Octopixel

Last week, my SO and I were charged $600 for bringing camera equipment into Cancun en route to Cozumel. I had heard about this tax in Cabo in the past, but was under the false impression that it was only hitting people there, and hadn’t been enforced yet in the Yucatán. My partner carries several lenses for wildlife photography, and they told her they needed to charge her tax for every lens in the bag in addition to her camera. After some confusion and disagreements, the agent threatened to confiscate all of my partner’s equipment or throw us in prison, after finally settling on $600. They also offered to “store the equipment at the airport until we were ready to leave” to reduce the number of equipment we were bringing in, and when we suggested we would leave a lens that wasn’t needed for this leg of the trip, they stated that we needed to leave only the most expensive equipment. I think any reasonable person can read between the lines. I was then separated from her by the airport guards, because I was using my phone to tell our transportation that we would be late, and they said no phones were allowed in the area. I then asked permission to use the phone to notify our transportation only to be scolded by another guard and further separated from my partner. This is interesting, because there is a sign with a QR code to submit complaints or reports of fraud directly in front of the customs area which obviously requires a phone. We’ve dove in 7 countries and engaged in wildlife tourism trips with camera gear in over 20 countries and never faced any sort of shake down like this. The diving in Cozumel was nice, but it left a very poor first impression to start the trip, we were threatened and reprimanded, and we have no desire to ever return because of this experience. As I understand it, the Mexican tourism industry has tried to lobby the department of tourism in the past, but the situation has obviously become worse, not better. I also observed at least 3 or 4 other people getting swindled into paying hefty penalties to the customs agents. The short sightedness of it all is incredibly sad. It appears they don’t care that they are severely hurting the tourism industry in these areas, at least for photography enthusiasts/ divers who tend to have a lot of gear.

Hello, I was on the “other pixel” forum for a few years (BobbyV) and decided to create an account here after lurking for a while. I received so much great advice from this forum. It will be nice to engage with the community again.