I had my first experience with the crooked cops in Cancun today all of 5 minutes after getting into our rental car. I neglected to use my turn signal indicator as I was merging into traffic after pulling out of the Cancun airport onto the main coastal road. I happened to merge in front of a couple cops in a pickup truck.
They pulled me over. Crooked cop #1 comes up to the side of the car to give me a ration of shit about almost causing an accident. he then made me surrender my drivers license and asked me to accompany him back to his vehicle. I didn’t really know what to expect but I assumed it wasn’t going to be good. I was informed that I would have to go to the police station in downtown Cancun to pay a $2500 peso fine (about US$250), get a receipt for my payment and then find the cop that issued the ticket in order to get my license back. It sounded like a line of bullshit so I played along.
“Can’t I just pay the ticket now?” I was told I could pay the “Captain”, aka Crooked Cop #2 but he wouldn’t be able to give me a receipt. The on-the-scene fine was $300 pesos, such a deal. What a way to start a vacation.
On a better note, the rest of the day went well. We stopped for lunch in Valladolid and both had a local pork dish called Poc Chuc. It was delicious. Driving in that town is a bit nerve wracking because almost every street is one way but very poorly signed. I ended up going down the wrong way on a few occasions.
We’re at Hacienda Chichen now and just finished dinner. The place is beautiful but the food was so-so. We’re going to get some sleep soon. It’s been a long day. Tomorrow morning we’re getting up early to go to the ruins at Chichen Itza which is within walking distance of our hotel. The tour buses apparently don’t arrive until 10 am. We hope to be there when the gates open at 8 am to beat the heat and the hoards of fat-assed tourists in their Mickey Mouse shirts and Wal-Mart grass hats.
Si,
I had my first Cancun Cop “Bites” happen to me way back in 1988.
Once as I sped around a blind corner where a motorcycle officer was hiding. He offered to help me out by “fixing” the ticket on the spot.
The following spring [1989] in Playa del Carmen, when it still had a small drivable square down by the cruise ship dock. I was driving west on an eastbound-only street….The cop walking that beat offered the same on-the-spot ticket help so that I wouldn’t have to wait in jail for the court to open on Monday!
Beware, we just came back from cancun, this is our second time there… the first time we just stay around the hotel zone and for 3 days, we did not rented a car, so we did not got to see to much of cancun. This time we want it to do more activities and go to the parks, so we rented a car this time. The second day we got stop by the cancun police 2 times in less than 5 minutes. We got a package to go horse back riding at the beach, At our hotel traveling agency… we told them we rented a car and we want to follow the bus for the activity instead of going on the bus and paid extra $30.00 and waist time… because allot of time after the activities are over they keep you longer at the place so you spend more money at the place on food souvenirs and $20 for one photo. So the travel agent from our hotel said it was fine to go with our own car to the ranch! On the way back at 1:00 p.m. we got stop by the police, the first time the men told my husband that he was going to fast (HE WAS NOT GOING OVER THE SPEED LIMIT!) he said just at this point the speed limited changed and he said that he was going to keep my husband driving license and he will only get it back after 48 hours by going to the down town office and pay a $120.00 fee. My husband said “i rented this car and i cannot go with out my license, how can i drive without my license? The police said well that is the law here… the only thing you can do is pay half of the ticket fee here in cash and you can go with your license! After that we saw some other tourists being pulled over by the cancun police for doing nothing wrong. I was so mad! and my husband said ” You cannot fight with them, we are only here for 3 more days and our vacation time will be hell if we don’t pay them.
After a few minutes later my husband got lost an took the wrong way, we stop and try to go back… a police pickup truck came behind us and one of the police officer got out and started screaming to us what are you doing? he told my husband to get out and jump to the back seat so my husband went to the back seat of our car and the police started driving our car, so i was getting scared and i ask him were are we going? he said this area is not safe… we have to go to a safer area! the police truck was following us and he pulled over an empty street and ask us to step out of the car. He said to my husband you could have kill some one… you did a damage to this nation(a concrete barrier) so now i will take you to jail. My husband doesn’t understand too much spanish since i speak spanish my husband ask me what he said? I told him he said that they are going to take you to jail… he was freaking out he was like no way in hell, i am not going! and then 2 more trucks came with 2 police officers each one, so now it was 3 trucks and 6 men (VERY SCARRY) so i was the one doing the talk with them and i told them my husband just make a mistake we are not from here its our first time here and as you can see he have not have a drink or he is not on drugs so why will you arrest him? don’t you suppose to just give him a ticket? he said ” no… i will call an inspector to see if he did any damage to the street were i cough him and we have to take him until we finish the investigation” at this point we were getting very very scared! I asked him , aren’t we supposed to just get a ticket?
