Police And Trouble :: Brazil travel discount, tours, hotel, tourist information

Brazil has a reputation as a rather dangerous place, both for people and their possessions. It's not entirely undeserved, but it's a subject that is often treated hysterically, and many visitors arrive with a wildly exaggerated idea of the perils lying in wait for them. While you would be foolish to ignore them, don't allow worries about safety to interfere with your enjoyment of the country. Certainly, if you take the precautions outlined below, you are extremely unlikely to come to any harm - although you might still have something stolen somewhere along the way

Robberies, hold-ups and thefts

Remember that while being a gringo can attract unwelcome attention, it can also provide an important measure of protection. The Brazilian police can be extremely violent, and law enforcement tends to take the form of periodic crackdowns. Therefore, criminals know that any injury to a foreign tourist is going to mean a heavy clampdown, which in turn means no pickings for a while. So unless you resist, nothing is likely to happen to you. That said, having a knife or a gun held on you, as anyone who's had the experience will know, is something of a shock: it's very difficult to think rationally. But if you are unlucky enough to be the victim of an assalto , a hold-up, try to remember that it's your possessions rather than you that's the target. Your money and anything you're carrying will be snatched, your watch will get pulled off your wrist, but within a couple of seconds it will be over. On no account resist: it isn't worth the risk.

The police

If you are robbed or held up, it's not necessarily a good idea to go to the police . Except with something like a theft from a hotel room, they're very unlikely to be able to do anything, and reporting something can take hours even without the language barrier. You may have to do it for insurance purposes, when you'll need a local police report: this could take an entire, and very frustrating, day to get, so think first about how badly you want to be reimbursed. If your passport is stolen, go to your consulate first and they'll smooth the path. Stolen travellers' cheques are the least hassle if they're American Express: in Rio and São Paulo they take your word they've been stolen, and don't make you go to the police.

If you have to deal with the police, there are various kinds. The best are usually the Polícia de Turismo , or tourist police, who are used to tourists and their problems and often speak some English or French, but they're thin on the ground outside Rio. In a city, their number should be displayed on or near the desk of reasonable hotels. The most efficient police by far are the Polícia Federal , the Brazilian equivalent of the American FBI, who deal with visas and their extension; they have offices at frontier posts, airports and ports and in state capitals. The ones you see on every street corner are the Polícia Militar , with green uniforms and caps. They look mean - and very often are - but they generally leave gringos alone. There is also a plain-clothes Polícia Civil , to whom thefts are reported if there is no tourist police post around - they are overworked, underpaid and extremely slow. If you decide to go to the police in a city where there is a consulate, get in touch with the consulate first and do as they tell you.

Drugs

You should be very, very careful about drugs . Marijuana - maconha - is common, but you are in serious trouble if the police find any on you. You'll probably be able to bribe your way out of it, but it will be an expensive business. Foreigners sometimes get targeted for a shakedown and have drugs planted on them - the area around the Bolivian border has a bad reputation for this. The idea isn't to lock you up but to get a bribe out of you, so play it by ear. If the bite isn't too outrageous it might be worth paying to save the hassle, but the best way to put a stop to it would be to deny everything, refuse to pay and insist on seeing a superior officer and telephoning the nearest consulate - this approach is only for the patient. Cocaine is not as common as you might think as most of it passes through Brazil from Bolivia or Colombia for export. Nevertheless, the home market has grown in recent years, most worryingly for crack cocaine, which is generally controlled by young and viscious gang leaders from the favelas of the major cities.

Be careful about taking anything illegal on buses: they are sometimes stopped and searched at state lines. The most stupid thing you could do would be to take anything illegal anywhere near Bolivia as buses heading to or from that direction get taken apart by the federais. Much the same can be said of smuggling along the rivers into Peru and Colombia: don't even think about it!