[pelle]

I've never bribed anyone but have lived and travelled extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. I've never paid a bribe, but have been close to it on a couple of occasions. I have generally avoided it by playing a dumb tourist or talking Danish to them. (I'm fluent in Spanish) but from Denmark.

It depends really much on how you travel. I don't know anything about you, but from the sound of it my guess is you backpack. If you're a backpacker, you probably don't have a problem as cops rightly don't see you as a good source of income. If you look really touristy you're probably fine as well most places.

If you're a resident expat, traveling in your own or a rented car you're right smack in their target market. And yes anyone can tell the difference between backpackers, tourists and expats. If you hang around in any expat watering hole you will hear all the worst stories (likely somewhat exaggerated by Rum).

[psykotic]

Yeah, playing dumb has always worked for me when I was on my own, even when I was at fault. With my wife in the car, we've paid heavily discounted "spot fines" a few times when caught speeding, fitting the pattern of small-scale corruption he describes here. I'm sure there are cases where the cops will think nothing of making up infractions whole cloth to shake you down, but I haven't run into that personally.