ahc926, I feel your pain! Similar thing happened to us in Barcelona years ago. (And I have posted this previously on this site) Those fake police were on the sidewalk in broad daylight, on a street near our hotel, demanding to see our IDs and to check our money for "counterfeit." Fortunately, we didn't have much cash to begin with and I simply clutched my bag and refused to let them have it. DH, being threatened with arrest, reluctantly handed over his wallet but watched carefully as they rifled through his few bills. It appeared that they weren't able to lift any money, but when counting his money back at the hotel, he realized that somehow the "policeman" had managed to take one bill, approximately $20 worth. All things considered, we were lucky. So sorry your family lost a lot of money. For those who criticised the victims, please consider that there is no easy way to tell if these "police" are real or not and foreigners are naturally intimidated when confronted with what appears to be police authority.

Well, I know I was one advising not to carry a lot of cash - but the truth is, we landed in Spain just last month with 500 euros each (my husband and I) on us, because we needed to pay cash for an apartment rental we'd arranged. We even took the train from Malaga to Sevilla with that much on us. We had it spread out in different places - some in my neck pouch, some in his, some in our wallet/purse... So yes there are times when you need a bunch of cash.
The main thing is to not have it all in one place, I think. Spread it out.

ahc296, what country does your Mother live in? Carrying cash to avoid 'foreign transaction fees' does not make sense but it is understandable that she wanted to avoid them. Perhaps the answer for next time is to take this as a lesson telling her to find a way.

Credit card and debit cards are the best way to handle money when travelling. Cash besides being an issue if you are robbed or lose it will NOT get her the best exchange rates when travelling. Credit and debit cards will ALWAYS get her a better exchange rate.

However, depending on what country your credit/debit cards are from and which institution in that country, the fees and charges YOUR HOME BANK charges you may be greater than the loss of exchange using cash has.

In some countries you can find credit and debit cards that charge as much as much as 4.5% on foreign exchange loading. You may also find some that charge 0%. Visa/MC charge 1% themselves to your bank for processing the transaction on a credit card.

So what this all means is the best way is to use cards but use the RIGHT cards that cost you the least in exchange. If a decent example is available from a bank in your Mother's home country, then it will ALWAYS be a beater deal than exchanging cash.

I'm sorry this happened to you but unfortunately this is an old scam, in fact someone attempted this with me. I was at the pyramids in Egypt when a man came up to me presenting a fake badge and said he was with security. He said, "Where is your ticket?" Then he tried to fine me for not showing my ticket to him. His acting was so bad I started laughing and I told him to leave me alone before I call the real police. He then disappeared into the crowd.

For what it's worth you are not the first person to fall for this scam and you won't be the last.

Firstly, ahc926 thank you for your reply. I am so sorry to hear about this news. A similar incident just happened to me in Rome yesterday afternoon. My aunt and I were near Lungotevere Tor di Nona when one guy approached my aunt while she was taking pictures. I was wondering why he was insistent on asking my aunt for directions when she was obviously taking pictures. I told him, "Can I help you?" At this point another man approaches us and tells us he is the secret police. At this point, I am also keeping on eye on the other guy who initially asked my aunt for directions because he is still standing next to her which I thought was a bit odd.

The so-called secret police officer said he needs to see our passports. I told him we don't have it. This secret police officer was not dressed in uniform.

My aunt handed over her wallet sleeve that had her Canadian Driver's Licence and Citizenship card and a 5 euro bill and a few Canadian dollars. The amount was negligible. He handed my aunt's ID back to her. I was in fact carrying £100 Euros in my coin purse that was in my knapsack. When he asked me to show me my ID and wallet I asked him why we were being stopped. He said there is a lot of drug trafficking and other crime in this area. I said may I see your ID. He quickly showed me something, but I did not have a good look at it. He persisted on asking me to hand over my ID and money.

At this point I notice that the guy who initially asked my aunt for directions is now behind me as the secret police officer was questioning me. At this point I moved away from them and said I did not feel comfortable with this man (the guy asking for directions) standing behind me and stepped away from both of them so that they were both in front of me. I also made a point to keep my aunt close to me and some distance from them so they couldn't see exactly what I had. I did not hand my ID or wallet to them. I said, "If you want me to show you my ID I will show you myself." I showed him my ID and coin purse. I had a lot of loose change and the bills were covered up with my receipts.

When he asked me for my ID I knew something was fishy, but I didn't want them to hurt us. My aunt is 68 and disabled (walks with a cane) and I am a woman in my mid-thirties around 5'2. These two guys were considerable bigger than us and my aunt's safety was the most important thing on my mind. I knew something was not right, but tried to take control of the situation the best I could. I showed him my coin purse and tried my best to cover up my bills with my receipts to let him know I only had change and we really had nothing of value. If I was on my own I would have walked away from the situation sooner, but because my aunt has mobility issues was a bit problematic. We simply couldn't walk away and they seemed like the types that would keep bothering us till we showed them we had nothing.

