Police Arrest 4 Uber Drivers In Amsterdam For Being Uber Drivers

Ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft encounter legal roadblocks in many of the cities and states where they try to set up business: from San Antonio to Berlin, governments and taxi driver unions alike have done their best to stop Lyft and UberX, services where prescreened amateurs drive around paying customers. Now a local government has made good on one of these threats, arresting four Uber drivers in Amsterdam.

It happens that Amsterdam is where the administrators for Uber in Europe are based. The four drivers arrested happened to be the ones caught in a sting: inspectors from the Ministry of Environment & Infrastructure pretended to be passengers and made the arrests. While all of the drivers have been released from jail, they could be subject to a fine of as much a $5,300 euros.

“We remain in touch with the policy makers to familiarize them with how our technology works and the positive impact it has on mobility,” Uber said in a statement to Bloomberg News. What Uber didn’t say was whether the company plans to pay the drivers’ fines, which a local prosecutor will set in the future. If the drivers are caught accepting fares through the Uber app again, the fine could more than double.

UberX service left a testing phase and rolled out to all app users in the country on Wednesday, October 9; the arrests occurred on Sunday the 12th.

Dutch Police Arrest Drivers Using Uber App in Amsterdam [Bloomberg] (via PandoDaily)

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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist