Thieves, thugs, pickpockets and drug wars

The police in Mexico are almost all crooks. Lots of them also drive taxis so most of the taxis drivers are also crooks. One of the favorite scams by taxis in Mexico is to pretend that their taxi won't start and that they need you to get out and help push start it. Then when you get out to push they just drive away with all your luggage in the trunk. The cops will stop people on the street for legitimate offenses like speeding and shake them down for as much fine as they think they can get out of the person. That is semi legit in my opinion because the person was breaking the law and they paid a penalty for it, the cop pockets the penalty which is a problem in my book but such is life. What I don't like is when they falsely accuse people of "crimes" just to shake them down for money and the cops in Mexico do it all the time, especially near meal times so they can buy a good meal with the shakedown funds. Mexico is not alone in this type of extortion tactics, almost everywhere in Central and South America, all over Africa, India, Asia and lots of island countries have the same problems. It is just much more accepted as a way of life in Mexico than it is anywhere else in my experience. There is police crime in the States too, it is just more subtle or large scale.

I needed to get my camera fixed and I mailed it to the factory for the work. I used my American address for the return of the camera but the company mistakenly sent it back to me in Mexico. I waited for months when I found out that they had shipped it to Mexico never expecting to receive the camera back. I went out and bought a new camera. Then one day there was a knock on the door and two customs men were at the door with a big smile on their face. They told me that they had my camera but that I had to pay duties on it. They handed me my camera and I took the camera out of the already opened box. Then they told me that I owed six hundred and fifty dollars duty. I protested and asked them why so much. They showed me the original receipt from when I bought the camera, a computer, an I-pod and some other things. They thought that the total at the end of the invoice was what the camera cost. I corrected them on their error and pointed out that this was just the camera at twenty nine dollars on the invoice and not the entire list of things. They realized their mistake and wanted the camera back but I had already sent the camera off with a friend of mine while we were talking. They got pissed off and started to scream at me that they were going to jail me. Then one of them turned to the other and they started to verbally fight with each other. They ended up just walking away. I got my camera back and paid no duties. I did not actually owe duties since the camera started in Mexico and was not being imported but rather it was merely being returned to Mexico. The two guys thought that they were going to get a bigger payout than they thought the camera was worth to them when they saw the invoice and they got too greedy so they ended up with nothing. It isn't very often anybody comes out ahead when dealing with these guys but I was lucky.

I went to the market with a bunch of students one day. I gave them the talk about thieves and pickpockets and showed them how to carry their valuables without losing them. I also told them that if anybody bumped into them then they were getting pick pocketed at that time. It is very important to protect your personal space when traveling. We tried to stay together so that I could watch out for trouble. In the crowd I got separated from them by only about fifteen feet at one point. I tried to close the gap and the little old ladies in front of me tried to cut me off. I realized right away that we were in the middle of a large group attack on us from pick pockets. I pushed the old ladies out of my way (I knew they were involved in the pickpocket ring) and I yelled at the girls in front of me to get out of there quickly and away from these old ladies. One of the girls with us saw me push the little old ladies out of the way and she got angry at me for being so cruel to the sweet little old ladies. She yelled at me for being paranoid about thieves and helped the sweet ladies I had just pushed aside. I just told her that I knew that the group of sweeties were organized thieves and she got even angrier at me. Then a couple of minutes later she let out a loud piercing scream. She was going to buy something and reached into her bag for her wallet but her bag had been slit open by those sweet little old ladies that she helped and all of her money and cards were gone now. The women had slit her bag with a razor blade and reached inside to take everything while this girl helped them after my encounter. The little old ladies were no where in sight now, instead there were a bunch of large men surrounding us. I figured the men were also part of the ring so I got out of there and convinced the girls to come with me. When the girl realized that I had been right about the thieves she got really angry at me. I knew it was transferred anger from her getting ripped off so I didn't let her get to me. I offered to loan her some money until she could get some more from her parents back home but she was too stubborn to allow me to help her. She learned a valuable lesson about judging books by their cover that day. Even sweet looking little old ladies can be thieves.

