Mark Oberholtzer is far from a terrorist. Oberholtzer is just a simple, self-employed plumber. He runs Mark-1 Plumbing in Texas City, Texas. However, people are now accusing him of aiding terrorists in Syria.
Earlier this week, the Ansar al-Deen Front, a militant group in Syria, posted a photo of a pickup truck mounted with a heavy machine gun. Not so unusual, except that on the side of the truck was Oberholtzer’s plumbing company’s logo and phone number.
Oberholtzer says that since the photo went online, his company was inundated with thousands of not-so-nice phone calls, emails, and faxes. Oberholtzer insists that he has no idea how his old company truck ended up in Syria.
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According to an interview with the Galveston Daily News, Oberholtzer says that he traded the truck in at a Ford AutoNation dealership in 2012, and that was that.
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Oberholtzer says he and his family do not support Islamic terrorism. When asked about the truck, a spokesperson from AutoNation said the truck was likely sold at auction, and changed hands a few times before finding its way to Syria.
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However, there is another theory regarding how Oberholtzer’s truck appeared in Syria: it’s not actually there. This photo of a nearly identical scene surfaced not long after the photo of Oberholtzer’s truck. Could this picture have been altered to include Oberholtzer’s business’ logo and contact info? If so, why?
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(via: The Daily Mail)
And I thought I was having a rough day. I’d hate to be the person working the phones at Oberholtzer’s business. According to what he told the New York Daily News, most of the phone calls they received were pretty nasty. Now I wonder who’s calling him…
