Drone confiscated, arrested, put on trial, found guilty, never visit this country!

Wow first off l I will keep publishing it to give them more pressure and only say you will stop if you get your phantom, money and compensation back. They are so selfish they want to appear good to be elected. As soon as they are elected... They will forget about you. I would personally get your local media and news channel involves to ramp up the efforts. At the very least I am sure the media will cover your story for the price of A drone as this will be a big headliner

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Absolutely do not stop your efforts. Ramp them up if anything. At this point you have nothing to lose and perhaps (slim) a possibility of them returning or compensating to shut you up. Doubtful though.
The only ones to benefit by your silence it them. Make a lot of noise.


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I just ask a German friend of mine about that country. He said it was a south crap country to long under turkish rule. Not my words.
 
I had a similar experience in the same country... One year ago I was living in the beautiful country of Slovenia, and I went on a looong trip through the balcans, including that country.
Police at the border ask me to take all my belongings out of the car, the open my bags and took my Canon 6D out of the bag. The police officer look at it, touched eeeeeverything trying to turn it on, and ask me to put MY pictures in front of his eyes, if not I was going to get arrested. So I had to show him a lot of my pics, and he asked me for lot of pics about "Where did you took this?" "That's the main square of your capital..." and so on... but what if I DONT WANT TO SHOW him my private family-girlfriend-friends pics?
Its so frustrating...
 
Went on a mission trip last year to Nicaragua. A film crew with an Inspire was detained at Customs in Managua. Inspire and video equipment were confiscated. Approximately $12,000. Purpose of the crew was to document our mission to help the local people, installing water hand pumps, etc., and to raise awareness and the need for money to buy more pumps and equipment. The gov't considered the Inspire as a "spying" device. Long story short, the equipment was returned to the crew "after" the mission was over( a week) and passing through customs for our trip back to the USA. Really sad!
 
The You Tube version is now online. Please help me by posting widely. Thank you much friends.
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Hello flyers.

Below is the story of my arrest by corrupt customs agents in the tiny country of Macedonia (north of Greece). People with drones in their luggage are being targeted by corrupt customs police as the resale value within the country is up to 5 times the retail value.

This is the story of how my car was stopped, my belongings confiscated and then the resulting trial, imprisonment, and conviction I faced, just for driving to the country with my Phantom 3. I wasn't even flying, just heading to Germany from Greece in a rental car!

Be warned.......and be scared.....very scared.....in Macedonia. I was tried in kangaroo court with 4 other drone owners and the customs depot is filled with drones just waiting to be sold by the police who first pocket your available cash then keep your goods.

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Great report, so sorry to hear of your experience.

There is little worse than government corruption, and as you said, it will deter tourism so a few crooks will make money while the rest of the people, trying to make an honest living from tourists will suffer.

Very sad.
Thanks for posting.
 
Great report, so sorry to hear of your experience.

There is little worse than government corruption, and as you said, it will deter tourism so a few crooks will make money while the rest of the people, trying to make an honest living from tourists will suffer.

Very sad.
Thanks for posting.


This is true. The vast majority of Macedonians are good people and it seems like a beautiful country.
 
Good thing that doesn't happen in America... Police being used to confiscate items for personal/departmental gains. Oh wait...
Civil Forfeiture.
As many high stakes advantage players carry lots of cash we remain aware of the possibility.
Hopefully in the USA, laws will be passed to eliminate this abuse of power.
 
Certainly, in the Balkans and much of eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, institutionalized, endemic corruption flourishes....
 
I had a similar experience in the same country... One year ago I was living in the beautiful country of Slovenia, and I went on a looong trip through the balcans, including that country.
Police at the border ask me to take all my belongings out of the car, the open my bags and took my Canon 6D out of the bag. The police officer look at it, touched eeeeeverything trying to turn it on, and ask me to put MY pictures in front of his eyes, if not I was going to get arrested. So I had to show him a lot of my pics, and he asked me for lot of pics about "Where did you took this?" "That's the main square of your capital..." and so on... but what if I DONT WANT TO SHOW him my private family-girlfriend-friends pics?
Its so frustrating...
WOW!! This story blows Rays out of the water. He actually touched your Canon 6D? He touched it and tried to turn it on?? Then.... (gulp).... then he made you show him..... I can hardly bring myself to say it....... your photographs?? Un-beee-leviable!! You must have PTSD.....
 
