It wasn't a "back alley." The road between the hotel and the Panorama is a highway (SS1) without sidewalks, so pedestrians are forced to a parallel road for most of the route. You can see the situation on Google Streetview. I'm actually a little surprised the hotel suggested walking.

Since I always leave my passport in the hotel ( or the apt.,)
what would happen if I was asked to show it to the police
in Madrid or Berlin or Paris?
Would they be satisfied with a copy or a DL or....???
Has it happened to anyone?

Rastaguytoday

I assure you that I was apart of this and this story is 100% true. The reason why the cops never checked my wallet was because me, being teenager, they probably already knew that I didn't have that much money.

hollywoodsc

For all we knew we thought they were really undercover cops. The man showed us an
ID. We just went along following his orders because as Improviser stated that refusing to follow police orders is illegal. Even if this men weren't police officers, they could have been part of a gang of mafia loaded with weapons. Frightened, we went along with their requests.

To get a better picture of what the scene looked like open up (Via dei Casali Santovetti, 38, Rome, Province of Rome, Italy) on Google Maps' street view.

http://i44.tinypic.com/2rwavb6.png

We were stopped by the trash-cans. The car stopped beside the trash-cans while we were walking on the right side of the street.

http://i39.tinypic.com/2nis1oj.png

A 180 degree view opposite to the view with the trash-cans (on the right side), shows a view of 2 roads. Via dei Casali Santovetti straight ahead, and another diverging downward road on the left. This downward road on the left leads to the Panorama supermarket. (as indicated by the signs)

danon..

What police will want to do is to check your identity.
As a foreigner, the only document which police must accept is your passport (assuming that you are not from other Schengen countries and hold a national ID card).

Aside from your passport, police *can* accept a copy of a passport, DL, even your library card. It is totally at the cops' discretion if and what they accept instead of your passport.

If they are not happy with what you can offer instead of your passport, you will be given a ride to your hotel to produce it. If your passport is not within reach, i.e. you have traveled elsewhere on a day trip, you will get a ride to the next precinct where your biometrics are run through the system.

Legally you commit a misdemeanor in Germany and other countries when you (as a foreigner) do not carry your passport with you at all times anywhere you go. Though I have not yet heard of anyone getting fined for that.

Thanks Cowboy...
I was just wondering.

My first day in Berlin I did not validate my metro ticket - the
controllers came on, saw my ticket ,realized I was a foreigner and
told me to do it the next time. No fine or fuss.
As you said, these things are often up to the individuals' judgement.

I also never carry my passport around with me, we make photocopies and carry one with us and have another at home, and another in our suitcase (I'm just paranoid in general I guess..) I've always wondered too, what would happen if you were actually stopped...

We also never carry that much cash, and there's really no need to. Many places, even groceries, take credit cards and you only need to carry cash for that day...

ahc926 - From now on, you should all have shoulder pouches, that go inside your shirt, or money belts, to keep a LITTLE cash, extra credit card, and a copy of your passport. I won't even rent a place that doesn't have a safe t keep my original passport in, and valuables. Keep the money and credit card you're going to use that day/evening in a FRONT pocket, keep the amount in there you're willing to have stolen, if that should happen. Also, distribute the cash and credit cards among yourselves.

I also don't think this was your fault, you and your family were the victims here, but it is true that criminals will go for the easy target. Don't be one in the future. The admonitions given here may have come off as harsh, but it's actually good advice. Don't carry so much cash - don't carry your actual passport around with you.

I agree you should tell the hotel at least what happened so they can warn others.

ahc, that is awful! Glad that you all are safe though. Many people in the West do not realize that in a lot of countries, police officers will approach and ask for passports and sometimes to look into your bags. When a person is traveling, there is already a lot of stress just from being in a different country with different laws and customs.

I agree that you should always wear a money belt (there is also a neck version) and only copies of your passport, not your actual passport. Also, do not carry that much cash. I do understand that depending on your culture, people do want to carry a lot of cash instead of using credit cards or ATMs (I am always arguing with my DH about his tendency to want to do that. On this trip, we had several problems withdrawing cash at ATMs- our stupid bank fault). Also, beware of those darn safes in hotels. Two years ago, $400 were stolen out of our hotel room safe at the Four Seasons in Egypt. Since then, I learned never ever put your valuables in those safes either.

This is a new one to me, never discussed on Fodor's anyway, and I could imagine falling for it easily. So thank you for the warning, ahc. I am sorry you had such a traumatic experience - I have been pickpocketed so I know how outraged you feel. And I think these were pickpockets with a new scam, not police.

A tricky one, if we exclude known corrupt regimes (and Italy is not one of those) then it is reasonable to hand over passports (but I would ask the guy to get out of his car) but a search of belongings by a person out of uniform would be too much.

Carrying that much money is bad idea, only carry what you can afford to lose.

But you do need to be able to offer up a passport in most mainland european countries when requested (it varies by country not schengen but it is a good guide), Italy the requirement is within 12 hours of request. So you were right to be carrying it.

Thank you for this post. While its alot of cash to carry, I can understand why you might have it. We recently were told by friends who had just returned from Italy, that Italian hotels and vendors may offer you a lower price for cash and a higher price for credit so we were already thinking we needed to bring more cash to Italy vs credit.There is also the thing about they like cash because they can avoid paying taxes.Who knows? Never had this issue in western Europe.From the repsonses, i see it might be possible to carry a copy of passport then face a trip back to hotel for real one if the "police" are real.

Being stopped by fake police must be very common in Prague - our hotel provided photos of genuine police identity badges and genuine uniforms so that guests knew what to look for. They also provided info on exactly how to handle being approached by imposters.

