Crime, Safety, and the Police

The shakedowns seem to happen a lot at night, like Headache's post of 1-24-04.

Headache,

Can you clarify what time of night that happened to you?

What were you wearing? Maybe you looked like someone who'd have money, so they targeted you. How many times have you gone before?

Do a Forum Search for "cops" etc & read some previous posts on what things you could have done to avoid those situations. Hearing about these shakedowns is really discouraging.

Also, you may want to activate your Private Message feature in the User Control Panel to allow people to contact you thru the board without cluttering up the forum.

Headache, did you file a complaint with anyone? Under the street walkers forum I posted a link to TJ"S internal affairs division where you can post your complaint, along with some phone numbers.

Headache, sorry for your lost.

Amigos. This is easily avoided. Carry your license, cash and what ever vitamin 'v' you plan to use. Being an old man of 40yo, I can pretty much preidict whether I'm going to pop 1,2, or 3 times in an eveing. I multiply each pop by $100 and that's all I carry. It gives me enough cash to get a room, beer, food, tips for the dancers and of course getting laid. I can do an AB girl, SG or none at all. So when if I ever get jacked by one of pinche federales, policia or wanna be's they can get what I have on me but no more. If I ever needed 30 pesos to get back to the border I know a few people that would help me out or I'd just walk.

There's no need to carry ATM cards into TJ.

Cruiser

Headache,

Interesting report re Tijuana Police! The Monger's first post documents a TJ police robbery. The incident lacks specifics as to why this fela was stopped? how much money was taken in cash? How much money was withdrawn from ATM and at what location? Most ATM usually allow $300 or $500 maximum per day. That would mean TJ police took at least $500-$700 from monger's pockets in addition to the ATM withdraws? Nor, any description of how many officer's were involved or their Patrol car information. Stopped South of Hong Kong and Adelaita Bar? That is rather vague...AD & Hong Kong are not located together! While these incidents do happen, until I hear it from regular poster's, I am a bit skepitical. I have been going to TJ for over 1.5 years at all kinds of different times and I have never been stopped. I always take taxi from and to the border. Only walk between AD & CC and to the Alley and that is it. The board recommends to take less money and always hide it on your person. May be credit/ATM cards are not a good idea to take to TJ!

Don't worry guys, its a troll:

"Friday night, the Tijuana police stopped me in the back street south of the Hong Kong club and Adelitas, tooked my ID and forced me in the back of the police car. There was another police car behind but no non-Mexicans around."

The 'back street' south of HK and Adelitas is the Alley. As we all know, the Alley is closed to automobiles, due to big holes in the road, not even police cars can get in there now. Just forget about it.

Headache is full of shit.

You guys have to take all these stories about shakedowns with a grain of salt. I'm from Orlando and my knowledge of Zona is still very vague but yet I wander the street pretty much at will.

I was just in TJ this past week and and stayed there overnight for 3 nights, Thur, Fri and Sat. Me and Gekko stayed at the Cascade 2000 (which is right in the alley) Thur and Fri. Those 2 nights, I freely roam from HK to AB to CC over and over without a real concern for any type of shakesdown.

I spent from Sat 6pm to about 2pm Sunday at the Cascade 2000 by myself and there wasn't any fear on my part. The whole time, I must have went back and forth from my room to the clubs numerous times.

I mean I wore all all type of attires from hockey jerseys to dress shirts and the police never gave me a second look.

Now remember I am not a regular in TJ. Gekko showed me around on Thur and Fri and I wander freely on Sat by myself.

I'm not saying all the stories are BS but take them with a grain of salt. don't believe evrything you read. Mind your own business and the streets of TJ are pretty safe.

a cab driver this weekend initiated a conversation about the police. he saw an off-duty cop in a nice car and with no prompting from me began railing against the police, calling them thieves. he recounted the recent story about a policeman [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord125][CodeWord125][/url] a female tourist while other officers were taking her husband and 9 year old son around to atms. apparently, this story has gotten a lot of publicity in tijuana as well as the us, and there is a fair amount of outrage in tijuana about it.

the cab driver also said that in the local news media there have been a lot of admonishments or advertisements imploring tijuana citizens something to the effect of "respect the tourists, for is it your money at stake."

he further said that in the past few weeks tourism has been way down in tijuana. he, and i suspect a lot of merchants in tijuana, atrribute this to the problems with the police. i told him he is probably correct, as many americans do not go to tijuana out of fear of the police, especially with the recent publicity over the horrifying [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123][CodeWord123][/url] incident. he agreed.

police corruption in mexico is a deep-rooted problem that will not be solved anytime soon. but i take it as an encouraging sign that there is an awareness in the media and among people there with a stake in tourism that it is effecting them. it is only with sustained societal and political pressure and action that the problem will be lessened. i think the tijuana police will be under more political scrutiny, at least in the short run. maybe this will have some effect, maybe make some of them less brazen. then again, the real problem is the paltry wages that the police receive, averaging about $300 a month.

i bet that the group most upset about the tourist [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord124][CodeWord124][/url] is probably the police themselves. this was way beyond the pale and has brought all of them under more scrutiny, thereby making their more common and accepted shakedowns more risky to their careers. i think the tijuana police culture is accepting of the bribery and shakedowns, but [url=http://isgprohibitedwords.info?CodeWord=CodeWord123][CodeWord123][/url] i do not think so.

