The brother of a man who disappeared in Paris has revealed a new twist in the case after police discovered multiple flight bookings under his name. Robert Kincaid, 38, from Belfast, was scheduled to return home from Benin via Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, but according to his brother Louis, the police claim he never passed through the French city.
Arriving in the French capital on Wednesday, Louis met with officials from the British embassy and French police. He claims that upon his arrival, the French police had no record of his missing persons report despite the PSNI relaying it to Interpol.
“When we arrived at the police station, they had no record of Robert’s disappearance being reported to them, so we filed a missing persons report there and then. They kept asking us if we were sure that he was in Paris and how we knew that he was in Charles de Gaulle,” Louis told Belfast Live.
According to Louis, the Parisian police initially insisted that Robert had never arrived in France. They asserted that he had not boarded the flight from Cotonou, Benin, and had not used his passport.
“The police loaded up a laptop and said that he never got on the plane from Benin, and said that he never presented his passport. They were adamant that he was not in Paris and told us that he had been booked on a flight from Benin to Paris last night, which was due to arrive this morning,” he said.
It has since emerged that Robert had originally been scheduled to return home from Benin on July 30 but had departed early for reasons the family remains unaware of.
Louis travelled to the airport, accompanied by an Embassy official, hoping to witness his brother’s arrival. Robert failed to appear.
Subsequently, they were informed that Robert had been booked onto that flight and another scheduled for the following day, but both reservations had been cancelled.
However, the circumstances took an unexpected twist when Foreign Office representatives confirmed Robert had actually boarded the original flight on July 17. His name featured on the passenger manifest, and his passport had been scanned.
“They then came back and said that he had boarded the flight on the 17th and that he was on the flight log for that date and that he definitely made it to Paris,” Louis said.
French authorities have now obtained details of whoever made the recent flight bookings under Robert’s name.
Meanwhile, the PSNI has gained access to Robert’s banking records and are working to track any card purchases he may have conducted.
“We were in the police station for a good couple of hours, and they were very thorough, but they didn’t seem to want to check through any CCTV. They are now investigating, and now we have it confirmed that he was on that flight on 17th July. The French police are now liaising with the PSNI, and they are attempting to trace the location of his last phone call,” Louis added.