#91 – The Expat Files: Crime, Legal Challenges, and Life in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:03] Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America. The show that tells you what it's really like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. I tell it just like it is, not the version they give you in those glossy travel magazines, or the picture they paint for you in those international traveler websites, where they're only trying to sell you something. What's it really like for expats living in Latin America? Well, it's time to take off those rose colored glasses and find out. So let's get started. Some new Latin American crime statistics came out today, that proved to be rather interesting, since there's a lot of controversy and bad and good data out there on the subject. Now like I've said so many times in the past, Latin America, especially Central America,

[00:48] is very dangerous. The cities have a hundred thousand people or more. Now the thing is, you don't get many statistics on the cities with a hundred thousand or less down here in Latin America. All you get is the general big picture. And when you get that, it scares the bejesus out of you. Like for example, today's new crime statistics show that El Salvador and Honduras, in Central America of course, have the highest homicide rate using firearms of any country in the world, according to brand new United Nations statistics. They're saying that Honduras has 77 murders per 100,000 people each year, and El Salvador comes in at number two with 62 murders per 100,000 people per year. But you see, that doesn't tell you much of anything now, does it? What does that mean to you really? Now like I've often said, Central America, that's the countries from Panama up through

[01:34] Mexico, have about three or four times the average big city crime rates that you see for similar sized cities up in the United States. In other words, if you average all the big cities up in the United States, they have a population of a hundred thousand or greater. You're going to get about 10 to 15 murders per 100,000 people per year. So when you're looking at El Salvador and Honduras with 77 and 62 murders per 100,000 people per year, respectively, it looks like living in one of these countries is four or five times as dangerous than living in a big city in the United States. But if you look into it with any depth, you'll know that there's quite a bit of confusion among those statistics when you consider that the city of New Orleans in the United States has about 50 murders per 100,000 population. Now how much difference would it be living there in New Orleans than in Honduras, which

[02:20] has nearly the same murder rate? Or for that matter, living in St. Louis, Missouri, up in the States, where there's a little more than 40 murders per 100,000 people per year. Or living in Baltimore, which is running about 40 murders per 100,000, too, just slightly under the Honduras and El Salvador rate, just like St. Louis. But this week, now get this, Detroit in the USA has a murder rate of 110 per 100,000, which is nearly double the Honduras and El Salvador murder rate, the two most dangerous countries in the world when it comes to homicide, supposedly. Well let me give it to you guys just one more time. I'm talking about the true state of things, not the way they give it to you in lumped numbers and averages, the way they try to juggle apples and oranges for effect in the media. Okay, now pay attention to this.

[03:07] Living in a city over 100,000 people in Central America, with very few exceptions, is definitely going to be more dangerous than living in a big city up in the United States. But if you live in a city of under 100,000 in Central America, you'll find that it's just as safe as living in a small town up in the United States. And that's something you can almost never dissect from official statistics, because they lump in the population of a whole country. Then they divide out the number of the total murders per year per 100,000 people, then you get that statistic. Now down in Central America, if you walk into a municipality or a police station, in any small town of let's say 10,000 to 25,000 people, if you ask the cop sitting at the front desk when you walk in, how many homicides there were in the past year, in his little town he'll instantly be able to give you a number.

[03:54] They'll know exactly how many locals have been murdered and how many foreigners and tourists. For example, I was in Copan, Honduras a few years back, which has a population of about 5,000 people, and I asked one of the tourist cops about the murder rate down there, just how many murders they'd had in that little town. And he thought for a while, and he said, I think about 3. Now remember we're talking about Honduras, according to the latest statistics, the country with the highest homicide statistics in the world. And after the cop told me there'd been 3 murders, and I did a division, you know, 3 into 5,000, and then I extrapolated out to an imaginary 100,000 people to get a comparative statistic as to how many murders there would have been if there were 100,000 people in that little town. Not just 5,000. And for all you statistics nuts out there, all you do is multiply that 3 deaths by 20,

