What Happens If Police Ask For a Bribe While I'm Traveling?

E: $200?! Ha! I'll give you $20. T: Oh god, we're gonna die.

Checkpoints, shakedowns, and bribes. Some travelers call it a rite of passage – the so-called “squeeze.”

Maybe one day I’ll see it that way too. But after years driving on Latin American roads, it was on Colombia’s Ruta 90 along the Caribbean coast that I finally got my taste of what it’s really like being behind the wheel when police ask for a bribe while you're traveling. Not once, but twice in two days!

Come to think of it, I wasn’t behind the wheel for long. Colombian shakedowns play out like theater, and if you’re at center stage, you’d be a fool to think you can just sit back and watch. The whole point of these theatrics – both literally and figuratively – is to get you out of the driver’s seat and into the game. Er, melodrama.

So, what do you do if you get stopped by the police while traveling and the police ask for a bribe?

If you take a road trip through Central America, South America, or parts of Africa and Asia, it's more than likely that you'll get stopped by police while traveling, especially if you're obviously foreign. Sometimes there's a legitimate reason for the stop, but if you know you didn't do anything wrong or it quickly becomes clear that the police are acting fishy, then you'll know you're in a shakedown.

Getting pulled over by police while on a trip can be scary. Read on to learn what you can expect from a police encounter on the road.

Quick Takeaways

• It's Just Business – It's intimidating, but try to remember it's not personal (lol)

• Negotiating is a Thing – If you're not carrying $2M USD, haggling is fine. In fact, it's expected.

• Laws for the Lawless – They'll say you broke a law. Think of it as an ice breaker.

• Bribes on the Road – Police in some countries are woefully underpaid, and use this highway extortion to supplement their meager salaries. It sucks.

My first thought was, ‘Man, I should have worn sunblock.’ That equatorial sunlight is fierce.

We were three hours into our four-hour drive from Cartagena to a tiny dot on the map that sits just above Santa Marta in the department of Magdalena. Minca is a pleasingly dingy bohemian micro town nestled about 2,000 feet (600m) above sea level against the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which also happens to be one of the highest coastal mountain ranges in the world (topping out at a whopping 18,700 feet (5700m) above sea level. Hippy cafés, hard-to-access ecolodges, screeching parrots, claustrophobic stone streets, and a noisy river – my kind of small town.

But getting there along Ruta 90 was an adventure unto itself. When we weren’t flying down the highway to keep pace with traffic, avoiding drivers who would force oncoming traffic to use the shoulder as they casually overtake enormous packs of vehicles, or dodging cross-dressing locals trying to make you laugh for tips, we were slamming on our brakes with everybody else, to avoid the infamous speed trap cameras that allegedly draw a fine for any speed over the posted limit.

The navigation app Waze knows where these cameras are so you won’t be caught unawares, but without cell service, you’ve got to learn pretty quickly what to look for.

I should say that the Ruta 90 highway is a well-maintained route with wonderfully wide paved shoulders – as much as another vehicle lane – on either side. Prepare yourself: You will spend at least some of your trip driving along the side of the road when oncoming passers/overtakers come sailing toward you in a lane that used to belong to you. We’ll get into much greater detail about the actual sport of driving in Colombia in another article.

Let’s get back on track. We’d nearly reached Tasajeras, along a strip of Ruta 90 slicing through a strip of land that separates an egret-infested lagoon from the Caribbean Sea. I passed a police checkpoint where a pair of cops were standing next to a motorcycle.

Less than five minutes later, I saw that signature green motorcycle in my passenger mirror, working its way up the right shoulder. When they were even with me, they signaled to pull over.

The first thing they did was ask me to get out of the car. You’ll read all sorts of things about whether or not you should step out. Some argue you should never get out of your car. I’m not convinced it makes a difference when it comes to negotiating, but hey, to each your own. I complied. If not for their neon green-trimmed motorcycle jackets with the National Police insignia, badges, and sidearms, these guys could have been ambassadors from the board of tourism.

We shook hands. He asked about my Spanish. (It’s so-so). How are you? How’s your trip? Are you liking Colombia? What do you think about our country? What’s the best part so far? Along with the standard questions a customs agent might ask: Where are you going? Where have you been? How long are you staying? What’s the purpose of your visit?

We chit-chatted like long lost friends. Then we arrived at the crux and the shakedown began. The senior officer took the lead, his tone never deviating from its friendly, casual nature.

"So, you probably didn’t see that school zone back there. Anyway, that’s a small problem for you. Safety is pretty important to us. "

Being my first shakedown, I simply pointed out that I’d been obeying all posted signs when he pulled me over. Claro. It’s easy to miss. You probably didn’t see the zone. So many signs, so many changing speeds.

Okay, so... I’m not going to reason my way out of this? Unfortunately, I really didn’t know where to go from there. Oh, shoot. Um. Sorry?

While the senior officer moved us along to the next phase of the shakedown, a phase we’ll call Gentle Punitive Threats, his partner stationed himself at the passenger window to chat up my wife. How old’s your baby? How are you liking Colombia? (If possible, this guy was even friendlier than his partner).