There was always the threat of assault and robbery in Mexico. I never had it happen to me but that is just the luck of the draw. Many of my friends were beat up and robbed. To be fair, most of them were stinking stumbling drunk or stoned when they had their little encounters. Most of these types of crimes seem to happen at night and the crooks look for people that are weak, drunk and alone. They usually work in small groups and make sure that they have an advantage in size and numbers of people. It is safer to travel in larger groups or only in "approved as safe" taxis when out at night in Mexico and in almost all places in the world for that matter.

There are ways to minimize your chances of being victimized. Number one is do not get intoxicated in public. Number two is stay away from known areas of high crime. Then there is the use of safe taxis instead of driving yourself. Have a trusted local work with you as a guide. Do not engage with strangers on the street as they usually are distracting you so that their buddies can sneak up behind you. Never walk on the inside of a corner when walking around a blind corner, always stay away from blind spots like that. Also watch out for doorways or the spaces between buildings or alleys. If you are walking along a side walk, walk on the street side not close to the buildings but be careful of cars and motorcycles grabbing things from you as they drive by. Do not let people walk behind you. Do not approach a group of people on the street ahead of you. Cross the street whenever there is something suspicious on your side of the street. Be alert. Listen. Do not trust anybody you do not know for sure or that you just met. The worst crooks are all sociopaths that appear to be really nice until they strike. There is more to it but I hate to lecture on things like this. Crime is everywhere not just in Mexico. Street smarts are a necessary evil in life. I would prefer to be able to trust people but my life experience has demonstrated over and over again that it is just not wise to trust people.

In all of Mexico but especially in the northern border areas there is also the drug violence that you have to be careful about. Do not ever take a picture of anything that even remotely looks like drug activity or you are likely to be killed. A Mexican friend of mine took me to an airport in Mexico where there were planes from Columbia landing about every forty five minutes. The planes were being unloaded by soldiers and the drugs were being transferred to military trucks right out in the open in plain sight. I wasn't thinking and did a quick look around and saw nobody near us so I pulled out my camera thinking I could take a hip shot of the activity. As soon as the camera was out of my pocket a man tapped me on the shoulder and shook his finger at me to indicate no pictures allowed. I meekly put the camera back in my pocket and the two men who seemed to appear out of nowhere stood behind us until we left a couple of minutes later. We were lucky that they did not do anything to us. Not everybody is so lucky. There are thousands of people that are dead right now for doing things as simple as what I stupidly did with my camera. Be careful at all times around any military or paramilitary looking people. You never know which side they are on and they don't know which side you are on so either way you can end up dead.

Some of my friends were driving down to Ensenada from San Diego and they crossed the border into Mexico around four thirty in the morning while it was still dark out. A few blocks from the border they were stopped by "police". They pulled over in their two new full sized extended cab pickup trucks loaded up with all their toys like scuba gear, surf boards, camping gear, fishing tackle, electronics and cameras, as well as the water craft they were towing behind them and tons of other things. The police ordered them out of their trucks and made them walk over to the cliffs along the ocean and forced them to jump over the cliff. They were lucky because they landed on a ledge unhurt but by the time they crawled back up the cliff their trucks and everything were gone. They were lucky to be alive. They walked back to the American border and the border guy that just checked them through less than an hour earlier told them they could not reenter the States without their I.D.s which were stolen along with everything else. After a long begging stint they were allowed back in but only because the guard told his superiors that he remembered them entering Mexico an hour earlier. I hate to hear things like this because there is not much you can do to protect yourself. Do not drive at night. Do not have more than you are willing to lose with you. Do not stop in dark areas even if it is police pulling you over. Stay near other people and travel in caravans of as many people as you can to try to prevent them from being able to do like they did to these friends of mine. Life can be tough sometimes.