[04:42] and you get 60. Because statistically, it's become a convention for the media to pick 100,000 population as their basis. And little Copan only has 5,000 people, so you multiply their statistics by 20, because if you multiply 5,000 by 20, you get 100,000. The baseline. You got it? Is that clear as mud for you? Okay, let's move on. In other words, that little town of Copan had the equivalent of 60 murders per 100,000 per year, which seems to be in line with that new UN statistic, saying that Honduras is one of the top two most dangerous countries in the world. Remember I said Honduras is the most dangerous with 77 deaths per 100,000, and El Salvador is number two with 62 deaths per 100,000. So I'm in little Copan, Honduras, with 5,000 people, and the cop says they've got the equivalent

[05:29] of 60 deaths per 100,000 people per year. If you extrapolate the population out to 100,000, which the UN statistics always do. And then I said to the cop, you know, three homicides per year seems awful unusual for a little town of 5,000 people. And then he left and he said, no, not three murders per year. I'm talking about three murders since I've been on the police force, and that's been about 16 years. And that put a whole new light on the situation, because when you redo those calculations and divide by what I thought was 60 murders per 100,000 people, if little Copan had 100,000 people, anyway, you divide that 60 by 16 and you get 3.75 murders per 100,000 people, 3.75. Not 60 murders, like I said before.

[06:15] That turns out to be 16 times less than the country's average, because this cop was spreading the three murders that city had had over 16 years. Now, when you talk about 3.75 murders per 100,000, those are the kind of statistics you see for people living in cities up in Canada, and in some of the safest big cities in the US like Portland, Oregon, Mesa, Arizona, and Arlington, Texas, which have about a tenth as many homicides per 100,000 as places like Newark, New Jersey, Detroit, and Baltimore. And then as I was talking to this Barney Fife of a Cop in Little Copan, Honduras, which has, like I said, only 5,000 people, I finally got down to the nitty gritty and asked him, of those three murders, how many were tourists and how many were locals? And he said, none of them were tourists, but none of them were locals either.

[07:04] And I said, huh? And he said they all were Hondurans, but they were from San Pedro Sula, the biggest city in Honduras and one of the most dangerous in the world. About a three hour drive from Copan. So none of them were local guys, they were out of towners. Anyway, so that's how it goes in the small towns in Central America. Nothing to really worry about for tourists or expats. As long as they take the usual precautions that any visitor should take, keeping a low profile you know, no jewelry, and no dressing to impress, and definitely skip the iPods, the Blackberries, the Rolexes, and the Kindles. The basic things that I've mentioned so many times on this show before, because violent crimes and murders, though practically non-existent, in towns under 50,000 people. Even down here in Central America, where the first world media has really scared the wits out of people.

[07:49] Well even though there's barely any violent crime or homicides in these small towns and cities under 50,000, you still could be a victim of petty theft if you go flashing things around. Because this is the land of the haves and have-nots, and since I've learned my Spanish well enough to eavesdrop on so-called private conversations between cleaning ladies and maintenance men and gardeners, I mean many a conversation I guess I was not intended to hear. Well I've heard the same story quite a few times, when the local help are talking in private about their employer, and they'll often talk about stuff right in front of us gringos and expats, thinking we don't know enough of Spanish to figure out what they're saying, and usually they're right. But in my case, I can sometimes figure it out. When they think you don't understand him, they don't mind talking about a first worlder or a gringo or a European, who's had a thing or two gone missing from his house, and obviously

[08:37] it was the maintenance guy or the cleaning lady. I mean who else could it be, they're the only other people allowed inside the house that are not friends or family. And it's always the same when I hear the cleaning lady or the maintenance guy talking about such a petty robbery between themselves. They always seem to say the same thing, if he didn't want his watch or his DVD player or whatever stolen, he should have taken much better care of it. And then they'd usually say he must not have thought very much of it anyway, if he left it lying around like that. And anyway he's got two or three watches, so what does he care, if he's got three how is he gonna miss one? And if he wants another one, he's rich, he can always go out and buy one. And by the time I've listened to him a while, they've justified the whole thing in their minds because if you were in their shoes, you could hardly feel sorry for a guy that's 50 or even a hundred times more well off than they are.

