Those who give or accept bribes will pay a heavy price if caught. Unfortunately, there have been some cases of law enforcers being caught accepting bribes like the time a traffic police officer allegedly accepted bribe money from a lorry driver in order to “settle” his case. It seems that a similar incident has occurred again, only this time, the culprit was asking money from foreigners.
Marianne and Chris are travelling content creators from the United Kingdom known as TREADtheglobe on YouTube. They travelled to many countries in their van and their latest visit happened to be Malaysia. During their trip from Ipoh to Taiping, the YouTubers were stopped by traffic police for allegedly speeding.
The officer told them that they exceeded the 60km/h speed limit. Marianne, who was driving, apologised and explained that they didn’t see any signs on the road that displayed the speed limit. Unfortunately for the couple, the officer stated that they’d have to pay a fine at the nearest police station for the alleged traffic violation. Suddenly, the officer gave them the option of paying the RM300 fine at the station or they could settle it by handing over RM100 on the spot.
Not wanting to cause any issues, the content creators agreed. After paying the officer, Chris, who was narrating the video, said that they had some suspicions about the whole encounter as they didn’t need to provide their documentation to the policeman. “Were we actually speeding? I guess that’s just one thing we’ll never know,” he said. The vlog went viral with many of their Malaysian viewers commenting that the policeman had asked for a bribe. Some advised the couple to file a report at a police station about the incident.
Netizens reposted the clip on other social media platforms to slam the traffic cop for asking for bribes from the two foreigners. Some said that the officer had brought shame to Malaysia and the authorities for his disgraceful actions while others tagged the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) to look into the matter. A few also shared their experiences of being pulled over where a cop had allegedly asked them to pay a fine on the spot.
Thankfully, the Traffic Investigation and Enforcement Department (JSPT) has been aware of the situation and is currently carrying out an investigation. Bukit Aman JSPT director Datuk Mohd Azman Ahmad Sapri told reporters that the authorities do not tolerate such misconduct and advised the public to not spread any speculation regarding the incident to avoid interference in their investigations.
It’s sad to see that many law enforcers still continue to abuse their “power”. As for the Treadtheglobe couple, there is no information on their current whereabouts or if they have filed a report about the incident. You can watch the full video below (or skip to 3:57 for the bribing incident):
