corruption | Checkpoint

we hitchhiked from St Louis to Dakar and passed by 3 corrupt police checkpoints along the way.

Every time it went the exact same:
Police would pull us over
Police officer walks to our car and asks for some papers, our driver gave him the papers, they exchanged some words and the police officer would walk back to his police post.

Our driver would then put 1000 CFA (€1.50) inbetween some papers, get out of the car and walk over to the police officer to hand him the papers.

Police officer takes the papers, takes out the money and then hands the paperwork back to our driver after which we were free to go

Our driver explained that "this is just how things go in Africa" and that if you don't give them some money they'll find something wrong with your car and fine you instead.

I'm not saying you should start bribing police officer, just sharing our experience of how we've seen locals deal with these corrupt check points.

Funnily enough none of the checkpoints seemed to care about us being in the car, they didn't even ask for our passports.

Report Check-In

We did twice the West drive at a sand piste, starts in the south diagonal to the main road. Very easy driving.
Drive through the end, were you can go on another Sand road in town, get right there.

Report Check-In

This one was easy to bypass on a gravel road west of the coordinates.

Report Check-In

Just pass... but saw them... they everywere, if you are stoped, be prepared...

Report Check-In

attention contrôle police corruption
nous avons un 4x4 pick-up avec une cellule
Le policier dit que ce n est pas légal au Sénégal
Ne pas payer !
nous avons présenté permis international, carte grise et assurance.
ils nous ont laissé repartir mais surtout ne pas payer car c est de la corruption
nous ne sommes pas en infraction

Report Check-In