Inbreker doet zich voor als huiseigenaar bij politie

What does “zich voordoen als” mean in Dutch?

A hidden-camera prank shows a burglar caught red-handed inside someone else’s house. When police officers ring the bell after an alarm alert, the burglar opens the door and calmly answers as if he were the homeowner, right down to reciting an alarm code. That’s zich voordoen als: to pose as, to pass yourself off as someone else entirely, not just tell one small lie.

The construction breaks into zich (oneself) + voordoen (to present, put forward) + als (as): literally “to present oneself as.” It differs from a plain lie (liegen) by specifically naming the fake identity: a con artist can zich voordoen als monteur (pose as a repairman), or, as in this sting, as the rightful owner of a house he’s actually robbing.