Tourist Accuses Tulum Police of Extortion and Gas Station Scam

Tulum, Quintana Roo — A foreign tourist has accused police in Tulum of extorting him over a towed rental car and said he was also scammed at a gas station, describing his trip as a nightmare that will keep him from ever returning.

In a post on Reddit, the tourist said he and his girlfriend visited Tulum from Aug. 5 to 9. He said the city felt like “a ghost town” and the trip was largely uneventful until the day before they were due to leave, when they saw a tow truck pulling away their rental car while they were having breakfast in the Veleta neighborhood.

He said he had parked on the street behind another vehicle, in the same direction of travel, with no visible signs prohibiting parking. The tow truck driver offered no explanations and told them to take the matter up with the traffic police office, the tourist wrote.

At the office, officers told the couple it was Saturday and they would have to return Monday — a prospect that alarmed them since their flight was the next day. After they sent their flight information via WhatsApp, an officer reviewed their passports, rental agreement and Airbnb reservation, then said he could help them recover the car that same day if they paid the fine in cash, without any receipt.

The couple did not have enough cash, so they were directed to an ATM. When they returned with the money, they were told the car was actually at the impound lot, a 20-minute ride away. Police drove them there and, according to the tourist, were suddenly very friendly after receiving the cash payment.

At the impound lot, a cashier demanded an additional 4,000 pesos for the tow — a charge they paid without protest just to get their car back. The tourist said they waited another 10 minutes and saw a row of unclaimed vehicles, including a Challenger and a Porsche.

The ordeal did not end there. Before returning the rental, they stopped at a gas station, where the attendant took the girlfriend’s card and claimed the payment did not go through. They scraped together cash to pay, but at the airport the girlfriend discovered the card had actually been charged — a loss of about $60.

“This was my girlfriend’s second time in Tulum and my first,” the tourist wrote. “We will not return in any way. Ever.”

The couple also described a separate encounter on the way to the Chichén Itzá ruins, where a man claiming to be a “representative of Mayan lands” tried to redirect them from the route suggested by their GPS, and later a police officer with a long firearm stopped them and asked for their passports. The tourist said those incidents were minor compared with what happened in Tulum.