Corrupt police | 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.

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Still corrupt, so be prepared:
Give just International driving licence, wear shoes (NO sandals or flipflops), on roof everything tight strongly up, all lights are working.
Discuss, when the try to find something.
At the end, I started for asking for his Name, police number and wanted to show him the Website with the Anti- Corruption sheet (link see more down below).
We could drive, without paying.

Tip:
Try to get behind 1-2 trucks, then you will not seen before and they normally stopp the trucks.

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Same as other, I was stopped for speeding that I wasn’t and the police asked for 200 euros in euros, I show them that I had about 50 euros only in francs, they took the money and let me go.

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Still there, still corrupt. Tried giving us a 6,000 CFA ticket for bags in the backseat. They wrote the ticket and everything, but eventually distracted with lots of questions about life and such and they let us go.

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stoped me, find a break light and start to ask money, or a ticket to go back 30km... try to argue, but he takes my documents... pay 6000chf to continue...

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Still corrupt. We made a big thing there, because we didnt want to give our driving license. We showed them all reviews, had to go the commander. We have a Senegalese friend who called the commanders boss, so they were suddenly very friendly and let us go. We talked to other tourists on the spot, they've paid 12k cfa as well. They told us its 'normal' on this spot. We made a report on https://www.senegel.org/en/report-a-bribe

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They tried to charge us for speeding. Policeman was really unfriendly. After I had a seat on policeman chair in shadow and waited. They where not lucky about moving to there place. (Next step would be brewing coffee there, for all) Then I asked for name and officer number. Then they let us go without payment. We gonna fill now the senegalese anti bribe form online.( www.senegel.org)
Recomend everyone concerned of bribe, to do the same.

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contrôle intérieur du véhicule uniquement
meme pas demandé les papiers !

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Also got charged 6k for speeding. We’re were maybe going a little fast so didn’t argue

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Maybe we met a different guy, but he was firendly and professional. He asked the drivers' licenses, insurance and registration certificate of our motorbikes. No issue and after 2 minutes we were done.

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They asked to see my driving license and insurance. But didn’t return my passport. Said they gave it back to me but they didn’t. He then pointed to the floor (2 m in front of the bike) and said it’s there. Interesting how it got there.

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We were stopped and fined here both times we passed. Once 3,000CFA for "arrangement of luggage" (bags on back seat) and 6,000CFA for overtaking
on a solid white line, which was more legitimate except it was a very slow-moving lorry and we were in a long queue of other cars also overtaking which were not stopped or fined. Both times the Gendarmes were very hostile in rapid French and held onto my driver's licence. We eventually understood that we had to take the paper slip they'd written out about 1km to the Commissariat building (not the Police Station about 200m next to it), to enter the office "1 person only" to pay the fine and return to the Gendarmes to swap the receipt for my licence.

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We've been past this checkpoint for the third time in a week. We were stopped just once. They only glanced at our passavant for the car and let us drive on 30 seconds later.

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We got stopped and scammed by this guy today... he's still there so it seems...
stupid enough we gave him our driving license and he didn't want to give it back before we payed the 12k
Anyway, expensive lesson to not always trust the police in Senegal...

Other travelers had the same issue today but took the driving license back and drove away without paying

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Took only half an hour to wait him out. Smile, don‘t get scared and talk a bit about Senegal. He seems to love to share information about Senegal.

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Were here today... we have just been waved through- no problems at all

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Just outside the police HQ. Corrupt checkpoint. Claimed I was speeding. For once I wasnt as bike was in all kinds of trouble! No amount of talking was getting away from this. Eventually paid the 'on the spot' infringement fee of 12k CFA.

He was incredibly bold. And was stopping every car that looked like it had cash.

It was 5pm at night. If I wasn't pushing for time to make the Zebrabar before sunset I'd have waited him out!

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