That Time I Had To Pay Off The Cops

Yes, it actually happened. Ok, so it was in Mexico.

It was the last day of my Baja trip. I had decided to cross back to the States in Tecate, a smaller town East of Tijuana. It’s a much less crowded and supposedly easier border crossing that Tijuana, and you get the added benefit of totally avoiding having to go through TJ. I’d come down through TJ without issue, but decided to try something different on the way back.

The town of Tecate was small, with a well-developed road leading into it. I’d heard rumors of cops in town that liked to pull over foreigners for any conceivable offense, and try to shake them down for a mordida, or bribe. So I was making sure to pay attention to the stop signs and speed limit. Sure enough, on the way into town I spotted a U.S. plated camper pulled over; it seemed the rumors were true.

Downtown Tecate, clearly traffic rules are very strictly enforced

I was quickly to the central part of town and followed Google Maps toward the border, making sure to fully stop at all the ‘Alto’ signs. I took one final left, and spotted the comfort of the border checkpoint before me… with a line of concrete barriers blocking the way. There were cars in line, but the line definitely didn’t start where I was. Google Maps fail. Apparently the preferred (read, only) driving route came in from a side road rather than directly in front.

I managed a Y turn (woohoo short wheelbase!) and drove down a few blocks toward about where it looked like the line ended. Another left found me faced with more barriers, so I again turned around to try to figure out how, exactly, one was supposed to go about leaving the country. As I drove down the street I’d just come up, I suddenly got the suspicion I was facing the wrong way on a one-way. It only lasted a block before I was back on a normal two-way road again though. Whew.

I consulted the map and guessed at where I actually needed to go. After making it back to a main road, I noticed a cop behind me. Shit, where did he come from. And why was he on my ass? I suspected I was about to be pulled over, and was right. As I stopped along the side of the road with flashing red and blue lights behind me, I looked ahead and spotted a sign about 100 yards away with an arrow that pointed left and said Border Crossing. Seriously, this close and I’m getting pulled over?

A younger, husky cop walked up to the passenger door and opened it. He introduced himself, speaking good English. After a few seconds he spotted a pocket knife I had sitting in one of my dash compartments, and said he needed to hold on to it. Fine, I said, assuming it was some type of safety protocol. He explained that I’d gone the wrong way down a one-way (shit, did he actually see that?), failed to stop completely at a stop sign (my wheels might not have been 100% stationary, but I damn well stopped), and was speeding in a 25kph zone (that’s 15.5mph, so maybe, but not by much). Since I knew his allegations were largely BS, I made some protests to make sure he knew I wasn’t a pushover before he took my license and registration and went back to his truck.

When he came back, he reiterated the previous charges, then added “but, my friend, that’s the least of your problems”. Oh really? He proceeded to explain that having a weapon within reach while driving was a very serious offense in Mexico. Protocol dictated that he was supposed to arrest me and have the vehicle towed, but since he was nice he wasn’t going to do that. He explained though that we’d need to go to the station and see a judge about the knife thing, which was a felony, and it might take several days of waiting to get sorted out.

At some point in there I couldn’t help but laugh. “This might be funny where you’re from,” he chimed, “but in Mexico this is a very serious offense.” I apologized and explained that I was laughing because I’d been in Mexico for weeks and was now getting pulled over within sight of the U.S. border, in my final minutes in the country. If he appreciated the irony, he did a good job hiding it.

He asked what I wanted to do about it, which was a pretty clear indication that he was looking for a payoff. I said we better just go to the station and take care of it, hoping this would discourage him. I’ve heard that if you simply insist on going to the station to pay a fine, they’ll often just drop it and let you go. That they’re just pulling you over looking for a bribe because you’re an easy target, and they don’t want to go through the hassle of actually taking you to the station and doing paperwork for such minor offenses.

He appeared pretty worried about my prospects at the station. “The fine for this is 6000 pesos, I don’t think you can afford that”. I concurred. $300 on some BS traffic violation was not in my plans. I said something about just paying the fine here (code for a bribe) and he went back to his truck. A few minutes later his partner, a seasoned middle aged officer, appeared.

“So, my partner explained to you the charges?” he asked.

“Yes, I understand. I apologize because I really tried to learn all the rules before I came here, but I didn’t know about this one.”

Blah blah blah, something about how serious it all is, blah blah blah “what do you want to do about this?”

“Well, I’m not sure, what are my options? It sounds like we have to go to the station.”

“Well, maybe… very serious…”

“Or perhaps I could just pay the fine here.”

“Oh,” feigning surprise, “yes, I think I understand what you mean. I suppose that might be possible.”

At this point I was rather sick of it, but also not really sure whether the knife thing was a big deal. I figured probably not, but since it wasn’t the standard traffic offense I really didn’t have a feel for it. I suspected throwing them a few bucks would settle the matter, and decided I was ready to be done with it and back to the comfort of the states.

I opened my wallet, unsure of how much cash I actually had left, and found two U.S. twenties. I pulled them out and offered “this is all I have, maybe it will do?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” he pondered. “…very serious offense. Maybe $100 would be ok.”

I thumbed through my wallet a little more and actually found another twenty amongst the small Mexican bills. “How about $60?”

He thought some more.

“And you can keep the knife. It is very nice, as you can see.”

“Ok, I guess that will be alright.”

He handed me my license, and I handed him the cash. He looked around, and in a very stereotypical manner discreetly proclaimed “None of this, uh, ever happened”.

Right…

I quickly headed for the border, and took one last look at their truck before turning toward home. I imagined them sitting there laughing about the stupid gringo they just got $60 out of. That’s a lot of money in Mexico! I pulled up to the end of the line for the border, and let my breath out. Did that really just happen?

In retrospect, I feel like I should have pushed back harder, as I really don’t think there was much behind their allegations. I’d read about this practice, and knew the ‘rules’ more or less. And I know caving in to it just encourages them to do it more.

But when you’re in the middle of that type of situation, it’s pretty hard to do everything right. Honestly, at the time I was pretty happy to have gotten out of there down only ten minutes, $60, and a knife I’d originally found on the ground.

Besides, how often do you get a chance to bribe the cops?