Lee,

The minimum wage in Mexico is only between $4.00-5.00 a day--yes, a day. So there are a lot of Mexicans working full time and making even less than your acquaintance's $60 a week. Of course, even allowing for lower rents and other living costs in Mexico, one cannot really live on these wages. Mexicans making these wages tend to live in sub-standard housing that would not even be allowed to exist in the United States and tend to share that housing with many others.

The difference is that if you are a cop, you have the ready opportunity to supplement your income by abusing your power. Human nature being what it is, it is utterly predictable that paying someone a non-livable wage while placing them in a position of power would result in corruption. This is true of any society anywhere in the world. Add in the Tijuana police's constant interactions with economically more fortunate Americans, who not only tend to have more money but some of whom also generate resentment by behaving arrogantly, and you have the perfect recipe for a police culture of corruption. It's just inevitable.

There is corruption among our police in the US, but nothing like Mexico in terms of shaking down individuals whom they come across because of minor incidents or crimes. No rational American police officer in any major American city is going to accost a tourist and take him to an ATM to withdraw money. This petty corruption is not worth the risk because such police officers, while not highly paid, at least make enough wages and benefits to live a middle class lifestyle.

Of course, I do not want to create an erroneous impression. I think Tijuana is basically safe, and I go there all the time. I have been there 100+ times and been stopped by the police only once and, while this was a disconcerting experience, they let me go without incident. Nevertheless, law enforcement corruption is an unfortunate reality that one must be aware of.

TJ Trip Report,

Crooked Cops

Well guys, I have been going to TJ for many years. Until now I have always believed that if you were careful you could stay away from the bull. I don't drink or drug and I am descreet , but my number came up.

I arrived in TJ at about 12 midnight on tuesday. I had a taxi drop me off at the corner near the entrance of the alley behind Adelitas. As soon as I got out of the taxi a young Mexican guy came up and asked me about the massage parlors. I declined and walked away. No more than 20 seconds later a patrol van pulled up and the police got out. They motioned me and massage parlor guy over saying the needed to talk to us. He followed me down the street after I got out of the taxi.

The police put us against the van and searched our pockets. They found nothing in my pockets and gave me all of my belongings and money back. Just as I was getting ready to walk away, one of the officers say what is this. It was a napkin that suddenly appeared on the street between me and the massge parlor hustler. They pick it up and open it. Yes, it is some kind of drug. The Mexican guy immediatly says don't worry about it, I will take the blame. Just give me $70 dollars.

To make a long story somewhat short they throw me in the van with this guy, that I believe is working with them. He then asks for $300. I say that I don't have it. He suggest that my freedom is worth that and wants to go to the atm. I tell him that I have exceeded my limit and all I have is what is in my pocket. I give him $100 and he asks for $20 more. The massage guy drops the money out of the slot in the door and the police return. They drive me down the street and let me out saying that I was in a very bad area and I should be more carefull. They say they are doing me a favor and letting me go. They say that they are going to keep the other guy in custody.

I know they were all together. It happended way fast. I did not spend 1 full minute on the street b4 they had me.

Take care guys. This could have been much worse. BE CAREFULL. Have the cab drop you off in front of Adelitas. At least you will get in to see some pun before any trouble comes you way. My feeling is they know if we are just arriving we have our ho money in our pockets. In my case they were right. This really left a bad taste in my mouth for TJ and the people in general.

BTW the customs does not get involved, they don't take a report nothing and the Mexican counsel asked for a written report and blew it off.

Happy Trails,

Double

The cops like to shake down people at night for some reason. Not sure, but I think it's because there is less people around. We all need to complain about the crooked cops.

Holy shit! That's a hell of a story and it hits home since I was in TJ 3 weeks ago and about one block south of Bar Taurino or whatever it's called (still not quite in Zona Norte), I decided to walk out in the street since there was a bunch of police action on the sidewalk. There just happened to be a guy walking in the street as well. One of the cops stopped us both and asked us if we were together. I said no, but was still stopped momentarily while the other guy was searched. They didn't do anything to me but it was disconcerting.

Look out fellas.

thanks for the heads-up.
police were pretty fucking scrutinizing of me lately, though i am not a likely criminal profile, no booze, corn fed and clean cut, maybe i seem a better mark for a similar scam. the degree of scrutiny (even for tj cops) seemed really friggin' strange so i left the immediate area.
i don't think all tj police are bad, but with an attitude of "i've been coming down here for years and nothing ever..." i would have been ganked on several occasions. i would have been pooped by the scam you encountered too though.
just curious, did you get any different response from the special "tourist" police when you went through your grievance procedures?