[09:23] You get the idea. It's the justification of petty robbery by the have-nots. In fact my old buddy Expat Eddie told me of a case where he actually took one of his employees to court because he'd stolen a whole side of beef from Expat Eddie's restaurant. One of Expat Eddie's restaurants anyway. And Eddie actually caught him on camera at one in the morning, roping a frozen half side of beef onto his little 90cc motorcycle if you can believe that. Eddie showed me the video and it was hilarious. As he loaded it on the passenger seat the first time, the bike tipped over and the beef fell into the dirt. After a few more tries, he got it on the bike and as he took off, the center of gravity was so far back, he popped the wheelie and it fell into the dirt again. And now that frozen side of beef was covered with dirt and scum and looked like a frozen boulder.

[10:11] So anyway, Eddie has the proof on camera and he takes it to court. And unfortunately Eddie didn't bring his lawyer along because he thought it was simply an open and shut case because he had visual proof. Which Eddie learned later was a bad move because the thief with the little motorcycle in the meantime had filed a counter-suit against Eddie saying that Eddie hadn't paid him his last month's salary or his vacation pay or his alginaldo. Now the alginaldo is a once a year payment mandated to all employees by law. In some Latin American countries, it's an extra month's wages that you're supposed to pay your employees which is kind of like vacation pay because it's usually given right before the Christmas holidays when practically the whole country shuts down and everybody gets a week or two off. And around Christmas time, that's when the Latins are more broke than ever. Well Eddie figured since this guy stole the side of beef, which was worth more than this

[11:00] guy's salary for a month, he'd just take it out of the guy's salary and try to make an example of him in court to show that he wasn't a pushover so that his other employees, some of which he didn't trust much either, didn't get any big ideas themselves at one or two in the morning when Eddie wasn't around. But here's where things got tricky. Once Eddie got into court, Eddie showed the judge the video and the worker denied that he was the same guy who was on the bike. So as usual, the judge postponed the case but in the meantime ordered Eddie to pay this guy's salary in his alguinaldo. So Eddie going to court thinking he had an open and shut case, had to pay out to the guy about 500 bucks total, that's a month's salary and a month's alguinaldo. And here's the kicker, the judge postponed the case a month or two down the line when there was an opening on the schedule and he told Eddie that he couldn't fire the employee

[11:46] yet not until the case was resolved. So guess what? The employee that Eddie knows was a blatant little thief shows up for work that night as if nothing ever happened. And that kind of stuff does happen down here in Latin America if you don't let your lawyer handle things like that no matter how small. Because here's how it works, when a first world person, a European or an American expat, goes in front of a judge without a lawyer because you've got eyewitnesses or whatever and you think it's an absolute open and shut case. And believe it or not, in some cases expats who've got their Spanish pretty well down, they get a little cocky and actually think it would be a kind of amusing experience to go to court as long as they felt they were 100% in the right and they actually think it's going to be some kind of a fun experience. And if they got a lot of time on their hands, they could maybe even learn a bit of the details

[12:35] on how the system works down here. Even people who have a lawyer and should know better like Eddie. But Eddie can be an excitable guy, kind of explosive sometimes, especially when he's nursing a hangover and he's not getting his own way. And some expats think they can handle things like they would in the first world. And that can happen especially if the expat's a kind of a cheapskate. That's what they call a taconio down here. In fact, you don't even have to say the word taconio down here when someone's insulting you with that term. When a Latin tries to signify that another person, like you maybe, is a cheapskate, they'll hold their arm up, the right arm, and they'll touch their elbow with the other hand. Now that's the universal symbol for a taconio, a cheapskate. And if you see a waiter doing that in a restaurant, you know, one of his customers just stiffed

[13:20] him for the tip. Anyway, if you're a cheapskate, a taconio, if you want to file charges against someone because you have an open and shut case against them in court, here in Latin America, just like in the United States, you don't need a lawyer to represent yourself. You can walk in and state your case. And hopefully, you'll get satisfaction. And if you do it yourself, you can save the cost of a lawyer, right? Even though the price of a lawyer down here is ridiculously cheap. And of course, in some of my past shows, I've talked in detail about lawyers and everything they can do for you and what they cost. So check the archives if you want to look that up. Now I don't know why this time, Exped Eddie didn't bring his lawyer along with him because he's been down here long enough to know that if there's any doubt at all about what might happen in a court case, bring your lawyer along. And Eddie, though he's been called a taconio, you know, a cheapskate, that's not really

