Shakedown Street Bali

‘Nothin shakin on Shakedown street
used to be the heart of town
Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart
You just gotta poke around’

-Hunter / Garcia-

Bali is dealing with its economic situation in many ways, businesses are adjusting, locals are getting used to a lower budget and the cops are shaking people down.

A few days ago we got an sms that there was a sweep of businesses in Kuta Galeria. Most of those are foreign owned, so the immigration were looking for businesses without paperwork. Yesterday afternoon 5 cops came to my house asking about me. Ika said they were all plain clothes cops, or maybe people pretending to be cops. They were also doing a sweep though the area. I wasn’t around but Ika said they will come back. Usually when this happens there will be only one of the previous group and a new bunch with him. They wll make a note of the houses they missed before.

Anyway I’m not super worried, the thing that freaks me out the most is the idea of 5 strangers who are looking for reasons to arrest / extort money from me being able to search my house. In Seminyak there have been around 20 westerners who have had drugs planted by the searching ‘police’ (whether or not they were actually police’). Ika said they were polite yesterday, but sometimes their deal is to try the ‘Storm Trooper’ tactic, bang on the door and when you open it shout, ‘hey you don’t move, we need to search the place and see your papers’. I’ve seriously got to re adjust my attitude in preparation. My first reaction is to go nuts at them, but the smart move is play it cool and let them poke around.