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The 5 Most Corrupt Countries in the World; My Personal Opinion

During my wild journey to every country in the world I’ve experienced my fair share of dodgy border crossings, police shakedowns, fake fines, nights in cells and requests for “tips.” In fact, at some points it was unavoidable. Non-stop stress and headaches from people supposedly in positions of social trust, when all am I’m trying to do is navigate my way around the world. And perhaps even show people the nice sides of countries that they perhaps didn’t plan to visit otherwise. Alas, I was clearly a soft mark for police/immigration/security in some of the most corrupt countries in the world.

So from my experience, of the 197 countries, what do I think are the most corrupt countries in the world? Let me list 5 that easily come off at the top. The countries where corruption actually affected my travels. Where police stopped me for no reason. Where border officials wanted money. Where you either paid the bribe or suddenly found yourself with a very big problem.

There are plenty of countries that could make this list. But from my experience travelling to every country in the world, these five stand out.

Counting down from number five…

5. Venezuela

The first one and it makes me so sad. Venezuela is a beautiful country, full of amazing people, and genuinely one of the coolest countries on earth to visit.

It’s home to Angel Falls, the world’s tallest waterfall (I’m running a group trip there in September 2027 JOIN ME HERE) . It’s home to Mount Roraima, one of the most spectacular mountains anywhere on the planet. And you’ve got the Catatumbo lightning phenomenon, where ridiculous amounts of lightning illuminate the sky over Lake Maracaibo, all night through the main season. Youtube it if you’re curious, it’s amazing. Legit, it’s an incredible country to travel in.

But decades of disastrous left-wing socialist government (and then the standard authoritarianism and economic collapse that follow that) has pushed ordinary Venezuelans into awful circumstances. And when I was there, the consequences were everywhere. Violence was out of control. Not just petty crime, but robberies, armed crime and a general feeling that things could go wrong very quickly.

A few awful things reminded me of the corruption. Stopped by the police in Caracas for not having my passport. Put in a car, car locked, and left there. Asking for bribes. Something similar happened in Madagascar too, another country that could make this list!

Then another situation where I took a night bus from Barcelona to Caracas. The manager (or whoever it was) wouldn’t let me leave the bus unless I paid a safety token. Hmmm. The lovely bus driver let me sleep in the bus until my connecting bus was ready. These kind of scenarios aren’t that bad taken in isolation, but the constant harassment. Late at night. Tired. After weeks of the same stuff. It’s too much. And then the cherry on top?

I was travelling with a Venezuelan woman who didn’t trust driving the Venezuelan side of the border route because she was worried about police stops and shakedowns. So I ended up crossing illegally into Colombia, driving down the Colombian side without having officially been stamped out of Venezuela, then crossing back into Venezuela near the border post.

That meant bribes. Then I had to cross back again. More bribes. The whole thing was completely mental. Venezuela makes me sad because I genuinely think the political and economic situation has forced a lot of ordinary people into circumstances they don’t deserve. The Venezuelan people themselves were brilliant to me. But purely from my experience travelling to every country in the world, Venezuela still comes in at number five.

4. Guinea / Liberia / Sierra Leone

Obviously 3 countries, but they can all go in the ‘one big baskey of hotrrible corruption’ as it was one awful 2 week overland trip I did across all 3. Brutal!

Guinea might be my least favourite country on the entire planet. I was overlanding through West Africa at the time, travelling through Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia before eventually continuing north towards the Sahara. That whole part of the world was tough travel. Liberia was tough. Sierra Leone was tough. Both could easily have made this list.

But Guinea was another level. I was travelling with my buddy Josh, and we were in Conakry getting ready to leave when the morning we were supposed to go, all we could hear was gunfire. Not exactly the ideal start to your travel day.

Eventually we discovered there had been a prison break. Prisoners were running around the streets near our hotel while security forces were outside and gunfire was going off. Obviously, we weren’t going anywhere. We stayed inside the hotel and eventually managed to leave the following day. That isn’t necessarily a corruption story, but it gives you an idea of how intense travelling there could be.

The corruption came when we actually got moving. Checkpoints. Police. More checkpoints. More police. I was in Guinea for less than a week and I reckon I was stopped 20 or 30 times. Constant questions. Constant harassment. Constant attempts to find something wrong. Eventually you understand what they’re looking for. Money.

I was travelling there during the Ebola crisis.

I overlanded between Monrovia and Freetown using public transport. And when I say public transport, I mean crammed into vehicles with local passengers, bags everywhere, sweating away while trying to cross one of the more difficult parts of West Africa. Then came the police checkpoints. Same thing as Guinea. Every 15 or 20 kilometres, we’d get stopped.

They knew foreigners were inside the vehicle, so suddenly there was a problem. We basically had two choices. Pay the bribe—which could be anything from about $5 to ridiculous demands approaching $100—or refuse. If you refused, suddenly everyone had to get out.

They’d unload the vehicle. Bags out. Clothes out. Everything searched. And potentially an hour later, you’d finally be allowed to continue. Then you’d drive another 20 or 30 minutes… And do the whole fucking thing again.

The worst thing was that refusing didn’t just affect us. There were local people travelling in the same vehicle who simply wanted to get where they were going. If I decided to take some moral stand against paying a corrupt policeman, everyone else could lose an hour of their day too. So, of course, eventually you pay the “tip.” Then there were the borders. Absolute shakedowns. I was robbed at the border too, great.