[14:08] why he didn't bring his lawyer along. He said he just figured it was such a simple deal, like a small claims court case in the States. And no one brings their lawyer along to small claims court because that's what it is, small claims, a couple hundred bucks. That's it, right? And if you bring a lawyer along, well, he's costing you a few hundred bucks an hour minimum. So there's really no point. And that's what Eddie thought. And of course, this was a few years ago and Eddie's a lot smarter now. And so am I. So here's what happened to Eddie. And here's where a simple thing got very complicated. Now he's got to wait a couple of months to get back on the judge's schedule. He's ordered by the judge to pay his ex worker 500 bucks in the meantime. And he's got to rehire the guy until the case gets settled in court. Now I ask you, what would you do if you were an employer and you had to rehire a guy who

[14:56] you know for certain was stealing from you? Well, naturally, Eddie was really ticked off. And every time he saw this guy's face, he wanted to punch him. And naturally, Eddie didn't want this guy in his place at all anymore because, well, he's a thief, right? So Eddie did what he should have done in the first place. He called his lawyer and what his lawyer told him was this, let the guy keep working for you, but don't let him near the cash register or the office or the inventory. Keep him outside and let him do errands. Let him sweep the parking lot, do the gardening, run errands, pick up fruits and vegetables and stuff. But try not to let him inside. And in the meantime, Eddie's lawyer took care of everything else. There never was another court trial. Eddie didn't have to do anything or sign anything. Eddie paid the 500 bucks to the guy and gave him his walking papers. And of course, he never got the side of beef back. And Eddie's original intention for bringing the guy to the court for stealing that side

[15:44] of beef was to teach him a lesson, to get some kind of judgment against him, even if he never paid off, and maybe even get the guy a little jail time like 30 days in a slammer. He just did not want this guy to get away with scamming him. There had to be some kind of punishment, he thought. But alas, this is Latin America. Well, it turns out in the end, because Eddie didn't have his lawyer handle it, it not only cost him 500 bucks, Eddie had to pay the guy two more weeks' salary because that's how long it took for his lawyer to work out a deal with the judge. And oh yeah, about the judge. Somehow, and I think you'll know how this happened, the judge somehow got a certificate for 10 free meals at one of Eddie's restaurants. So you're thinking Eddie got shafted. Well, you're right, but it gets worse, if that's possible. About four months later, Eddie decided to take a trip to the United States to go to

[16:30] his brother's wedding. And when he was on the plane, taxiing on the runway in Salvador, suddenly the plane stopped. Two airport security guys got on the plane and called out Eddie's name. And they grabbed his arm and let him out the door a little bit roughly, like he was some kind of international drug lord or something. And Eddie, who doesn't fluster easily, was in a bit of a shock, he didn't know what the hell was going on. Well, they took him into a secure room at the airport and said that he could not travel out of the country because there was an embargo or a rival against him and therefore they put a block on his passport. Now down here, an embargo or a rigo means that a court order has been signed by a judge, meaning that there's a charge against you that has not yet been resolved in court and you have to stick around until the case is resolved.

[17:17] Or if there's a monetary judgment against you, like a default on a loan or a credit card that someone took you to court for and you lost the judgment, you have to settle that before they unblock your passport. And only then will they take your name off the list on the immigration computers at all the airports and at the borders. And what was Eddie's crime? Well, remember when I told you that Eddie's thieving little employee with the motorcycle had filed a counter suit against Eddie for non-payment of his alginaldo, which is that extra month that all the employees down here get? In fact, it's one of the points in employment law down here that's actually somewhat enforced. Because every worker down here knows they're entitled to that free month's salary and there's nothing that ticks them off more than if you hold back on it.

