A 25-YEAR-OLD taxi driver working in Albufeira was robbed at gunpoint in his taxi by three Brazilian men who tied up his hands and feet, put a hat over his head and threw him into the sea at night.
Amazingly, Carlos Travanca, the driver, survived the ordeal on Praia da Galé on Thursday, July 26. “When they (attackers) asked me for money, I told them it was in the front door and that I would fetch it. When I reached for the money with one hand, I pressed the radio button a few times with my other hand to warn my colleagues that something was wrong,” he said. “It’s a dangerous job at night and we have to be united to survive.”
As the taxi driver was dragged to the beach, tied up and blinded by a hat, he tried to escape: “I managed to grab their gun because I attacked them, fell and trapped it underneath me. I fired the gun twice and I think I shot one of them in the arm. They became furious and threw me off a cliff into the sea. I managed to rip the tape off my feet and pull the hat off.”
The taxi driver’s colleagues arrived a few minutes later and called the police. A spokesman for the GNR told The Resident: “We cannot release any more information as the case is now being investigated by the Polícia Judiciária and is protected by the Secrecy of Justice Law.”
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