Niall vs the Venezuelan Police

So, I got stopped and searched for the first time over here on Saturday night. I was in Plaza Venezuela, about 9:30PM, lots of people about, and got taken aside by a member of the ´Guardia Civil´who asked for my passport (we all carry around photocopies as ID). He took it and immediately started leading me out of the square. I had visions of being led up a dark alley and beaten soundly and robbed, as the police here have reputations for being corrupt. However, it turned out I was being led to some kind of ´ civil post´(basically a set of red plastic chairs and a table under an awning), where I got interrogated and searched. In pidgin Spanish, I repeated that I was British, a teacher of English and resident of Las Palmas. In return, and in an authoritative if not quite aggressive manner, I was subjected to the most rigorous search ever - more thorough than airport security - it involved pulling up my socks to check the folds and lifting up my tshirt to look under my belt.
Along comes another policeman and gets me to take off my shoes. The first one keeps repeating ´Drogues.... Ecstasy???´. I attempt to channel my most firm anti-drugs expression and insist that I didnt´ have any. Next he asks (I think) if I had ever taken ecstasy, and, discretion being the better part of valour, I insisted I hadn´t. At this point I am explaining my civil status (again) to the second policeman while the first rifled eagerly through my wallet. I had already mentally resigned myself to losing the money contained therein and was hoping he would leave my bank card alone - but in fact I was more worried that the function of the second guy was to distract me while the first planted drugs or some other such contraband in my wallet - thence to use the discovered evidence as the basis for extortion or worse.

Bizarrely, however, not only does this not happen, but after inviting me to put everything back in my pockets (and waving away this crazy old woman who had come up to harangue the police about something) the first policeman shows me a 1000 peseta note and asks me how much it was worth. That´s Spanish pesetas - the kind that have been worth nothing for six years. Either some canny Spaniard bribed this guy with a worthless note, or it really has been sitting in his wallet since 2002. Unwilling to risk losing my 5 pounds sterling as a replacement, I pretended it was worth ten dollars, and went on my way.

I hope this does not become a regular occurrence. The police didn´t do anything they were not entitled to - but nothing makes you feel more vulnerable than being searched and interrogated in a language you don´t understand.