Don't Cry Over - Spilled Perfume? (US Citizen Denied Entry At Tocumen International Airport)
By DON WINNER for Panama-Guide.com - Received this afternoon via email: "Dear sir, The reason for my email is a little hard to understand but yet quite amusing. I actually traveled to Panama yesterday morning at 6:40 am from Atlanta GA due to arrive in Panana at 11:30am. Evrrything was running smoothly, left the US with my passport in hand and was told by the US to continue my travel. I must tell you though there was a spilt perfume bottle next to my passport and it leaked on to it. Of course the worst thing about it was that out of all 4 people who looked at it just said "well it smells good". So I countinued onward with not a worry.
When I got to immigration the lady at the counter asked me what happened and I said oh the perfume bottle spilled on it. She kept looking at it and I said go ahead smell it its just perfume! She askes me why I was there for I said I am here to help with the opening of a new store here in Via Espania. I will only be here for four days to train and get the store ready. I continued to show her my work flight intinerary showing I was here for that reason and that reason only. She continued to tell me that she need to show her supervisor and that it would take just a few minutes. 20 min later she comes back and asks me to take a seat until someone talks to me.
3 hours later a man in uniform calls my name and says please follow me. I said are you taking me to talk to somone, he says no Im taking you to your plane for you flight back. I look at him very confused and distort, home where? To Atlanta. I said what because of the perfume smell on my passport? They treated me very poorly and not even a word of what was happening. I was there to train a new store a very well know store here in the United States and give Panama the best support I could give with my knowledge. I dont know maybe because I was a women traveling alone they thought they could easily do this and I would just go away. But I was treated like a criminal and for what for perfume stain on my passport. I traveled from6:40am-12:30am the following day, it was a long and very unnecessary mishap and now have to report to the company I work for why I couldn't help with the new Panama store because of perfume, how embarrassing and how disappointed and almost sad to have our store represented there when I was treated so poorly."
Editor's Comment: Two observations here. First of all, the person writing this email is apparently assuming she was refused entry into Panama because of the perfume that was spilled on her passport. At no point does she clearly say the Panamanian immigration officials flat out told her she was being refused entry because her passport had been damaged in some way. Panama now uses a relatively sophisticated traveler monitoring system, linked in to databases maintained by the United States and the rest of the nations of Central America and the region. It's possible (probable) this person was refused entry to Panama because of something that came up on their computer screens when they scanned her passport. Panama also maintains their own in-house database and a list of people who will be refused entry if they show up at the immigration gates. Remember the Canadian girl who wrote and published an article about mining that was in favor of all of the environmental elements and against the government of Ricardo Martinelli? They didn't let her in either and they treated her exactly the same way. They simply turned her around and put her on the next plane out of the country - she never made it out of the airport, just like in this case. So, while the writer seems to think she was denied entry due to spilled perfume, I suspect something else way in play. I don't know what, but I'll bet it was more than just a little Chanel Number 69.
Copyright 2012 by Don Winner for Panama-Guide.com. Go ahead and use whatever you like as long as you credit the source. Salud.
