Honest to god, at this point if you were in any way involved with the PR department of the Rio Olympics, you’d have to consider walking out of work and never returning. It just ain’t worth it anymore.
“First he asked me stretch my arms, then patted me down. He grabbed my genital area, which was quite a surprise. At this point it still looked reasonably professional.”
Lee, who was driving a rental car, was asked to hand over his license and registration info, which is when things started getting really hairy.
“He says ‘you can’t drive in Brazil as a foreigner without a passport,’ which I now know isn’t the case at all. The rental car company hadn’t mentioned that to me.”
“He starts opening the book, showing me all these passages in Portuguese, which I can sort of read like every third word.”
At this point, the officer demanded that Lee pay them the equivalent of about 2,000 Brazilian reals, or around AUD$822. If he refused, they claimed, he would be arrested and hauled in front of the Brazilian Federal Police.
“These guys have pulled me over, they have weapons. I’m not in any position to negotiate.”
“At this point I acknowledged to myself that I’ve completely backed myself into a corner.”
Lee was then driven to a nearby group of shops where he withdrew the cash from several different machines; the police officer who took him there remained in the car to avoid being captured on CCTV. He was then driven back to the bunker where he handed the money over and was finally released.
“[The corrupt officer] said ‘you can’t say anything to anyone about this, not a word.’”
“I was umming and ahhing about whether I should even make a complaint. One of the guys I was reporting it to said ‘we understand you are hesitant, because we are the Police, and that branch of the Police is so scary even we are afraid of them’.”
Lee, and his partner Laura McQuillan who lives in Brazil with him and happens to work for Stuff, posted about the incident on social media.
What did you guys get up to yesterday?
I got kidnapped. Go Olympics!#Rio2016— Jason Lee (@jasonleejitsu) July 24, 2016
Boyfriend was accosted by Policia Militar cops who drove him to two ATMs and forced him to withdraw cash #roadtorio https://t.co/0iUwh6Zjb5
— Laura McQuillan (@mcquillanatorz) July 24, 2016
The Olympics are gonna be a fkn blast, y’all.
