As people began to think about end-of-the-year business expenses for the close of the 2016 tax year, I chuckle when I think about one of my most unusual expenses incurred on the job. I had to pay to get my license plate back.

It started as I was sitting at a red light in Juarez, Mexico, without a car in site for miles. All of a sudden, a motorcycle cop came roaring up and informed me I had been speeding in a school zone and had run a red light. Pretty miraculous, considering my car was at a standstill at the only red light for miles. When I didn’t say anything, he went to the back of my car, stole my license plate and rode off.

I was in Mexico to visit a factory that had a 17 percent a month turnover rate and a huge shrinkage rate. I had been appointed CEO of the factory, which in a case of irony, made switches for signals used in traffic lights.

When I told the plant manager what happened, he told me I’d have to bribe that officer $500 to get my license plate back, which I needed to cross back into the US and return the rental car. But lucky for me, the plant manager knew the cop and said he’d take care of it. What a guy, right?

I did get my plate back. I also learned that the plant manager only gave the cop $100 for it, stealing $400 from me. But that was nothing compared to what he was stealing from the company.

He had created and was paying dozens of fake employees and was getting kickbacks from his cousin, the customs agent, and his uncle, a local freight business owner. He was robbing the company into ruin.

He was helpful in one respect, however. He told me that company had 90 percent market share and the owners could raise the prices. That was one of my first orders of business. After getting rid of him, of course. And getting my plate back.

For more stories like this, read my book “How Not to Hire a Guy Like Me: Lessons Learned from CEOs’ Mistakes,” now available as an ebook.