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Armed robbery in Quintana Roo/Mexico.
We are travelling about 1 year in Mexico and met nothing else than friendly Mexican people. Unfortunately it seems there are also a few bad ones among them. On Feb 21st 2011 we were the victim of an armed robbery. When driving a 55km rather deserted road from Cafetal to Mahahual near Chetumal, armed bandits stopped us pretending that they were "policia" (they had a pickup that looks similar to a police car). When we saw that they were not police at all, I tried to drive away but under threat of a pistol, I stopped. One of the bandits with a knife and roll of duck-tape came along the left into the car and pushed me from my seat, another one (masked, the leader) with the pistol entered on the other side, they drove immediately away while a third bandit followed behind us with the pickup and we were forced to kneel on the floor. A few miles further, they want to turn back (a bit further was a military checkpoint, we learned later), they drove off track through plants, damaging the cover of the front wheel, and could not find the reverse gear. Then we kindly suggested that I could ride, there were curses and threats, but they agreed. While driving about 10 km, we heard them say to each other that they had to find a lonely side-road and they asked me repeatedly to slow down or speed up. Of course, we knew why and where that duck-tape should be used for. Meanwhile, they packed quite a few precious and expensive things. On several occasions I have given signals to oncoming traffic, but they waved friendly to me. When the man with the knife saw it, he threaded me with his knife, so I stopped doing it. Then I saw a big tourist bus coming from the other side and I waited until the last minute to start honking and dimming and I threw the camper before the bus. I jumped out of the RV and started waving and yelling. The guy next to me attempted stabbing me with the knife but I could prevent. My wife has tried to take off the stolen objects from the gangster with the gun, but in vain and has a couple of times been beaten with the gun (fortunately not as bad). I ran to the bus driver, who opened the window but when he saw one of the bandits had a pistol, he drove away immediately, but those bastards where so surprised that they jumped out of the RV and fled away with the pick-up.
We have been at the Police Station/Procuraduria de Justicia in Chetumal for 3 days for the declaration and reconstitution of the crime, for fingerprints and robot photos. They also have the license plate number. In the meantime we have contacted several other public services, but nothing happens. The only thing that we hopefully can count on, is the Insurance Company, because this robbery costs us a lot of money.
This is a true story, not some Indian story. We think that we were very lucky.
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