To begin, let's settle down a bit ...
Venezuela. A friend and I were loitering around in my car, in search of any place that could sell water to us during the shortage... We had decided to stop at one last mall before going to the house, and it was there we were intercepted by a motorcycle with two policemen on it.
“What do you study?” It was the first thing the officer asked us through the driver’s side window.
“Medicine and Engineering,” I answered.
“Park the car,” he said, and pointed to a place on the street a little further away from the crowd.
The police in this country are well-known to extort young students like us, so we were immediately alarmed about anything that could happen.
The police noticed the nervousness of my friend, who was just a little scared and tried to hide his phone in his pocket. After that, the attitude of the two officers was completely hostile toward us. Here, our rights started to cease to exist.
“Take off your shoes. Take off your shorts and boxers, give me your phones, and be quiet.”One of the officers began to search for alleged "drugs", a common reason to take money from a few unfortunate young people.
And so it was. We followed all his orders, confident that they would not find anything in the vehicle, and waited for them to let us go. At that moment, one of the officers seemed to find a reason to bother us. Checking my friend's phone, he found a conversation in which a certain "Douglas" was mentioned.
“Hey kid, who is this Douglas that they mention in this WhatsApp group?” the officer asked my friend, while smiling.
Apparently, according to these officers, there was a "narco-trafficker" named Douglas in the area, and they wanted to find him by any means possible. This excuse was the one they used to refuse to let us go, and take our phones and belongings without the slightest intention of returning them to us quickly.
One of the officers explained that they are going to take us to the station, and there they are going to look for all the ways to find “Douglas”, and that we are going to help them to capture him at his house.
We were in a difficult position, because on the one hand there was the situation of having to find a supposed drug trafficker and accompany the police (or uniformed thieves, as we say here.) On the other, we would have to convince the police officers to let us go, and knowing the country, would not happen easily, even though we committed no crime.
“Excuse me... there is not even the slightest chance that we will catch a supposed narco-trafficker that we do not even know, and even less so in my car. Is there any other way to solve this?” I asked calmly, already resigned to having to drop some money to let us go.
“$500 is what we want,” said one of the officers.
Let me explain the magnitude of this statement.. 500 American dollars in my country are equivalent to 300 monthly minimum wages: that is, 300 months of work to simplify the crisis we were going through. So no, there was no way I would accept that figure.
“I'm afraid that is something impossible to get, officer. I do not know anyone who can give me that amount of money. The maximum I could get is 20 to 50 dollars.” I said softly, in a victimized voice.
The officer proceeded became angry abruptly, raising his voice and saying that we would have to solve how to get the money, otherwise they would detain us. They ordered us to ride in the car while holding their weapons in a threatening manner, indicating that we would have to accompany them to the station. One officer got back on the motorcycle and the other in the back seat of my car, and they took us to the center of the city, one of the most dangerous places in the area.
After a while driving slowly through desolate streets with no exit, I managed to convince the officer to lower the amount a little, but it was still in the impossible range: $ 300.
Desperate, we agreed to a plan that the officer suggested. We would have to call all our friends on the loudspeaker from our cell phones, and we would have to tell them that we had had a traffic accident and that we needed the money to pay for the repairs of the other person’s car. It was a pretty basic and relatively credible story. Then, he told us that we would go to the station and that while we were there we would have to figure out how to get the money. If not, they would tell the police chief that they found us with drugs in the car. It’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?
That's how we ended up spending five hours at the police station, calling our acquaintances on loudspeaker while the police listened to us trying to get the money, and taking care that we were not going to say anything that could betray them. For my part, I managed to get $200 that a friend would bring me, but there was still $100 left, and the officer was upset with my friend for not getting anything, so he decided to call his father.
When my friend finally arrived with the money, the father of my friend arrived to find out what had happened. They never let us talk to him, until the moment they finally freed us three hours later.
When leaving the station, my friend's dad started screaming at us and asking what had gone through our heads. My friend and I still did not understand what had happened, and we asked him what the officer had said to him. It turns out that the officer told my friend's father that they had found us smoking marijuana on the sidewalk, and that without giving them money we would go to jail for drug trafficking. The father, obviously scared at that time, ended up paying 325 euros to let us out for our supposed drug trafficking! He understood then that it had all been a crime, but on the part of the police.
In the end, everything went relatively well. That is to say, we paid a lot of money, but at least my friend and I are still alive to tell about it! Others have not had the same luck in saving themselves from an encounter with the police.
While we were in the station, all of the policemen were searching in my car to see what they could steal, and used my debit card to buy juice for themselves. They showed us the cells full of murderers, thieves and rapists, and threatened us. They said that if we did not pay, we would be locked up for a long time, and that the inmates would probably like our company. All this caused an unimaginable horror, and was the reason we did everything possible to get all the money they asked for.