Taxi King, an immigrant from the USSR, arrested in New York for tax evasion

ВCompany owner Taxiclub Management suspected of not paying taxes on 5 million dollars in the period from 2012 to 2015 years. According to investigators, Friedman swindled with tax returns and thus paid less taxes than was required.

The Albany County, New York District Court brought Yevgeny Friedman to criminal responsibility and sent him into custody in a local prison. The judge appointed a bail of 500 million dollars. In addition to Friedman, his company’s financial director Andrea Dimitru was arrested.

"The Taxi King built his empire by stealing from New Yorkers. He embezzled money that should have been invested in our transportation system,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. He promised to do everything to punish “those who cheat the system.”

In the car park of the company Eugene Friedman enters about 800 taxi. In addition, the company controls some other taxi services in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.

According to information from open sources, Yevgeny Friedman emigrated to the USA from Leningrad with his parents in the 1976 year, when he was 5 years old. In New York, his father worked as a taxi driver, and then opened his taxi station on 60 cars. After the death of his father, Yevgeny Friedman took up the family business.

Friedman and a native of Odessa Garber in New York built their own taxi empire. In fact, both of them bought through brokers the old medallions that were on sale, and then leased them. In this interview Bloomberg Businessweek Evgeny Fridman admitted that he contributed to the speculative increase in the cost of medallions: “I go to the auction and raise the price of the medallion. Then I go to my bankers and say: “Look how expensive medallions are! Lend me money against my portfolio.” And they let me do it."

Until recently, the "kings of taxis", despite the occasional scandals, felt very good. According to various estimates, at a certain stage Friedman owned 800-900 medallions, Garber - 275-500. Taxi drivers who are familiar with the prices of their garages, are wondering: each of them could earn from $ 3 to $ 5 million every month.

Recall that ForumDaily understood, as the Russians settled in a New York taxi.