[18:03] It's like getting coal in your stocking from Santa Claus. But you should remember that 30 to 40% of the population down here, depending which country you're in, work in the informal economy, which is cash money and you're not reporting any taxes or forms to the government. So naturally those people don't get that extra month's salary, that alginaldo, because they're off the books and the force of a law that says you must pay that alginaldo only exists in the formal economy. But believe it or not, even in the informal economy, I've heard that some people get that alginaldo pay as part of a handshake deal. So anyway, Eddie got pulled off that plane, got stuck in that room with airport security officials for five or six hours till his lawyer came down, and in the end it actually did

[18:48] turn out that Eddie paid the alginaldo for his thieving employee months earlier, and that the embargo should have been wiped off the computers, but this is the third world and it just didn't happen this time. So in the end, just because Eddie didn't want to call his lawyer, Eddie lost five or six hundred bucks, plus the certificate for ten free meals that ended up in the hands of the judge, not to mention the embarrassment of being pulled off a plane and led through the airport like an international criminal, and worst of all, he missed his brother's wedding up in the states. Well, I guess you can see that the moral to this story is, you just have to call your lawyer. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and Eddie's life works that way. Well it turns out that the wedding Eddie missed, his brother's wedding, was a disaster, and

[19:33] the happy couple was never really happy, and they split up after about four months, and Eddie figured the trip to the states for a week or two would have cost him fifteen hundred to two thousand bucks minimum, including the airfare, which he did get a refund on, not to mention the fact that Eddie was going to give his brother and the lovely bride a thousand bucks as a wedding present. And Eddie, being a world-class procrastinator, had the money alright, but never did get around to wiring it to his brother. So in the end, Eddie figures he saved about three thousand bucks, just by going through that business with his crappy employee. Eddie was always one to look on the bright side, and you know we laugh about it now, but Eddie says, you know that embargo thing, where they won't let you leave the country, can really put a damper on an expat's life. So let me talk a little bit more about embargoes right now.

[20:19] Now historically, it's been pretty easy for locals who've had some kind of problems down here in their own country, problems with creditors or the law or whoever, well they could just easily slip to a neighboring country and carry on with life as usual. So if the court does order an embargo to be put on you, the only one hundred percent way that it's going to be enforced down here is if you book a regular flight and try to leave the country by air. Since all international airport computers in these days of terrorism and hijackings are connected to an international database and interpol, the fact is, the airports in Latin America are about the only places where governments hold themselves to first world international standards. They pretty much have to, or the FAA will decertify them for international flights, which would be the kiss of death for tourism in a third world country.

[21:06] But when you're passing through a land border, it's a much different story. You wouldn't believe how far out in the boonies and how desolate some of these land crossing borders are. And in fact, I've been through many a land crossing border where the computers have been down for hours. But that doesn't hold up the line, instead all they do is jot things down with a pen and paper. And I guess when the computers come back up again, they just re-enter the data. And a lot of times when I'm crossing through one of these small land borders, they do of course punch all your data into the computer. But also many times I notice there's a typed or handwritten list, and the guy processing you through will quickly scan that list to see if you're on it. And what it turns out to be is a not so up to date embargo in a rego list. People that aren't supposed to be able to leave the country. Yet some out of the way border crossings don't even have a list like that.

[21:53] And if you're a local and you've been in trouble with the law, and you've got an embargo against your passport, you can always find out through the grapevine just which land border crossings are porous and loose where you can easily get out. But expats down here who've got an embargo against their passport aren't nearly as well connected as the locals who've got the pulse on things down here. And anyway, when we leave the country, we usually leave by air. But again, not to worry if you do have an embargo on your passport. Your lawyer can usually take care of it with ease and some grease if you know what I mean. Now I'm not suggesting that you do anything illegal of course. But remember this, a lot of the embargoes placed against first world expats are not necessarily deserved and in fact just might be made as a recrimination or revenge against you. As again in the case of my friend expat Eddie.

