Americans detained in Mexico claim shake down

Has anyone else seen this? I head about it a couple of weeks and my bullshit meter pegged on the Americans' story.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/28/washington.grandfather.freed/index.html


This is the bullshit part IMO:

I tend to believe the Mexicans here..The guy wanted to pay $25 just to take their pictures? $25!? I don't buy it.
However, I have only been to Mexico once, so I have no idea what the culture is like... I did have a buddy who slipped across the border in Arizona for some "extracurricular (drugs)" activity. He was grabbed by the Mexican police, who he claims took all the money he had on him - except the 30 pesos he had in his boot - and tossed in him jail for a few days.

 

As someone who once paid $40 (a $36 fare -- I only had two $20s and was afraid to ask for change) for a 10-minute cab ride around six blocks of Juarez, I've got to think there's a kernel of truth in the Americans' story.
Oh yeah, and that was after going past the people holding coffee cans with red crosses on them wandering through the border traffic for "donations" like firemen on a pledge drive.

 

Having spent a considerable amount of time in Mexico I absolutely believe the American's version of the story. That type of shakedown is more common than you would think. Doesn't mean he's not a pervert

I know a former NFL beat guy who once expensed a $200 bribe after covering an NFL exhibition game in Mexico City.

 

Mexico seems scarier to me now than it did a couple months ago. Anyone else in that boat?

 

Yeah. No way I'd go back.

 

Absolutely scarier. At this point, going to Taco Bell is making me nervous.

 

It doesn't already?

 

Hell, I'm even avoiding chihuahuas.

 

I've been shook down by Mexican cops, but I have zero opinion as to the veracity of the story in question.

 

I paid the "toll" on the road to Monterrey more than once. Still worth it, but was before the drug war.