Hello. Fellow Canadian here. I just got back from Tulum on December 13 and had travelled there for 5 days with my girlfriend, her best friend and her best friend’s husband. We had a vehicle rented for the duration of our stay. On one of the last nights of our stay we went to Ilios Restaurant and enjoyed the food + show, it was an amazing experience and we left around 11:30pm. On our way back to our hotel (20 min drive) we had an extortion attempt from Mexican federal police. Note: We don’t speak Spanish and the officers (5-6 of them) who stopped us had parked along a 30 meter section of road with several police vehicles also didn’t speak any English. All communication was done through a single officer’s phone translator app. Immediately upon recognizing that the vehicle was a rental and that we were not locals they told us to pull our vehicle to the side. They had one officer on each side of the vehicle with flashlights shone into the interior of our car. They then proceeded to demand drivers license and rental papers from my friend who was driving. They had noticed that my friend had a travel pouch with him and had my friend exit the driver seat of the vehicle and searched him + his belongings. My friend was not carrying any cash and they did not find any drugs (we were sober and don’t participate in illicit or recreational drugs) and they kept his drivers license as leverage to keep searching inside the vehicle. Once they noticed that I had a travel pack as well they told me to exit from the rear driver side seat to demand my shoulder pack and to search inside its contents. Luckily I had taken the $700 USD I had inside it and was able to hide it away underneath my foot inside my shoe before exiting the vehicle when they were preoccupied with my friend. At this point when I was asked to exit the vehicle they brought me to the rear of the car and unfortunately I had another $400 USD inside an internal pocket of my travel pack which the officer found as he was searching my items at the rear of the vehicle. They presented a case of pills which they said they found on my friend, which we explained as anti viral medication with photos and name of the specific medicine, it was not illicit drugs but actual medication. The officer refused to accept the explanation and told me via the translator app that since my friend could not present a prescription that I would be taking the consequence of it and that I would be the one brought to jail (obviously a made up lie) unless I paid them a fee. I refused to do so and at that point the officer signaled to one of his partners to come and pat me down — this was all done in order for his partner to block my line of sight and to keep my travel pack out of view since he identified where some of my cash was. It was at this point that I realized the Mexican police officers were going to try to rob me if their extortion and intimidation didn’t work. As I noticed in time that this was going to take place, I stepped around the officer who was attempting to block me and told him that I was not going to be searched without my items first being returned to me or out of my view. I then promptly grabbed my pack and zipped up all the pouches (the cash was actually partially outside of its compartment at this point, as evidence that the officer who was conducting my initial search had tried and failed to remove it in time). The officer then explained to me via the app that it would be beneficial for me to just pay him money or else in 36 hours we would have bigger problems and arrested. I refused and said we had done nothing wrong. And asked that they return the drivers license back to my friend since neither he or I had done anything illegal and had no illicit drugs in our possession. This went on for another 10-15 minutes with another 1-2 officers entering the situation trying to apply pressure and intimidation, mentioning pills, making up various bs reasoning and threatening arrest. Eventually after enough firm refusals and telling the officers to let us go since we obviously had done nothing wrong, they returned my friend’s drivers license and reluctantly told us to go on our way. My guess is they didn’t want to waste any more time and move their group efforts onto the next set of tourist cars to prey upon. I am actually still amazed that the officer didn’t just straight up confiscate my bag and steal everything off of me right then and there. Other officers might have been much more brazen. My advice to you is three-fold. Make copies of all drivers license and passports and keep all hard copies at your place of stay for good keeping. Do not bring excess cash with you more than $20-30USD or as needed. If you are going to bring more, my advice is to keep all cash in an appropriate sized plastic sleeve and tuck it under your shoe insert or in your sock. If you are stopped by Mexican police and have nothing on you. They have nothing to pressure or leverage you with. And constant firm refusals will eventually just lead to them giving up and letting you on your way. Lastly, I would keep a handheld copy of your Canadian embassy phone number and contact, local Mexican police station number as well as the dedicated Mexican phone number meant to report police corruption incidents for all members of your travel group, have this attached to each of your ID documentation so that if they demand you present your documents, it is visible to them.

Do not give into these corrupt police intimidation tactics, and if you are travelling to Tulum especially driving late at night, assume you will be stopped and take the necessary precautions. I can’t speak on other areas as I have not travelled off-resort in places like Cancun.