Once the guys knew that I wasn't handing anything over he left us alone and we walked away from the situation as fast as we could manage to.

I've read some of the other posts and no matter how hard we try to blend in we still stand out because my aunt wants to take pictures with her camera and we are also Asian (visible minority) who speak English. Please note that we showed them our ID because I know the government has the right to stop and ask you for this.

This has left a really sour note for us. Although nothing was taken, my aunt is a bit shaken up from the whole ordeal.....

Kudos for the way you handled the situation, you were right to put your aunt's well being first.

JTravels you did very well and made all the right calls, well done.

This is Italy not Russia, so "secret police" is a hard concept :-)

I'm just back from Rome today and was at Lungotevere Tor di Nona two days ago, I would think a prime place for all the scams. I wouldn't think you were standing out as asians at all, the place had many asians and many very short people (not always the same thing), just you looked out of place and vunerable.

I can confirm JTravels' and the OP's (ahc926 ) scam story. Almost the exact same thing happened to me and my wife today in Rome. I don't think its a coincidence that we, like the OP and JTravels, are of Asian decent (but Australian). I was searching Google for images of Italian police ID and this thread came up.

Our story: we were walking down Via del Circo Massimo towards the metro this afternoon when a man in the passenger seat of a parked car called out to me, "scusi!". The man looked of Indian descent and so did the driver. Like the two stories above both men were in plain clothes and the car was not a marked police car.

He then flashed a badge which had "POLIZIA" on it and he said "polizia...police". He then asked to see my passport. I played dumb and pretended not to understand what he said as I was already wary of a scam. He asked where we were from and I told him, to which he asked to see our passports. I asked why because I didn't want to go anywhere near the man or his car. He ignored my question and asked where we were from again and told us he needed to see our passports. I was pretty wary of a scam at this point and took a gamble and said "no" then said thank you and turned to walk away. He then started asking if we were Korean. We said "no. Australian" and turned to leave again; he then said "okay" and we walked off.

So not as scary as JTravel's story or unfortunate as the OP's story but it does seem like the same scam. I don't think that we "stood out" badly; we weren't wearing "obvious" tourist clothing or big SLR cameras hanging around our necks. My theory is that they are targeting Asian tourists; many Asian cultures have stronger emphasis on following authority figures. So scams like this probably have a higher success rate if you target people of those cultures (just a theory).

btw does anyone have a photo of an actual Italian policeman's badge? this guy's did look a bit plastic; so another reason I thought it was a scam but I don't know what one looks likes - perhaps they do look plastic?

txchou our experiences do seem relatively similar, however the two "police officers" my family encountered did not look of Indian descent. I'm pretty sure they were of Italian descent Italian. And you're theory seems spot on, I agree with you 100%.
Thanks for sharing your stories Jtravels and txchou

Wow. Terrible stories. Bad things seem to happen in Italy when the country's finances turn sour. Not sure you can ever be sure of someone's heritage, though. It doesn't help to make accusations you can't prove. Almost sounds like racism in reverse. I was sure the hotel manager during my previous visit to Rome was Italian. His Italian was impeccable, and he talked and talked about Italian women as if they were his ultimate weakness. When I asked where he was born, he said Romania. He had only been in Italy for 10 years. I never would have guessed that and I spent an unusual amount of time talking with this guy.

I am almost certain that the hotel clerck has something to do with. He might have called the fake policemen and told them where you were going.
In Europe in general they target asian looking people because they are most likely not locals.
At the Jardin des Tulleries in Paris, near the Louvre I saw how a different type of fake police scam developed right in front of us.
To my left there were two young men pretending to be tourist, to my right an older man wearing suit and tie and sunglasses. A litle bit farter to the right a big and mean looking guy wearing a sport warmup suit.
Coming thru the promenade an asian looking tourist with camera, typical chinese tourist clothing.
As he got to the fake tourist they asking to take a picture of both of them in from of basically nothing. As soon as he took their camera the fake policeman ran and asked the fake tourist for id which they of course provided without hesitation. The fake police then asked the asian tourist for his wallet.
While this was happening I was looking and explaining to my wife the scam and the big guy notice my presence and yelled something to the fake police who returned the wallet to the real tourist/victim while applying an arm bar to one of the fake tourist and took him away while the other one fake complain at him.
We then saw the victim tourist looking thru his empty wallet just realizing what had happened, but it was too late, the fake patrol had dissapear.
By the way, that same day in three different ocasion three different people including a young woman try to pull the found ring scam on us. Twice within a block of each other, near the Opera and the last one by the Tulleries right in front of a couple of real "gendarmes". One of the scammers when "picking" the ring from the ground didn't even got all the way to ground to pick it up. He picked it up from thin air, I just laughed at him and told him that he need to improve his act.

The original incident happened more than a year ago.