Imagine this scene.
The cops pull you over as you’re driving
down the freeway.
An officer asks you for your license, and
you obligingly pull it out and hand it over.
You tell him it’s an international license,
adding that you’re originally from Scotland.
“R. McDonald”, the cop says.
“You can call me Ron,” you tell him.
“Ok, Mr. Ronald McDonald,” the cops says,
“We have reason to believe this car has
been involved in a serious crime.
We would like you to come with us.”
After the cops have stopped laughing down
at the precinct they soon discover that you’re
not actually Ronald McDonald and you’re
probably not Scottish.
You are, however, all over that serious crime
scene.
You outright refuse to tell them who you really
are, so the question is, how do they actually
convict you of the crime?
It sounds like the plot of a TV crime show,
but as you’ll find out, this is all based
on a true story.
The real story involves a man who has been
given the name, “Unknown Man”, and he’s
been sitting in a Canadian prison for more
than six years.
He says his name is Herman Emmanuel Fankem
and that he’s from France, but an investigation
found that to be an outright lie.
When asked who he really is he says things
like this, “You can go to hell.
That’s all I have to say to you.
Go to hell.”
So, what can you do with a man that is so
stubborn?
Let’s first look at what he was accused
of.
He was involved in a pretty serious fraud
case back in 2013.
A Toronto man put an ad online for a commercial
property and five guys responded to that ad,
one of them being our unknown man.
They said they could pay for the place, but
there was a catch.
They said a large sum of money was on its
way from South Africa, but the cash was coated
in a kind of black ink.
That’s the only way they could get the money
out, they told the man.
They told him that the coating wasn’t that
hard to remove, but you needed a very expensive
chemical to remove the ink.
They then produced a huge chunk of cash and
showed the guy how this chemical could remove
the coating.
They told the guy that they needed his help
to bring in more money and buy more chemicals,
and no doubt the guy was going to get quite
a bit of cash out of this deal.
He ended up giving the guys $450,000, and
then he later discovered that the cash he
already had was fake.
The men disappeared of course.
After this happened the cops said these guys
were experts at this kind of scam, and they
said they preyed on various people.
The police claimed they were good at their
job, telling the press, “Many of the suspects
in this scam are very good at building rapport
with the victims.
They're very clever, they're very devious
and they practice this.”
Those early reports said a 32-year old man
from Montreal had been arrested, and his name
was Fankem.
We now know this is not true, and he might
not have even been 32.
So, how did he even get to Canada?
Well, we know that he got on a flight from
Cuba and arrived in Montreal on October 28,
2012.
He had a French passport.
At immigration he was asked what the intention
of his visit was.
He said he had been to Canada before and had
friends there.
He added that he was visiting again because
his buddy’s sister had died and he’d been
asked to attend the wake.
“Ok, Mr. Fankem, enjoy your stay.”
But he was there to meet his crew and to start
scamming wealthy Canadians.
Things looked ok on the outside.
He had a reservation at the Days Inn in Montreal;
had over three thousand dollars in a bank
account and had a return ticket home.
If you didn’t know, some immigration officials
in many countries will ask for those three
things if they suspect you’re not a genuine
tourist: Proof you have cash for your stay.
Hotel reservation, and a return ticket.
The man was given a 10-day visa and that was
that.
Except he had no intention of staying 10 days
or using that return ticket.
He was also intending to fatten that bank
account of his.
After the crime was committed an investigation
pointed towards the unknown man and he was
found in a hotel.
The thing was, he had ID, but not the ID he
had showed at the airport.
He told the cops his real ID, the Fankem passport,
was someplace else.
Since this case involved a foreigner the Canada
Border Services Agency was called in.
He got lucky, too, because he wasn’t actually
convicted in the fraud case.
Canadian prosecutors said just deport him.
Simple.
But it wasn’t simple.
The unknown man actually told the cops he
wanted to stay in Canada and face the music.
The authorities wanted to send him packing
back to his own country, but where in hell’s
name was that?
Fankem explained why he wanted to stay in
Canada:
“I asked for a trial so that I could settle
the allegations against me.
My right is to prove that I am not guilty,”
he was reported as saying in the National
Post.
If he went to trial and got cleared then he’d
be Mr. Fankem, a free man.
Now he’s an imprisoned imposter, and he’s
done more time than he would have if he’d
been found guilty six years ago.
So what to do with an unknown man?
Well, time passed and he just stayed in prison.
He just wouldn’t play ball and tell the
authorities who he was.
Years passed, and during that time investigations
revealed that his fingerprints pointed to
fraud cases in many countries.
His fingerprints matched a fraud case in the
UK, while they were also owned by two different
men in Cameroon and one guy in Haiti.
It seemed Mr. Fankem has used quite a few
names before, but still, the authorities didn’t
know where to send him.
It seems now his mental health is suffering,
but he’s still a stubborn man.
Maybe he just can’t say who he really is
because that might lead to some more serious
crimes.
He’s stuck with Fankem, and as an imposter,
it’s not clear what the authorities should
do.
This is just how stubborn he can be.
The Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board
asked him, “I will listen to what you have
to say, sir, but I would like to know first
of all, am I speaking to the right person?”
The reply.
“I don’t care.
Go to hell.”
He’s certainly not who he says he is because
the French police did a massive bust of a
ring that had been counterfeiting passports
and they discovered that one of the fakes
was none other than a Mr. Herman Emmanuel
Fankem.
The French told the Canadians that they believe
the unknown man is Cameroonian.
The Cameroonian authorities believe he used
to sell clothes in the country and then moved
to the UK, but they didn’t know what his
real name was.
The British said his fingerprints were on
file under a Cameroonian national named Bouon
Emmanuel Febile.
He was convicted of having fraudulent documents
and did an eight-month sentence in a London
lock-up.
After his release he stayed in the UK and
created new identity, after which he was arrested
again for fraud under a different name and
served another year.
This globetrotter might also be wanted in
Germany.
The United States Department of Homeland Security
said ok, let’s use facial recognition technology.
That seems to have happened and then the Canadian
Immigration and Refugee Board appealed in
2018 to get the man released.
That didn’t happen and he’s still in prison
today.
Now two questions for you.
One: why do you think this man won’t reveal
his true identity?
Two: What should the authorities do with him?
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