What's this I'm hearing about false passports?

[malaise]

I always start out with who benefits from this.

That is all for now.

[SoCalNative]

1. Well, it turns out that the Egyptian passport found at the scene

actually belonged to one of the victims, not the attackers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-34825270

[6chars]

2. don't worry about false passports

hard to fake one in the first place, almost sure to be caught if one used, and almost no one would even try to use one.

[AngryAmish]

3. I think one of the false passport holder was a Frenchman

He went to Syria to fight for Daesh. He could have flown straight home. But the border guards would know he was likely in Syria and flagged him.

So he buys fake Syrian passport and became just another refugee who gets to travel freely.

It makes sense.

[GoneFishin]

4. +1,000,000. Always start with who has the most to gain, including the very big picture.

[Ms. Yertle]

5. "Emergency passports"

I've read that refugees who showed up in Greece without an original passport were issued emergency passports--IOW, they weren't vetted properly.

That may have been what happened here.

[Igel]

6. "Cui bono?" is an okay place to start out,

but after about two steps it's a lousy place to still be.

It assumes omniscience. You look at who benefits and that may point at the guilty party.

But how do they benefit?

Monetarily? By destroying a competitor for a potential sex partner? Disposing of the woman that is enticing a man and keeping him from distracting another woman who's competing for your job? By making the voices in your head happy? To right a historical wrong, whether the loss of Andalusia or because Johnny called you a bad word in 3rd grade and now that you're 68 and a bit senile it's time to exact your revenge? To teach sinners their true place? Or maybe just to balance the communal scales of collective justice in a tit-for-tat sort of revenge calculus?

Lots of innocent people were sent to jail because of this. It's an okay place to start your abductive reasoning, but abduction isn't really logic and has no truth value. It's handy for producing hypotheses, but proves nothing to those who look past innuendo and confirmation bias as the ultimate arbiters of truth.

"Cui bono?" may point to the guilty party.

But "may" entails "may not," and that is logic.

[PeoViejo]

7. Entry and exit stamps tell the tale

A lot of them will get you attention.

I flew into Heathrow from Islamabad without an exit stamp once. The Brits got really excited about that.