I am not talking about the policemen outside his house, but the douaniers at the airport. When he is in town checks are more thorough than usual and they tick names of the list of notified arrivals. There is no mucking about and it is not only foreign arrivals and departures they check. As for paranoia, it would take a lot more than a document check to worry someone who has spent most of his life in South America, where police are not necessarily associated with safety or security.