Oh, did I mention that the senior office had all our papers – passports, driver licenses, rental permitting? I remember reading once that this is the second big no-no when you’re pulled over. To recap: Never Exit the Car and Never Give Them Your Papers.

Those dispensing bribe wisdom often justify these no-no’s by declaring, “They do not have the right to…” But I’ve always wanted to answer that with, “Technically, I don’t think they have the right to ask for a bribe. But that ship has sailed, yeah?”

Call me crazy, but I like the idea of trying to maintain a smooth working relationship with an armed person in a position of authority. If the guy's got a gun and asks for your paperwork, you're pretty much going to give it to him.

So, there I am. He’s got all my info and that Colombian sun is beating down on my skin. Mr. Senior Officer really set the table by hinting at jail time, the towing of my rental, and cancellation of my passport. Obviously, I knew all that was as silly as it was unlikely, but we were rapidly plumbing the limits of my Spanish. Sure, I knew we were supposed to begin the final act – Negotiations – but I didn’t know how to get us there. Which made me nervous. And I think even my English would start to fall apart during a shakedown.

Was I supposed to start throwing around numbers? You know in the movies when somebody cuts the small talk and says, “So, what you do want? Money?” And the other guy gets all insulted, whips out his gun, drops a killer one-liner about criminal integrity, and puts two in my stomach.

We were standing at the edge of a lagoon. What if I said something wrong and these two guys dumped us all in the weeds? How are you liking Colombia? What’s the best part so far? 

Honestly, in retrospect, I feel kind of bad for the senior officer. The guy did everything he could to lead this old horse to water. He just couldn’t make me drink. I think he was just about as exasperated as me. He whipped out… his phone and called on your friend and mine, Google Translate. Gee thanks, Silicon Valley.

"I don’t really see a way to fix this. Unless you want me to help you? Do you want me to help you?"

I nodded like an idiot and said I did. He asked me to make him an offer. Finally! Just blurt a figure and we can be on our way. Except: What if I lowballed the guy? Bang! Bang! Bang! I shrugged and said I wasn’t sure. At this point, we’d been standing at the back of my rental for twenty minutes.

It was his partner who realized how fruitlessly dense I was being. And on cue, my hungry baby made her presence known. On some pretense of looking at our IDs and paperwork, the other officer reached into the driver’s window and placed all of our paperwork and passports on the dash. He tapped the senior officer on the arm and almost, almost rolled his eyes. The senior officer typed I’m not going to fine you. And they let us go.

Now, before you stop reading and steal a page from the chapter of my life entitled, He’s Really That Thick & Sometimes It Works, you may want to read further about the return trip on Ruta 90.

I’ll keep it short. We had a great time in Santa Marta and Minca. On our return journey, we made it approximately five miles shy of our first shakedown when I was pulled over doing less than 5mph in a traffic jam. This time, it was three cops, one of whom was a supervisor.

The script unfolded pretty much just as before, except my interlocutor this time was a serious pro. He didn’t beat around the bush. After we’d exchanged pleasantries, he named his price.

This time my wife, bless her, leaned out of the passenger window and told him that figure was ridiculous. There was no lagoon by the side of the road, but I immediately began to imagine something even more unsavory. But like I said, the guy was completely unfazed. He, after all, knew exactly how the game was played. The art of the shakedown isn’t about turning the screws so tightly that tourists raise hell or complain to anybody who might listen. It’s about working within the parameters of what’s just admissible enough to keep the scheme intact. God forbid some pasty-faced tourist were to write a long, boring article about a certain highway where shakedowns are prevalent.

He started at USD $190. The representative negotiating on my behalf – that sounds cooler than ‘my wife spoke sternly from the backseat of our rental... on account of my puckered bum’ – she told him we weren’t carrying that kind of cash, and the money we had was barely enough to cover the tolls.

In the end, she talked him down to about USD $25. I think she even asked for a receipt. Possibly as a joke. I’m still not sure.

I guess the takeaway from this meandering story is that, by and large, to the cops who engage in this sort of shakedown, it’s just business. Part of a shadow economy that’s as casual as breathing. As travelers from countries leveraging extremely favorable exchange rates, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise when it happens. I’m sure some who read this are laughing. In so many countries, haggling really is like breathing. Most Americans think the price is the price, and that negotiating is offensive to one or both of the parties involved.

The best practice is probably to just stay friendly, cut to the chase, do the deal, and get back to your adventure. You’re not likely to offend these guys by lowballing. Negotiating shouldn’t stress us out. Just keep it light. It’s also helpful if you’ve got a spouse who engaged in a fierce daily haggle over taxi fares during the four months she spent in Senegal.

One last word. Colombia is the first country in Latin American and the Caribbean to have adopted a novel vehicle safety inspection program wherein you may encounter checkpoints intended to ensure that the vehicle you’re driving has standard safety features like a fire extinguisher, seatbelts, etc. These checkpoints look a lot different than those manned by police in green uniforms. If you’re pulled over for one these, let them know you’re driving a rental car. They should let you proceed without actually conducting the inspection, but if they do - rental cars all come with the required safety kit in the back.

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