Most people don’t have much tolerance for having a loaded gun pointed at their head, which is what would have happened here.
I used to live in Kenya, back in the day, and it was more or less routine for a group of soldiers to toss a log across a country road to set up and informal toll-booth.
It was all casual enough, but the guy who came to your window for the money would point his rifle at your head, just to make the point. Five dollars American or $10 worth of local currency would get you a friendly wave, the log moved, and you would be on your way. Five miles down the road, you would get to do it all again.
It got to where it was routine. You would start to recognize the “soldiers”, and they would smile and wave. But always there was that gun in your ear, and you always, always had to pay. You never got into the car without at least $20 American, in fives.
One day, an old college girlfriend was visiting from America, and we rolled up to a roadblock. I didn’t think anything of it, and handed over the money, and we were on our way. A couple of miles down the road, I noticed that she wasn’t talking, and I looked over and she was white as a sheet and she said, “What... just... happened?” I had to think about it for a minute before I figured out what she was upset about.
You can get used to almost anything...
It would have been more amusing if you’d stuck an Uzi in the thief’s face and blown it off. Then the rest of uour gang, hidden in the trunk and back seat, could have jumped out and wasted the rest of the crooks.
It’s usually a bad idea to give in to extortionists.
Does that still happen there, or is it even worse?
Worked for a rent-a-rig oil company in the ‘80s. The old hands said that if you are ever sent to Nigeria, bring lots of cheap Timex watches with you. Same log-across-the-road deal, only with watches.
The guys said they had expanding bands on the watches so they could load up their forearms and biceps with ‘em. They all wore long sleeve shirts, even in hot weather, and nobody at the roadblocks thought to tell them to roll up their sleeves.