A court on Tuesday ruled that revoking the license of a taxi driver who had overcharged foreigners was justified.

The taxi driver therefore lost a suit against the Seoul City government, which had taken away his taxi driver’s license for repeatedly ripping off foreign passengers, according to the Seoul Administrative Court on Tuesday.

The driver was caught by the city government in June 2018 after demanding two foreign passengers pay 8,000 won ($7), almost double the actual fare of 4,200 won.

Prior to that incident, the driver had been accused of overcharging foreigners on five occasions. After issuing warnings and suspending his taxi license for 30 days, the city government revoked his license upon the sixth offense.

However, the driver told the city government in July 2018 that foreign passengers had dropped cash in his car and he had returned the money to them. He changed his claim a month later, saying he had returned the money after accidentally receiving a higher fare from the passengers.

The court said his claims were not credible because they were not consistent and he had been caught several times for ripping off passengers.

By Park Ju-young (jupark@heraldcorp.com)