Old hoax about killer cab driver still spreading online

A warning spreading on social media could make people leery of hailing a cab in New York City. 

In what looks like a screenshot of a forwarded message, a photo shows a man sitting in a car and this supposed tip: "This is a man with taxi number (2465RB) in NY who drives around taking people to kill. He removed their parts. Share this message. At least save a life. My friend from the DA’s office in Brooklyn just sent me this. Share it for safety."

An Instagram post sharing this was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

PolitiFact left a voicemail message for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office but didn’t immediately hear back. 

But in 2018, when the exact same warning was spreading on Facebook, a spokesperson for the office told Snopes that it knew "nothing" about the person in the photo or the allegations. 

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Facebook posts

stated on April 29, 2024 in a Facebook post

Photos show the scene of an accident that left an unidentified woman in a coma after a “hit and run incident.”

More evidence the claim is a hoax? Similar warnings with the same photo and supposed taxi number have spread in other countries. Claims of this particular murderous cab driver have cropped up in Nigeria, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Instagram posts from 2018 and 2019 tell New Yorkers that he’s "kidnapping and killing for organs" and to "contact 911 cause they believe he’s a serial killer!"

And yet, there are no news reports of such a suspected criminal, nor any credible sources connecting 2465RB to something nefarious. 

We rate the claims in this post Pants on Fire.