Honestly, I don't think that a possible discount would be reason enough for me to carry 1K euros in cash with me across Rome (or anywhere else). But that is an individual decision.
We still do not know what extraordinary circumstances made it inevitable for OP's party to buy snacks at a supermarket with less than $1,000 in their pockets.

The requirement to register your stay with the police (by using your passport) is different from your obligation as a foreigner to produce proper ID at any time during your stay.
The former is governed by individual countries' laws, and usually your hotel or landlord if you rent a holiday home will take the info from your passport and forward is to the authorities.
The latter is governed either by national laws alone or also by the Schengen agreement (in those Schengen countries only, obviously). The Schengen agreement gives police the authority to perform random ID spot controls on major thoroughfares, at airports, train stations, bus stations, i.e. major traffic hubs. Most citizens of mainland Europe and within the Schengen area carry their national ID cards with them all the time anyway. It's like for an American having the drivers license in the wallet all the time.

If you - as a foreigner - do not carry your original passport with you, you break the law in many European countries. Period.
You may find this foolish or incomprehensible, but that is not the issue here. You are free to do whether you comply with the law or now. But you should at least know the law and not scream bloody murder if a copy of your passport does not convince a cop in Hamburg or Sevilla or Naples and he/she will not be so nice to let you get it from your hotel but drag you to the next precinct.
The latter is a fairly remote possibility, but nevertheless it does not hurt IMO to know the full picture. And knowing stories that one cop in Amsterdam was fine with seeing a drivers license or one cop in Munich did not care you had any documents with you gives you no legal certainty at all any time or anywhere else.

i think the financial police (yes there is such a thing) has cracked down so hard on the cash / credit card thing that any benefit will be very small.

For all we knew we thought they were really undercover cops. The man showed us an
ID. We just went along following his orders because as Improviser stated that refusing to follow police orders is illegal. Even if this men weren't police officers, they could have been part of a gang of mafia loaded with weapons. Frightened, we went along with their requests.>>

ahc - i have a lot of sympathy with your plight, and suspect that many people would have done the same as you and your parents, whatever they may now say.

but there are a few lessons we could all learn:

don't hand over anything to someone in a vehicle. I know that they didn't drive off with your passports but they could have done. If they are genuine police, they won't mind getting out of their car to look at your passports.

if they want to look at credit cards or money, offer to go to the police station with them.

and don't carry massive amounts of cash around with you.

"offer to go to the police station.."

getting into the car with people you suspect of being criminals would not be my choice.
Perhaps...pulling a phone, if you have one, and calling some equivalent of 911?

hard to know what any of us would do in this situation.
.

This is a horrible situation! I'm sorry that it happened to you and your parents.

So many people here saying to not carry massive amounts of cash- yet I totally see how you may have had such cash on you. We had what seemed to be a lot of cash on us many times and I don't know how it could be prevented. If you are on a tour that requires a cash payment at the end, what would you do? A group of six, payment in cash and the payment is 600 or 700 Euro? You're walking around with that much cash for a day.

The day we checked into our apartment, we came from the cruise ship, to the apartment and until the apartment was ready had over 1200 Euro in cash because it was required to have a cash payement upon check in. Where do you suspect one should put that cash until check in? When we arrived our "landlord" was there, but the cleaning crew was still cleaning from the previous tenets. She let us store our bags in the apartment, but didn't want to deal with taking the money yet or going over the apartment instructions until they were done cleaning. She told us to go have lunch and come back in 2 hours. Should we have left 1200 Euro in the apartment with the cleaning people in the luggage, or taken it with us? Tough call maybe, but it felt safer to take it with us, so we did.

I think it's pretty easy to imagine what should be done, but in reality situations do come up where you have to have cash with you. It's sometimes unavoidable.

I would have felt very intimidated in the situation you were in and I have no idea how we would have handled it. It sounds rather scary.

ahc926: I a so sorry that you went through this – it must have been very upsetting for you all. I hope your family has recovered, and I wish you well.

There is a cultural and racist element in this that may be missed. Here is a family example.

Cultural element: One of my BILs is Chinese, and he insists on always having a massive amount of cash available. My sister has an astonishing amount of gold and diamond jewellery. Why? He was ethnic Chinese, born in Malaysia, and his parents had to escape to the jungle during WW2 with whatever they could carry. His father was a wealthy businessman before the war, but came back to his town there was nothing, as the Malaysians had taken everything. He built up another fortune, and made sure his son understood that he should be able escape at any point with lots of cash, in various currencies, and tradable gold and jewels.

Racist element: Most of the respondents to this thread live in the USA, and I live in London, have lived in Canada. Its easy to believe that racism is not an issue, given that we live in a multi-cultural environment. But unfortunately it DOES exist. The Cops may or may not have been a real Cops. The fact is, they felt they could take advantage of an Asian family, as they could be accused of being ‘foreign workers’. Can you understand their concern/panic? Similar happened to sister a few years ago when entering Australia with her daughter, to attend a wedding. My dear niece looks nothing like her Mother – She looks more like her father My sister was accused of trafficking girls by border control, despite the fact they both had Irish passport with the same Chinese surname.

What I am saying is: don’t be judgemental. The post is perfectly understandable to me.

>>>The fact is, they felt they could take advantage of an Asian family, as they could be accused of being ‘foreign workers’<<<

That may or may not be true. It's more likely because Asians are known to carry a lot of cash (like your family) so they are targeted for that reason.

ShellD

Just to clear things up, the cash was supposed to pay for our tour (the whole Europe tour) and additional expenses. Knowingly, my mom should've paid using credit card, but she insisted on paying in cash to avoid additional foreign transaction fees.