Taxi and Limousine Commission cops who busted a livery cabdriver for cruising Manhattan with a suspended license yesterday got a surprise when they popped his trunk – over $90,000 in cash, authorities said.
The driver, Raymond Okafor, 46, might have obtained the cash in a pyramid scheme, a TLC source told The Post.
Okafor had unwittingly picked up an undercover TLC cop, who he believed was a regular passenger in need of a ride, at East 99th Street and Madison Avenue just before 8 a.m., the source said.
The cop had hailed the cab as part of a routine sting to bust livery drivers, who are not supposed to pick up people from the street.
When the TLC cop checked out the Bronx man’s information to write the ticket, he noticed the driver had received six license suspensions in five separate incidents.
It is unclear what the suspensions were for, but they were enough for the officer to collar the driver, authorities said.
At that point, the cabby told the cop he had a large amount of cash in a suitcase in the trunk, according to the source.
The bag was searched and found to contain $94,770, the source said.
Police took Okafor to the 23rd Precinct station house and were holding him on charges of driving with a suspended license.
They are trying to figure out if the money was obtained illegally, possibly in fraudulent investment scams, where people recruit others to fork over cash.
Once unsuspecting marks hand over the money, they are told that they’ll make it back if they get other people to invest even more dough.
However, authorities maintain that these so-called pyramid schemes are simply rackets to dupe people out of cash.
Officers from an organized-crime unit were brought in to question Okafor, but they turned the investigation over to the TLC, cops said.
Okafor, a Nigerian national, has a temporary driver’s license that allows him to also have a hack permit, the source said.
His record with the Department of Motor Vehicles reads like a handbook of what not to do when driving in the city.
Okafor was hit with five violations over the course of seven weeks for failing to pay fines and failing to answer summons.
In addition to his allegedly heavy pockets, it appears Okafor also has a lead foot. Twice he’s been charged with speeding, including one offense that cost him $150.
Since November 2003, he’s been hit with five tickets for disobeying traffic signs.