[22:41] Now over the years, Eddie has had a lot of nice Latina girlfriends. But they always seem to break up after a year or two and never calm nice and politely. It always ends in a dish throwing shouting match and even worse sometimes. Now what if Eddie's girlfriends had a kid and she went to court claiming Eddie was the father and she wanted some support? Well when she filed the complaint, the court summons never reached Eddie because court summonses often never do reach the recipient because the mail sucks, people move a lot, especially expats, and the court doesn't have the money to send out summoned servers like they do in the first world. So the girl appeared in court and Eddie didn't even know it and the judge put an embargo on Eddie's passport again. Now normally with marriage, divorce and relationship problems like that, when there's problems

[23:27] between local Latins and an expat or foreigner is not involved at all, it's rare that any case like this will ever make it to court because you can't get blood out of a stone and the average Latin just doesn't have much discretionary income. So he doesn't have money for lawyers or the time to take off from his three or four hundred dollar a month job and hang around the court and watch it get postponed time after time. But when it comes to a first world expat, it's different. Many a scorned Latin woman will go to court if her other half or former other half happens to be a first world person, simply because she knows he's got deep pockets. Deeper than 95% of the common Latin down here anyway. Especially if a woman down here is pregnant or has a kid with a foreigner, the judge is likely to award support payments to the girl whether the first world expat shows up in

[24:14] court or not. And if he doesn't show up, there's an automatic embargo on the passport. And then the next time he tries to leave the country, he's not permitted, and in fact that might just be the first time he's even found out about the fact that his ex went to court and got a judgment against him. And that's when the expat calls his lawyer, who of course straightens everything out. And of course if a first world guy comes down here and actually marries a Latina and then abandons her, I can see that an embargo on going to court is probably the right thing to do for her. Especially if they've had a kid together. But you know what? From what I've seen, it's a very rare experience. Expats as a rule are actually quite responsible when it comes to things like that. In fact I can name quite a few expat friends myself who've married Latin girls just because they did get pregnant and have a baby. Doing the so called right thing to do. Something you'll rarely see when a Latin guy gets his girlfriend pregnant.

[25:02] In that case they almost never get married just for the kid's sake. Honor marriages down here seem to be an exclusively gringo expat thing. Cause you see if a first world person has a kid and gets married to the girl, or at least he signs the birth certificate saying that he's the father, then that kid has a right to automatically become a first world citizen and get all the rights and benefits of his dad's first world country. And he's got a right to emigrate, get on the social security system, get national health care benefits if he's Canadian or European and all that stuff. And expats down here who become dads are well aware of that. And it's rarer that they would deprive their own kid of those advantages. And the thing is, even if the first world guy doesn't marry the girl, but he signs their kid's birth certificate as the father, the mother eventually has the right to become a US or European citizen too.

[25:49] By virtue of the fact that the kid has the right and she's the mother. But since a lot of Latin women know all about those particulars, especially in places flooded with gringos like Costa Rica, sometimes well after a long term relationship has ended, the expat finds he's being sued for support and sometimes he finds it out when he's at the airport because his passport has been embargoed. But you know what, that kind of stuff only happens very infrequently in countries that aren't bombarded by high volume gringo tourism. But in places like Costa Rica, where you have a lot of gringos and gringo dollars, you'll see it all the time. The courts are just filled with cases like that. And most of the time, they're just scorned women who've instantly dropped down a few social and financial notches now that they're not with a first world expat anymore.

[26:34] And believe it or not, I know of a lot of cases, especially in Costa Rica, where expats have paid off one or two of their exes, even though they weren't married or had any kids with them, simply to keep her from filing more unfounded, frivolous actions in court, that a busy expat and his lawyer just don't have the time nor the energy to defend. And that's not the only way an expat can get his passport embargoed. If, for example, you've left the country for quite a while and haven't paid certain bills, like your water or your electric bill, or if you've bounced a check even though you've had funds, but somehow it just didn't get processed through the system and got held up because, for example, the bank didn't like the way you filled out your check or the way you signed your signature. That does happen once in a while. And if you have unpaid bills with one of the big utility companies, they'll often send your debt off to a collection agency and they'll put an embargo on your passport.

[27:22] And disgruntled employees can do it too, like in Eddie's case. But thankfully that doesn't happen much, because local workers almost always prefer first world bosses to Latin ones. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America. And don't forget you can email me on anything at all about Latin America. The Expat Files at gmail.com. That's theexpatfiles at gmail.com. See you next time. Nos vemos.