Of particular interest in the Q&A were his tips for people attempting to travel across Central America with a boot full of illicit material and an Interpol notice to their name. If like me the majority of your experience with authoritarian checkpoints is limited to petty squabbles with nightclub bouncers, then McAfee’s words of wisdom will be particularly eye opening although, of course, they should be taken with a liberal pinch of salt. A titan of paranoia and self-aggrandisement, his recommendations paint a romanticised portrait of life as an outlaw on the dusty roads of Belize and Guatemala which entertain regardless of the truth behind them:
“Documentation is the polite word for ‘cash’”
McAfee is keen to stress the distinction between what we would call corruption – accepting cash bribes to look the other way – and what he calls a smoothly functioning ‘system’ – accepting cash bribes to look the other way. The key to this system is producing the correct amount of money, not too small and not too large, in order to avoid disrupting the delicate balance in place. Like a GCSE maths problem, the traveller must take into account traffic density, police rank and time of day when making his final calculations, so it is advisable for aspiring smugglers to keep a calculator alongside any weaponry in their glove compartment. If the above doesn’t work, a cold beer out of a cooler is the recommended back up option as, according the McAfee, the majority of police encountered at these checkpoints are little more than lazy simpletons.
“Remember: 50% of the police who stop you in some countries can’t read”
Exploiting low levels of literacy in the developing world is another powerful tool for easy travel. McAfee recommends that any cash handed over should also be accompanied with a hefty booklet, in his case an old camera manual with the cover taken off, to lend an air of authenticity to the proceedings. The guard will hopefully be dumfounded by the inanimate squiggles on the page and, believing that you are on important business, let you on your merry way. A polite smile and a wave is the last thing needed from you as you ride in to the sunset, chuckling away about this supposedly ingenious deception.
“The most powerful tool a traveller can possess is a press card”
If you come across a guard who appears to be mildly savvier than his cohorts a fake press card is recommended in lieu of the tattered instructions from your old Nikon. McAfee, with his boundless paranoia, claims to have dozens stashed across his vehicles, wallets and trouser pockets. Those who find themselves questioned as to the purpose of their travels are to say that they are doing a piece on corruption for an American newspaper and ask the police if they’d be interested in conducting an interview. Seemingly counter-intuitive for someone who wants to quickly get away from a checkpoint rather than hanging around, McAfee insists that this method is almost foolproof.
“Your car is your only avenue of escape. It’s a ton of steel capable of doing serious harm”
Should all else fail, it’s important to remember that you’re behind the wheel of a motorised battering ram. The aforementioned lazy checkpoint guard has no interest in losing one or several limbs and filing reams of paperwork in order to prevent your passage across his nation. He says that if you drive away, you’ll most likely be met with a collective shrug rather than a Fast and Furious escapade across the plains of Central America. It’s a shame really, as an explosive finale to McAfee’s 2012 flight from Belize to avoid questioning about his neighbour’s murder would have been far more exciting than the reality of his deportation back to the US. Now that he has settled down in Portland he’ll have little use for his assortment of tricks, but they just might give an entrepreneurial drug dealer the leg-up they need in order to thrive in the over-crowded marketplace.
Originally published on www.planetivy.com
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