Money to get out. Money to get in. Invented problems. Demands for payments. Officials who suddenly became very difficult until some cash appeared. Just hell. Beautiful part of the world and some brilliant people, but travelling overland through Liberia and Sierra Leone was brutal.

3. Ivory Coast

Ivory Coast is a weird one because it’s also one of my favourite countries in West Africa, and probably in Africa full stop. Beautiful coastline, beautiful jungles, cool landscapes as you move north. I overlanded all over the place, into Burkina Faso, into Mali, back again, through Abidjan. I spent honestly about three weeks travelling around Côte d’Ivoire and I really liked the country.

But I also had probably the worst 48 or 72 hours of my travelling life there. We took what was basically a 24-hour bus from Abidjan all the way towards the Liberian border. When we got there, we were told the border was closed. So naturally, instead of accepting defeat like normal people, we paid some dodgy guy to take us across on motorbikes.

We got arrested. Taken to a police cell. Eventually released. Then we paid a different guy to try a different border crossing. Got arrested again. Taken to another cell again.

Eventually we ended up with a police escort back towards Abidjan and were basically forced to abandon the overland route and fly instead. And that still wasn’t the end of it. After the police escorted us onto the 24-hour bus back to Abidjan, the bus got hijacked by bandits.

Then we ended up at another police station. The driver got beaten up. We got harassed again. Eventually we were dumped in the middle of nowhere in Ivory Coast and had to buy another ticket just to continue the journey. Absolute hell. And throughout all of this there were constant police checks, constant questions, constant problems and constant situations where money seemed to be the answer.

I actually had a great overall experience in Ivory Coast. I loved the country, and looking back it was certainly one of the wildest travel experiences of my life. But those two or three days were genuinely horrific. I blogged the whole thing HERE and HERE.

So Côte d’Ivoire comes in at number two on my list of the most corrupt countries in the world.

2. Egypt

I’m a Liverpool fan and I love Mo Salah, so this one is painful. But Egypt has to be here.

I’ve been to Egypt maybe 10 times, and I feel like Egyptian corruption is slightly different from some of the other countries on this list. The intimidation isn’t always at the same level. It’s the relentlessness.

Cairo Airport is one of my least favourite airports in the world. I’ve had horrible experiences there over and over again. Staff pulling people into private rooms. Officials asking for baksheesh, baksheesh, baksheesh (tips/gifts in arabic).

Money for this. Tip for that. Someone helps you with something you didn’t ask them to help you with? Tip. Someone moves something? Tip. Someone points you somewhere? Tip. It’s relentless.

That’s 100% what bothers me most about travelling in Egypt. Every single interaction seems to be transactional. It doesn’t feel like people are on your side. It feels like you’re constantly being worked. As a tourist, the constant low-level hustle wears you down.

The only other country where I’ve consistently had a similar feeling from the actual people on the ground level is Ethiopia, which, from my personal experiences there, is probably the least friendly country I’ve ever visited. Still, even Egypt can’t compete with number one.

1. Nigeria

Nigeria. Without doubt. The scams. The cons. The corruption. The police.

Just insane. My introduction to Nigeria started before I’d even arrived.

My mate was meeting me there and applied for his Nigerian visa at the embassy in Bangkok. He turned up without a button-up shirt. Bear in mind it’s about 40 degrees outside, he’s a tourist travelling around Thailand, and he’s just trying to apply for a visa. The guy absolutely lost it. Screaming and shouting at him about how a white man shouldn’t be entering the building dressed like that. He came back the next day. Then came the demands for money before the visa would be issued. Great start.

Mine wasn’t much better. I’d already had problems getting my own Nigerian visa, including having to pay about a $200 bribe during the process in Gabon. Then I flew from Cameroon into Abuja. I’d got the visa. I’d jumped through all the hoops.

Surely that was it? Nope. At immigration in Abuja, I had another problem. The guy wouldn’t let me into the country unless I paid him. Another bribe. Welcome to Nigeria.

Then the next day I’m walking around Abuja wearing camouflage-style cargo pants. Fashion crime? Fair enough. Actual crime?Apparently so. Two policemen stopped me. They wanted money. Said it’s illegal to wear camouflage pattern shorts, it’s only for military. I refused. So they arrested me and put me in a cell for the afternoon. Eventually we negotiated the bribe down and they let me out.

The shakedowns continued throughout my trip. I travelled overland down towards Lagos and eventually continued west towards Benin, and the number of police stops and demands for money was brutal. Again and again, I’d find myself having to pay money to get out of situations where I’d done absolutely nothing wrong.

Final thoughts on the corrupt countries?

I’ve travelled to every country in the world. And I’ve crossed some of the sketchiest borders on earth. I’ve dealt with corrupt officials, dodgy cops, fake fines, ridiculous visa problems and attempted shakedowns all over the planet. West (and central) Africa are another level. You get a fair bit of it in Latin America, but it’s more gentle. West Africa is aggressive corruptuon. And it’s constant. Multiple shake downs per day. That region is like a different planet there to anywhere else. And of them? Nowhere I’ve travelled came close to Nigeria. It stands alone. I remember doing a Lagos tour, where they took me to ‘the romance scam street’, where shanty officices are full of people scamming people. Mental

So, from my personal experience as a tourist, Nigeria is the most corrupt country I’ve ever visited.