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This ticks me off. Sniveling little "officers" taking your stuff and selling it to put cash in their pockets? Urgh. Makes my blood boil...
 
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Next, my story went public in Macedonia, possibly because of some of your efforts. I have received an outpouring of apologies from both ordinary citizens and high ranking officials. Thus far I have received person emails and sincere apologies from the director of the Ministry Of Tourism, the US Ambassador to Macedonia and the Macedonian embassy in America. I have also received a promise that an investigation will be launched from a high ranking official in the Ministry of Justice. (Doubtful)

But the article is from october 31st, and you pushed publicly your story only 1 week ago, how can you explain that?

If a macedonian could look about which are the drone laws in Macedonia, I think that it would be way more helpfull to understand the situation than making a big drama like this and still telling that this is still a thieft even when it doesn't look anymore like one... :(
 
But the article is from october 31st, and you pushed publicly your story only 1 week ago, how can you explain that?

If a macedonian could look about which are the drone laws in Macedonia, I think that it would be way more helpfull to understand the situation than making a big drama like this and still telling that this is still a thieft even when it doesn't look anymore like one... :(
What exactly is your point? Are you saying that this isn't a straight out shakedown & theft? Are you saying rickray is lying or exaggerating the wrongness of what happened- and not to him alone?
 
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying exactly. The video was edited and finished a few weeks ago. So as not to make a big deal out of it, I kept it private and selectively sent it to key people in several ministries, including an investigative team for corruption in Macedonia and the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Tourism. I also sent it to consular officials and the US Ambassador. My intent was to get feedback from them about how to proceed.

If they took the link and shared it with others, it might have had a small life of its own. I did receive responses from almost all these ministries but strangely not one of them could tell me the official policy about bringing drones to Macedonia. I think if it's this unclear, even at the highest levels, it is likely to be very unclear to an average tourist driving into the country.

Now, having said that, what I witnessed was not just a drone dragnet. Because I was detained for most of the day, I watched as the same script was used time and again on motorists at this checkpoint, with the same faux outrage, intimidation and needless bullying. Not to confiscate only drones. Shoes, coats, electronic equipment, even a piece of medical equipment a man had rented in Greece to help his sick father. So, I realized right away, this wasn't a customs enforcement action, it was a civil forfeiture police station.

While I considered burying the story after receiving heartfelt apologies from many high ranking officials, ultimately I made the decision to make the story public after realizing how ingrained and institutionalized the corruption is. I do not believe such things are solved from within the bureaucracy. That's why I have gone public. And I really have nothing to gain, I'll never seen my drones or 500 Euros again.

But I think if I can do this from afar, and set the record straight, it might help ordinary Macedonians and tourists (who might be too scared or intimidated) to publish my findings. I hope this clarifies.
 
What exactly is your point? Are you saying that this isn't a straight out shakedown & theft? Are you saying rickray is lying or exaggerating the wrongness of what happened- and not to him alone?
I'm only trying to understand, having only one point of view and choosing to ignore others interesting facts/point of view won't help to shedding light on this sad story....

I still don't understand why a macedonian article was published.... even if it was published after that Rickray published/sent the video, why did they kept the photos (that were in the article), photos of the drones and even when it was inside the trunk of the car, if they were pure stealers, they would know that this kind of photos could be used against them during an investigation....

I'm trying to understand....
 
Oh, ok, I understand. This isn't a Mexican style police operation where they might hire a uniform and try to take some things by the side of the road, wanting no evidence. This is institutionalized from start to finish. Piles of paperwork are done. Photos are taken. It's all made to look very official. Even your signed confession. Everything has the appearance of being "above board" - right down to your mock kangaroo trial - which I think everyone benefits from financially, up and down the chain of command.

As to why the article was published, I think Customs got a tip that a negative story was emerging and they might have wanted to get out ahead of it with some positive spin, lumping the drone confiscation(s) with more serious crimes like smuggling and drug running. It's just a guess though.
 
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Ok, I see. If it's really that high level of institutionalized corruption, then yes, it's bad.... Let's hope that your story will help to change this...
 
Although far from being exhasutive, this is a good article for Drone Laws in other parts of the world.
Here is another article to help.

Perhaps a projuct one might undertake would be to research existing Laws in every country (if they exist) and post them.
 
l look forward to hearing more about this and really hope you get some kind of resolution out of it.
 

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