:eek Hello and I just wanted to post if these's any law in the DR which prohibits bringing or importing a large amount of tobacco to the DR. I ask this question because just this evening, I was stopped by the Policia Nacional nearby Av Independencia. While I'm not sure if the U-turn I made had anything to do with it, I also made sure that before I made the U-turn, I checked to see it there were any No U-turn signs around. As soon as I saw that it was "safe" to make a U-turn, a block later, two young police officers rolled by my side and told me to stop the vehicle, which I did.
While I did stop the vehicle, my first action was to hand them my passport, which I did. It seemed that the incident took over 30 minutes. A major reason being that I did have a hard time trying to decipher their Dominican accent. I do speak and understand Spanish, but the Dominican accent is very, very hard to decipher, depending on who you talk to. It seemed that both the officers didn't believe my reason for looking for a hotel until I was able to reserve my Airbnb room for the month.
I also didn't understand why both the officers, despite myself handing them my American passport (I was born and raised in America, in case nobody knows), why they wanted to know whether I was Haitian, plus the fact that they seemed to be looking for drugs when I let them know that I was a tourist plus I didn't know anybody personally in the DR. I do have Dominican friends, but they're all in America. Finally, the bigger of the two was able to translate through a mobile app and through the translator, told me that the fact that I had so much tobacco with me was punishable with death, which I couldn't believe. He also told me that the penalty was $200 American, which I was very lucky to have on my person and promptly paid it, as I didn't want to fathom spending even one night in a Dominican jail. After that, the officers seemed pretty cool, even giving me a hi-five, but even so, that experience perplexed me because I never seen such a huge deal for tobacco.
I understand that the DR has it's own laws, and especially know that marijuana is illegal in the DR, but I just want to know whether it's illegal to bring a high amount of tobacco to the DR and whether such a death penalty exists for bringing such a high amount. Please help ASAP and thanks!!!
While I did stop the vehicle, my first action was to hand them my passport, which I did. It seemed that the incident took over 30 minutes. A major reason being that I did have a hard time trying to decipher their Dominican accent. I do speak and understand Spanish, but the Dominican accent is very, very hard to decipher, depending on who you talk to. It seemed that both the officers didn't believe my reason for looking for a hotel until I was able to reserve my Airbnb room for the month.
I also didn't understand why both the officers, despite myself handing them my American passport (I was born and raised in America, in case nobody knows), why they wanted to know whether I was Haitian, plus the fact that they seemed to be looking for drugs when I let them know that I was a tourist plus I didn't know anybody personally in the DR. I do have Dominican friends, but they're all in America. Finally, the bigger of the two was able to translate through a mobile app and through the translator, told me that the fact that I had so much tobacco with me was punishable with death, which I couldn't believe. He also told me that the penalty was $200 American, which I was very lucky to have on my person and promptly paid it, as I didn't want to fathom spending even one night in a Dominican jail. After that, the officers seemed pretty cool, even giving me a hi-five, but even so, that experience perplexed me because I never seen such a huge deal for tobacco.
I understand that the DR has it's own laws, and especially know that marijuana is illegal in the DR, but I just want to know whether it's illegal to bring a high amount of tobacco to the DR and whether such a death penalty exists for bringing such a high amount. Please help ASAP and thanks!!!