So the one they all call el capitan told me “ok wife give me some cash” i told him here i only have $130.00 cash with me! he did not want to take it and told me “please that is nothing” so i ask how much do you want? he said HOW MUCH IS YOUR HUSBAND FREEDOM COST TO YOU? ooh I was furious! (and still am) I told my husband don’t show them that we have more money please! so i told them please follow us to our hotel we have cash there ( i just want it to get out of the area and ask for help at the hotel) but of course they said NO we are not going to your hotel! so i said well what do you want me to do?… we don’t have any more cash! and then they told me well lets take you to an ATM an pull out $500 US… At this point we were getting fried by the sun for about 30 minutes and my husband said lets ask them to let us get in the car to see if we have more cash. So i ask them and they said to me “ok you get in the car by yourself and find the money i know you have it” so i got in the car and looked in my husband back pack and pulled out the $400.00 and was scared that they will get mad because we lied about not having the money so i told my husband here wive the money to the other nicer man and my husband started to go that way and then THE CAPITAN scream at him hey, hey, hey, where do you think you are going? here give me the money! My husband said here this is really al we have, The capitan say ” i want $500.00″ but the other guys told him lets just take the $400.00. So finally they let us go, what a relief! The worse part is that after being extorted by the cops twice the same day! i told my husband lets go to our hotel they will help us to report this. The lady at the hotel said i don’t know what to do… i said call you manager so she did! the manager from Fiesta Americana Coral Beach (A 5 STARS HOTEL) said to us “you can’t fight it. The only way out is to pay. the police here are a mafia if you report this they will do nothing about it. they all work together! I told the men, well if this happens all the time why don’t any one warn us about it. You need to let your guess know this things! he said no we cannot scare our guess… and the traveling agency is the one that need to let you know before, I told him yes we got it from this hotel traveling agency ! so he said that is an american express traveling agency and we have nothing to do with that, go talk to them! so i go to the agency and same answer “we cannot scare our costumers plus this only happen if you are on a rented car because the cops are drawn to them like a magnet, easy money!!! To me this is not any different from (kidnaping express)
Kidnaping express is when someone kidnap you and take you for a few hours and then they take you to an ATM to pull cash out and pay them… very popular now in mexico too. Just because they are wearing a uniform doesn’t make them any different from this criminals.
So we said the only thing we can do is wait until we get back to USA and tell everyone that this is happening there… Cancun is full of americans, if americans don’t go over to cancun and bring their $$$$, cancun will be over! So they should make and effort to protect tourist from been scam, The car rental agency was also trying to scam tourist 3 other group were complaining about extra charges and double charging for gas, at that point our bill came and they were charging us for the fifth day again… we told them we already paid for a complete package for 5 days to orbitz and they say no that was for 4 days i said no i have the receipt! so they said we need to call our manager but he was busy with other complaining costumer so after 20 minutes they finally said the famous words “sorry it was a system error” SURE!!! thats what they said to the other costumers that were complaining too!!!
Cancun is amazing and beautiful , i love it! but its a shame that american families are very hard workers and don’t have time at all for vacations, at the most 1 to 2 times a year… and only a few days, so when you have the time to go on a trip you want to relax and have a good time… not to be dealing with legal problems, scams and reporting unfair cases of corrupted police plus it can be dangerous and change you life forever. The police there know this and that is why they do it! EASY MONEY, NO CONSEQUENCES!!! I don’t want any more innocent families to go trough this but all the mexicans we talk to said this is an every day thing… just normal and its nothing they can do or we can do, they call it: (LA MORDIDA= THE BITE) I have to say i feel horrible for just walk away i wish i can do something to make a change but we did not took their truck number and we have not prove, it was just our word. I have been living in USA for the last 10 years but i am from Venezuela so i know how the police work in the 3rd world. I was afraid!!! we will never forget this.
NOTE: I JUST POSTED MY EXPERIENCE IN TRIPADVISOR.COM FORUM AND THEY REMOVED… YOU DON’T WANT TO SCARE THE TOURIST AND LOOSE MONEY? ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY AND NOT THE SAFETY? I WILL KEEP POSTING IT!!! ALL OVER IN EVERY TRAVELING WEBSITE. if i can help someone to avoid this horrible experience… i will !
Which rental car company did you use?