While 12 people were detained, 30 people are under investigation. Italy for inventing the ‘Antarctic Theocratic State of San Giorgio’, where they defrauded nearly 700 people with the promise of citizenship to pay less taxes, acquire passports, landowners and even titles of nobility.
Operation called ‘non-existent island’It was launched in April 2021 by the Catanzarom Police in the Calabria region (southern Italy). registration in a property it was designated as the diplomatic center of the fictitious State.
The criminal network made us believe that this Nation exists with autonomous sovereignty and privileges. He was tasked with taking the necessary steps to grant citizenship to the person requesting it “according to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty” and in exchange for 200 to 1,000 euros.
In about a year itMembers of this network defrauded 700 people across Italy and collected about 400,000 Euros.
According to a note from the Police, in addition to creating a website in the State, Publication of the Official State Gazette and creation of various institutions (Head of State, Government, Court of Justice, Supreme Court, Regional Committees…).
Like this, they would deceive people to whom they offered the most different advantages: from the possibility of receiving funding for research projects, leveraging a more agile bureaucracy for their companies, or using State documents to move freely in Italy and abroad, to the possibility of allowing foreign citizens to enter their national territory or obtaining exemptions from vaccines for COVID-19.
By joining the Antarctic State, the most attractive benefits, reduction of taxes and sale of land in at least two cases Along with the corresponding title of nobility in Antarctica.
Among the 12 detainees held under house arrest is Mario Farnesi, 72, a former Fiscal Guard general who is “the operational reference of all branches of the Theocratic State” and is the author of forged documents for obtaining citizenship.