[tejohnso]

It sounds like you're describing a movie plot set up to me. Any time I've given my passport to an official I received it back immediately. And you're saying the police are in on the scam? That's fiction as far as I'm concerned.

I guess that's my answer though. Things are just drastically different in some places and the authorities are on side to support the perpetrators rather than the victims.

[ithkuil]

18y ago I had to attend a meeting in an Italian city. The building had security and they asked us to give them our passports and that we'll get them back on our way out.

I was a bit confused, but as a junior developer I wasn't going to make a scene for that,.when apparently nobody from the group was blinking at the request (perhaps everybody was thinking the same?).

Luckily a senior manager from $bigcorp barged in and when asked to hand his password just confidently yelled "there is no fucking way I'm going to give you my passport" and walked through. We followed.

[koonsolo]

Haha, you're funny. You have absolutely no idea. You think you're in the US or EU?

I'll leave this as a small taste of what can happen: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31692914.

Who says you're the victim? In their eyes you're the perpetrator.