if that sounds dodgy as hell to you then you haven’t been around much.
validations are very common. If you want to fly a VP-, M-, 2-, T7-, you do not exchange your licence but get a validation.
if you go to Dubai, you do not exchange your licence but just take an airlaw and once in the pocket, you get a GCAA licence based on your original one. Many, many more examples of validations out there, even for people coming to EASA land ( often limited to 1 year ).