A scandalous investigation is underway at the Indonesian immigration service. The injured tourist uncovered a new trick of the customs officers, with the help of which they began to extort bribes from tourists. As the victim stated in an interview with local media, the customs officer tried to extort from him an astronomical amount of 600,000,000 local rupees, or almost $6.3 thousand, but in the end the tourist had to part with $430 (i.e., with an amount of just over 35 thousand rubles for our money).
What is wrong with the tourist? Upon arriving on holiday, the injured tourist from Taiwan said he was stopped by an official while he was queuing to clear customs declarations in the arrivals hall. He was accused of taking pictures in line, which the officer said resulted in an on-the-spot fine of IDR 600,000,000 – about $6,300. The tourist admitted that he took pictures – however, according to him, he filmed the lines for the taxi driver, “to explain why they are late.”
However, the situation quickly aroused suspicion among the tourist – for two reasons at once. First, he saw that the customs officers tried to do exactly the same fraud with another tourist from Burma. After that, the Taiwanese was taken to a separate room to discuss the fine, where the customs officer began to bargain, which further assured the tourist that this was a fraud. In the end, he paid the sum of $430 to get out of there – after which he told his story in the Taiwanese media and turned to officials.
“It looks like this is a massive scam and they are cashing in on tourists. Taiwanese officials should help tourists who find themselves in a similar situation,” the tourist called out.
Let us recall that Russians are also well aware of customs fraud. So, “long-term” tourists in Thailand, practicing “vizaran” have already become a “cash cow” for Thai border guards. The mechanism, as the victims explained, is simple – tourists are released from Thailand – in this case, to Malaysia, but Thai border guards refuse to put reverse entry stamps, arguing that border run schemes are prohibited, however, tourists are unambiguously hinted that a small a bribe will solve the problem. As the injured tourist stated, as a result, the new stamp cost her 800 baht (about 1,600 rubles) per person – the couple had to cry that, they say, they had almost no money left. Other “victims” received bribes of up to 30,000 rubles per person, or about 15,000 baht. Read the details at this link.
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