In Mexico City and other parts of Mexico, it's not uncommon for people to be robbed in combis.
For those who don't know, combis are these little vans that go along established routes where they'll take random people along the route.
You see them elsewhere in Latin America also.
However, they do have a certain danger to them in that you occasionally have someone getting onto the combi to steal the belongings of everyone with a gun.
Actually, it's more of a daily occurrence than just "occasionally."
Or so it seems anyway based on all of the stories that come out about it.
Some of the stories being quite positive like what you can see here of the people on the combi kicking the shit out of the thief who tried robbing them.
At any rate, I have thankfully never had the experience of someone robbing me on a combi people.
Granted, I don't take combis too often and mostly just use the metro but I have used them once in a blue moon from time to time.
More commonly in my days before arriving to Mexico City as other places in Latin America don't always have a metro to get around.
But I have obviously known others who have gotten onto the combi and have heard a few stories of such robberies taking place.
Recently, I got talking with a gal I have hooked up with on a few occasions over a year ago and we got talking again out of the blue.
Her name is Ana and she's from whatever random part of Mexico.
Not born in Mexico City but lives here.
And she's pretty chill. I like the fact that I can just sit on a park bench with her and she isn't talking in my ear.
She likes the quiet just like I do.
But she was telling me anyway about an incident that happened to her some odd months ago after we stopped seeing each other briefly.
Theft on the Combi
While sitting on a park bench, we made small talk about whatever has been going on since we last met.
I had to travel a tiny bit outside of where I am now (Iztapalapa) as, for whatever reason, Iztapalapa is too scary for her.
It's not that bad. Just a few killings every day. No big deal.
Anyway, I went a tiny bit up north to Centro Historico where we met by Bellas Artes metro.
Just chilling in the park next to it.
And, through asking what has been going on since we last met, we somehow got to the topic of combis or shit.
I don't remember how. My memory is shit sometimes. I probably mentioned "combis" somehow.
Anyway, what she did say was memorable about it.
I was kinda curious as I never heard a personal story that I can remember of someone I knew being robbed on one of those combis.
So what was it like?
Of course, it sounded like what you see on the videos.
Some dude yells out "YA LO SABES!!!"
Gun in hand.
Everyone hands over the phones and wallets.
They ditch.
In this case though, I was curious to ask her if they managed to get a lot of the change too from the combi driver.
After all, the dude is driving around all day and gets constantly people giving him money.
Given it's just small change though, I imagine he doesn't have thousands of pesos.
Maybe a thousand.
She just shook her head.
"No"
And that was that.
We got talking about whatever else and left it at that.
But it did leave something odd in my head.
Collusion Between the Combi Driver & the Thief?
It does seem weird though, huh?
To be fair, I've heard the idea before of there being some collusion between the combi driver and the thief.
Where you hear some Mexicans mention how maybe it's the same dude stealing and the combi driver should know not to stop for him.
I've heard Mexicans bring the idea up which is why I asked Ana about it.
But I didn't ask her about if she thought there was collusion.
It is an idea anyhow.
Is there?
After all, it legit might be the same dude doing some of the stealing.
Doesn't the driver notice?
Or why does he stop in strange parts of the route where you wouldn't expect someone to be hanging around to be let on?
....Especially when they are about to get into a dark area under a tunnel or some shit.
But, more importantly, is why doesn't the motherfucker steal the money from the combi driver?
Some do, I imagine.
But seemingly not all.
It could be the case that the combi driver doesn't have a shit ton.
Which sounds legit.
You look at what he has and it only seems to be, at most, a thousand pesos in change.
And that's probably being very generous.
Still, when you add the change up and also his phone and wallet that he probably carries, I guess you got more to steal also.
One more person you could've made a decent sum from.
So it is what it is.
Out of curiosity, I tried to see if there are any articles about such possible collusion and I did find this one here.
Outside of that, I didn't find much else.
Maybe there's a Youtube video or something.
Above all though, I'm not saying 100% that there is always or never collusion but it does feel at times that there might be collusion among some of them.
Anyway, that's all I got to say.
If you got anything to add, drop a comment below.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt
PS: I guess not everyone is colluding with the thieves as you can see here.