The Tale of Franco

This is a German topic story, which is a bit comical, and presently....lacks an ending. 

So there was (and still is) this young German Bundeswehr (Army) officer whose name is Franco A.  Remember, if you get into serious legal trouble, journalists in Germany are forbidden from giving your entire name....so they always use first letter of your last name....as part of story. 

Young Franco A. was lucky enough to get into a military master's degree program, which was in France....around 2009.  Some suggest that Franco was at the very beginning of an entire college program (first year) at this stage, and it's never clearly laid out in detail.  Around 2014, it was time for Franco to produce a thesis. 

One might assume that they gave Franco an entire year to produce this thesis.  Once it came in....remember now, this was a military-type school (like West Point), there was a review.    The professor came to some conclusion that the thesis was 'crap' (my word).  What's generally discussed is that it was mostly about conspiracy theories and had a fair amount of criticism over immigrants and anti-migrant topics.  Yes, in simple words....this thesis was built upon a rant.

One might laugh about this, but after the review....they kinda handed it back and said 'what the hell is this'.  Franco simply answered that he was under time constants and just threw it together.  The college didn't want to accept it, so they offered up the secondary choice....an oral presentation. 

Most people will agree that they'd rather spend several months writing a thesis than doing the oral exam.  In this case, Franco actually passed the oral 'testing' and got by.  Some folks connected to this episode kinda hinted that Franco's written work was a signal of things to come.

So we move forward to 2015.  If you were around Germany at this point, you'd remember the mass migration crisis going on, and how roughly one-million immigrants arrived on the space of that twelve months.  Virtually every single night....news came with more immigrants arriving. 

Franco?  He believed that the German authorities were basically just looking the other way, and wouldn't even grasp if a German attempted to immigrate into Germany.  As silly as it sounds....he decided to test them.

So around late December 2015, Franco shows up in Giessen, Germany....in raggedy clothing and pretending to be a Syrian Christian from Damascus.....who sold fruit and vegetables.   There was this story that he developed....his father dead.....he being Christian.....and taught only French at some local academy that his father had put him through.  Yes, the amazing thing with this story....he didn't speak a single word of Arabic.  No....not one single word. 

The interpreter in the room while the initial interview was going on?  More or less a rookie with only a couple of weeks of work-time on the job.  But the interpreter heard the whole story, and just didn't believe it.  But the individual kept their mouth closed and just let it all pass.

Most of us would have sat there and asked how you communicated with people on the street in Damascus....if you didn't speak any Arabic at all, and only French.  But logic really didn't fall into play.

Franco....aka 'David Benjamin' (that was his fake name) got papers to start the migration process in Germany.

So they sent him off to Kirchberg, Germany.....to a small asylum center.  Over the next year, he was rarely ever seen.  To be honest, he already had this full-time military occupation going on so the pretender-refugee thing was just a part-time occupation on the side. 

At some point, the local authorities wanted to conduct a hearing with him, and couldn't find him.  Naturally, Franco was back at the military post for the bulk of this time.  One might assume that he'd go and show up for a day or two occasionally....continuing the act through all of 2016.

Around January of 2017, this odd event then happens with Franco.  He's gone down to Austria to visit some associates.  Drinking appears to be a key part of this visit (partying).  At some point, he falls into some bushes, and happens to find this pistol there.

Yes, it's quiet common for people to travel across Europe, and find pistols in bushes. (sarcasm here).

It's a French-made gun.....made only between 1928 and 1944....a Unique Model 17.  If well maintained, it has value (say in the 300 to 400 Euro range).  That said....it needs to be registered with the authorities and held only by a licensed individual.  If it was marginally maintained for the past forty years, then it's a risk to fire, and probably worthless.  Oddly, no one has ever established an assessment over the pistol or if it's capable of firing. 

How it was laying in the bushes....still not fully explained.  To be honest, I don't believe the story and suspect that Franco might have traded for the weapon or bought it. 

But anyway....back to the story.  On day two of the gun in his possession, it's time to return from Vienna to Germany.  He's taken it to the airport, and it's not clear how he intends to handle this transport of the pistol. 

A smart guy would have walked into a Vienna post office and just mailed it to Germany.  Because they are within the EU, there's zero chance of the box being checked or reviewed.  But we are talking about Franco here.

He apparently wants to carry it in his luggage on this flight.  Bumbling around in some bathroom....with the gun in his hands....there's a camera which notes this funny business, and the airport cops detain the guy and his gun. 

The problem here is that while he messed around with the asylum folks in Germany....they got his biometric data (fingerprints) and when these airport cops go and check on the guy....he comes up as this Syrian refugee.  In their mind, this doesn't make any sense.  Fake German?  Fake Syrian? 

So now a major German investigation starts up.  The gun business?  This worries them a lot because they think he might have attempted to kill some folks.  The fake immigrant registration stuff?  That gets them all upset because he proved their system was not capable of detecting fakes.  Almost two years are wasted in this period of legal chatting between the German federal authorities, the German Bundeswehr, and Franco's lawyers. 

Toward the end of 2017, the German Court of Justice throws out the charges because they can't prove he had some criminal intent.  Two weeks later, new charges get filed.  At this point (fall of 2019), the only convictions that they've gotten out of Franco is a weapons-related charge, which would make sense because he had a unregistered gun in his possession.  The other charges of having a hit-list of political figures and being a terrorist?  Those have failed because there simply isn't any evidence to make the charge stick.

Man-hours put into this investigation, charges, and justice-action?  Probably into the tens of thousands. 

So what do you really have?  A young military officer that correctly guessed that the migration system that the Germans were operating was faulty...a stupid young military officer who fell into some bushes and 'found' a French antique pistol....and some mass conspiracy over a target-list that never seems to go anywhere. 

If the professor had just thrown Franco out of the masters degree program, or that interpreter thinking it was odd that a Syrian could only speak French and saying something about this oddity....none of this would have progressed beyond the first step. 

As movie scripts go, this is a five-star piece waiting to be written and made into in a movie.