Team,

What has happened to TJ? I wish there was something we could do besides just wait for this police problem to go away. Very soon TJ is going to be dead and they will have to get these police in line. If noone is complaining, the people in power in TJ will not know what is going on and it will take something big to happen before it goes away. I don't know about you guys but I am not into sneeking in the shadows in another country hiding from the police. I would rather spend $150 in the USA and be safe. Fuck being throw into a TJ jail. What happens if we spend all our money on the girls then we get nabbed? No pay off money. I don't even want to think about it.

Peace

We must all develop strategies to avoiding being shaken down by cops:

All on this board should be advised that if someone asks you what time it is, it is only to make you stop long enough to give you a pitch about a massage place or worse. It is crucial to ignore all of these people and walk away as if you did not see or hear them. Consider the fact that if you stop to talk to a person, the cops can make up any number of stories and charges up. The post by Double exemplifies just how they can and will do this. I know how paranoid this all sounds. But as bad as things seem to be getting, I think it’s not a bad Idea to have a strategy to reduce your chances of getting taken by the cops.

After reading all of these recent reports of police shakedowns, I should consider myself extremely lucky. I got away with paying $25 on a bogus charge of taking pictures illegally in the zone (of buildings mind you). I truly believe that I was made a mark last time because I did not dress down, and because I had a digital camera which is considered a luxury item in Mexico. When I was shaken down on my last trip, I got really lucky because the cop did not look inside my wallet. I don’t think that they will make that mistake twice.

For future visits I plan to follow a few extra precautions. I won’t bring any Credit or ATM cards. I will dress down as much as I can, without looking like a bum that won’t be let in the clubs (kind of hard to do). I also plan to invest in something that will allow me to stash my money away from sticky fingers, and crooked cop eyes. I will take the Taxi Libre right to the door of the AB where I can jump out of the cab and into the club (no barkers or cops hang around there). From there I will proceed with caution to the alley.

With regards to dressing down, I think that old and dirty tennis shoes are one key factor. I remember one time that I wore a newer pair of shoes old man made the comment “nice shoes”. But it he did it in a tone that made me uncomfortable and self conscious. If he spotted this despite the fact that I was dressing down, then I’m sure anybody else can. So next time, it will be my oldest pair of dirty shoes. I also plan to carefully digging through my closet for the oldest and worse clothes I can find. In addition to increasing my efforts to blend in as much as I can, I plan employ a strategy of diminished exposure in terms of time spent walking around. I figure that the less they see of me, and the less I stand out, the better the odds are that they won’t bother to make me their mark.

Overall, I think that the key for all of us is to find a way to make ourselves harder to get when our pockets are full. We must also find ways to become less obvious about the fact that our pockets are full. Cops don’t stop everyone. Weather they like it or not, it does take them time to conduct a shakedown. So they will likely look for targets of opportunity that will present the greatest likelihood of having full and or deep pockets. The shakedown that Double went through exemplifies just how well the cops know our profile and MO. Double was targeted because the cops knew that there was a high probability that he had just arrived with lots of cash, just as I was targeted because of the camera I had.

It’s up to us to use this forum to study their MO to develop strategies for avoiding their shakedowns. I don’t think that I’m going to stop mongering in TJ any time soon. But I do plan to be a hell of a lot more careful. It sucks that instead of being afraid of being mugged by the “bad guys”, we are afraid of being shaken down by cops. Makes me grateful that I live in the US where LE corruption is the rare exception rather than the rule.

One other comment regarding ATM extortion rides:

The issue of cops and crooks both taking people on an ATM ride is nothing new, nor is it an urban legend. This issue has been featured on Mexican news programs. When the crooks do it, it’s called a mini-kidnapping. The person is taken and held until the bank account is cleaned out. Since the person is released after all of the funds are drained from the account, it is know as a “Mini” kidnapping instead of the regular kidnapping for ransom. In Mexico it is well know that cops often operate with criminal gangs, it is not a stretch to believe that they employ the same ATM tactics. I will agree that some posts have been a bit sketchy about details. But the fact remains that this type of extortion is well documented all over Mexico, especially in Mexico City/DF. So do leave home without your ATM, and American Express, etc, or at least leave them in your car.

Conejo

The first time I get scammed by the Tj cops will probably be my last time going to TJ. Ive been going on and off the past 12 years.

So far I Guess I can say I’m lucky.
I usually go alone and some times with one friend.
I always get there while its still light out usually around 5 - 6 PM I walk to Adelitas or one of the other near by clubs and have never had a problem yet.
I most the time just hang out in the Area of AB, Chicago and the back street where Hong Kong and Miami are, where there are lots of other people.
Id like to think that I’m pretty safe in the areas I stick to.
I’m thin, clean cut and dress nice and have not been screwed over yet by the TJ cops.

All the crap I keep hearing about the TJ cops is making me think twice about going it alone in the future but doubt this will stop me from going yet.
I guess all this will just make me be more aware of my surroundings.

And while were talking about TJ cops. During Christmas time I gave that Cop/Security guy “the older heavy guy" who is always there "front door adelitas". I gave him a $20. Tip On X-mas.
He now remembers me each time I visit, he always says hi to me and shakes my hand each time I show up.. I think I made a friend there with that little random act of kindness.

Maybe this will be beneficial for me one day in the future. And then again maybe not.