barcelona police scam

it was on our 2nd day in barcelona and we were on our way to the last stop of the gaudi tour - the unfinished la sagrada familia cathedral.
it was ard late noon and we were snaking our way through a sub-urban part of the eixampler area.
there was this guy who approached us suddenly and asked if we were tourists (on hindsight, this is rather a suspicious question) and wanted our help to get to a place.

being kind as usual (may not pay at times), we looked at his map and told him that the place he wanted to go is 3 metro stops away and he can go there by taking a metro at the nearest station which is at la sagrada anyway.
on hindsight2, how can someone be SO LOST? 3 metro stops from where you want to go?!

anyway out of the blue, 2 guys came out and flashed us what seemed to be badges and claimed that they are policemen and they wanted to check our passports.

ah long quickly pulled me aside and i was feeling pretty shocked at the turn of events.
heard horror stories of tourists being held up by local police due to mis-understandings and so my thinking was to co-operate and get out of the place asap.
the "policemen" said its the "tourist" that they are worried about cos there are cases of swindles exchanging fake currencies with tourists.
on hindsight3, why would cops (in plain-clothes somemore) be so bo liao to check random tourists for such fraud cases?

anyway, we showed them our passports (which thankfully they didnt take away) and after that they demanded to see our wallet..!
luckily i've the habit of putting my money all over the place, in my wallet, pocket, bag etc.
so when he opened my wallet i've equivalent of ard S$60 in euros nia. i sworn i saw a teeny bit of disgust on his face when he saw the amount of money i had.
then its ah long's turn, the "policeman" actually took his money out and COUNTED. siao anot. but since ah long's money is all over the place too, he had only ard S$200 in euros.

they passed the money back to him and i was getting suspicious and so i asked can we go now?
and they indicated ok and we quickly walked away from the bizarre incident.
and the weird thing is the "tourist" also immediately turned and walked off in another direction when he should be heading the same way as us if he was supposed to go to the metro station as he said earlier on!

this thing left a bad taste in my mouth and im seriously feeling barcelona aint as safe as what i thought.
and hubbi and me kept going back and forth during the trip wondering how true the whole thing is.
back home, hubbi did his research and confirmed the whole thing is just a scam!
below is what he found on the internet posted by another american tourist:
"Barcelona Passport Control
One Sunday morning my wife and I were walking on a virtually deserted main street from the hotel named 987. We were about six blocks from the Gaudi Sagrada Familia Cathedral. A tall English speaking man approached us from behind with a folded map in his hands and started asking us for direction help. We told him we couldn't help him, but he persisted in trying to talk to us (which served the purpose of slowing us down completely). At this point, two men in suits came from the direction we were walking. They very fast flashed their wallets with some sort of "ID" that said, in English "Passport Control" and said they were the police. They said they had been following the man who was standing behind us (strange? following him from the opposite direction). One of the suits stood next to my wife, the other one talked to me. He wanted to see our passports and to know if we had done any business with the guy with the map. We always carry only photocopies of our passports which I showed him in the pouch around my neck (dumb). At this stage, the con was in full swing. I was hooked. Now, he wanted to see my money because he said a lot of tourists have been scammed by making change for crooks who pass off large counterfeit bills in exchange for good, smaller bills. I let him look at my money which comprised ten US $20 bills on the bottom and about 50 in Euro on the top. He looked at all the money and handed it back to me. He said to be careful. He and the other suit took off in the direction we had come from. The guy with the map disappeared into thin air. As I watched them hurry down the street both of them were on their cell phones. After we recovered for a minute I checked my money. I had the Euros. The US twenties were gone. Then, I thought back. Just before we crossed a certain street and were approached by the guy with the map, I remembered a man sitting alone illegally parked in a black four door car at the curb. He was talking on a cell phone. My guess is the four were in cahoots via cell phone. What to do in the future: Walk fast. Don't stop for anyone. If any supposed "police" approach you, demand to have them accompany you back to your hotel and to call the police station to send out a marked police car. Or, just yell "thieves" "crooks" "robbers" and take off. If they were real police, you can bet they would have had a marked police car and they could have called for back up help. Come on, the real police don't have time to randomly stop perhaps tourists on the sidewalk. In many countries picking pockets is considered a "victim-less crime". It's the matter of the have's and the have nots. You know which group you are in. You are supposed to have a passport on you in a foreign country --- but a colored photo copy will work just fine. I am thinking my copies saved me from losing two U.S. passports. I complained to the hotel desk. They would not call the police. They said we would have to walk the two miles to the station to make a complaint. A month ago we stayed near Las Ramblas in a very nice hotel. We talked to the people at the desk. Believe it or not, they said that DAILY a tourist staying in their hotel gets his/her pocket picked out on the street. Moral: Use Rick's waist belt with all your money. Forget you are an American. Morph into an alert tourist. Don't trust anyone on the street. We go to Barcelona a lot to start Royal Caribbean cruises. We've been there six times. We'll be there again. But, we'll walk fast.
Robert D. Brooks
Detroit, MI USA 03/21/2009"

the above happened just 2 days after us and in the same area too!
eeks!

im only glad that the husband and me came out of this mad episode unscathed.
really, it pays to be more cautious when overseas.