Woman says she was kidnapped in early hours, released in Almada
An American woman, on holiday in Portugal, has accused the driver of a vehicle operating for the Uber platform of kidnapping her in Lisbon in the early hours of this morning, and only releasing her in Almada, a source from the PSP’s Setúbal District Command has told Lusa news agency.
According to the source, the victim says that after leaving two friends at a hotel in central Lisbon, she intended to continue her journey to another hotel – also in the capital – but that the driver forced her to continue her journey to the south bank of the Tejo.
According to the woman’s report to PSP police, the driver “began to behave strangely and drive aggressively” from the moment she was alone in the vehicle, albeit he eventually allowed her to exit the vehicle on Rua Eduardo Viana, in Almada (Setúbal district).
The PSP also said that the woman panicked when she realized she was being transported to an unknown location, but that, despite the driver’s unexpected behavior, there was no attempt at assault or rape.
The case is being investigated by Setúbal Judicial Police, while the facebook group “Americans in Lisbon” has paused its operations, possibly due to the volume of inquiries.
Reports like this are not ‘new’: the last involved another foreign tourist who actually exited the vehicle in which she was being abducted while it was still moving.
Curiously, UBER only recently announced that it was piloting a ‘women’s only service’. This followed the initiative by another company, which was not allowed to follow through, because it was focused purely on transporting women, whereas UBER is trailing the new service as ‘part’ of its overall offer of passenger transportation.
Source material: Lusa
