Fusion
5 May 2015
by Tim Rogers
There’s a troubling new trend on the streets of
Tegucigalpa these days: taxi drivers with teddy bears.
And no, it’s not some creepy pedophile thing.
According to Honduran social media and newspaper
reports, cabbies and bus drivers who have stuffed animals sitting on their
dashboard, hanging from their rearview mirror, or tied to their vehicle’s front
grille could be signaling gang members.
Though no one seems to have fully decoded the teddy
bears’ secrets, it’s rumored that different colored stuffed animals mean the
bus driver is or isn’t paying extortion to certain gangs. A stuffed animal
displayed through the windshield could be a signal to gangs that the driver
isn’t paying extortion at all, but is willing to cooperate with gang members if
they stop the vehicle to rob the passengers onboard, according to the social
media fretting of Hondurans. […]
