of Toronto Police’s financial crimes unit.
Coffey says the scam often involves two people, one posing as a cab driver, and the other as a distressed customer.
The customer explains that the taxi driver will not accept cash, and offers the victim the cash instead, if they can pay for the fare using debit or credit.
When the victim’s card is handed over, the information is skimmed, or the card is swapped out with a fake one altogether.
Suspects then make fraudulent purchases or withdrawals with the debit or credit card from the victim, investigators allege.
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Police have identified 25-year-old Steven Chambers, of Brampton, as a suspect wanted in connection with several of these recent incidents.
Chambers is accused of fraud over $5,000, attempted fraud under $5,000, three counts of assault and two counts of failing to comply with a release order.
“We’d like the public to be aware primarily not to confront these people. Often times, the victim realizes that it’s not their card given back to them. At that time, confrontations have ensued, assaults have occurred, violence has occurred,” said Coffey.
If you’ve been defrauded, most banks will reimburse the victim after they investigate, according to John East.
The criminal defence lawyer says he’s gotten some calls from potential clients asking about the taxi scam.
“The point-of-sales scams, and the visa scams, that certainly seems to be on the rise,” he said.
East says if a bank does not reimburse the victims, they can choose to sue in civil or criminal court, but they must know who the assailant is.
In criminal court, a restitution order is often brought forward after police conduct their investigation and the accused is found guilty. They are then ordered to pay, according to East, and no cost is incurred to the victims.
However, in civil court, the victims must go about the process themselves — hiring an investigator to find the assailant and a lawyer to bring forward the lawsuit, he said.
Back at Al-Rahawi’s house, the man fought back emotions as he recounted his story.
His court case is still in the preliminary hearing stage, and although he hopes ‘justice prevails,’ he says it will never bring back the livelihood he lost.
“It was pure evil. Inhumane,” he said.
Still out of work, and still living with aching pain in both his legs, Al-Rahawi hopes his story will warn others not to potentially fall into a similar trap and endure similar suffering.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody.”
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