I think you watched too many movies. In real life this even happens to people from the west working there. They need your passport to take a copy, and then it's gone. You're going to fight them then and there? Good luck with that, security and the cops won't be nice to you.
I once worked at a company where some had to go to Dubai to install one of our systems. Some of my more knowledgeable colleagues refused to go, and after hearing their stories, I would also never go.
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.
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.
I once worked at a company where some had to go to Dubai to install one of our systems. Some of my more knowledgeable colleagues refused to go, and after hearing their stories, I would also never go.