The Sovereign Antarctic State of São Jorge was an autonomous theocratic republic founded in 2011, with capital at the south pole called Estação Cidade de Sant’Ana. The nation maintained a diplomatic headquarters in Lugano, Switzerland, and consular addresses in Italy. Its citizens could pay only 5% of single tax, entitled to exemption in their countries of residence.
This state existed on the internet for at least seven years before it was debunked as pure fiction. An investigation carried out in Catanzaro, Calabria, in southern Italy, revealed that, despite the country never having existed — as well as its territory and its attractive tax system — at least 700 people paid to obtain citizenship and documents, as part of a coup that has so far involved around €400,000 (R$2.05 million).
Last Thursday (18), the Italian police carried out 12 house arrest warrants against those investigated for the creation of the scheme and the entire apparatus linked to the fictitious State of São Jorge. There are 30 suspects, spread across at least seven regions, of having committed the crimes of fraud, fabrication of false documents, conspiracy and money laundering.
In addition to issuing false passports and the inviting single tax —in Italy, the income tax scale starts at 23%—, the group promised funding for research projects, bureaucratic facilities for companies, obtaining professional registrations and exemption for mandatory vaccines. . In some cases, the negotiation involved the sale of land in Antarctica with the granting of noble titles; one of the detainees introduced himself as a prince. The amounts paid ranged between €200 and €1,000 (R$1,024 and R$5,100) per “citizen”.
The first signs of the coup date back to 2015, the year in which the country’s “official” page was created on Facebook. There, the organizers updated the “Sangiorges” population on the functioning of the institutions of the small and distant nation. They published the names of members of the government, the courts and the Senate and the editions of the “official gazeta”, with decrees always supported by articles of a Constitution. Two online newspapers, The Antarctic Tribune and La Teocrazia, helped spread the news. All fake.
Through the social network, it was possible to know what the covers of passports would look like, the location of the capital, the logos of the postal and intelligence services, insignia and police uniforms — including the summer version, with short-sleeved shirts, despite the continent being the coldest in the world. The most curious could see a little of what life was supposed to be like there: one of the images shows a bowl of frozen spaghetti, with the fork suspended in the air.
There was also room for “serious” themes, such as the importance of being a sovereign and neutral state. “Italy does not agree with the economic sanctions imposed on Russia for the annexation of Crimea. But the European Union wants to continue to impose them. Italy must bow to the decisions of the supranational body”, says an excerpt published in August 2018.
“They were very well organized and very imaginative. They created the idea that it could really be a state,” he told Sheet Antonio Caliò, director of the General Investigations and Special Operations Division of the Italian police in Catanzaro. He says that the operation, called L’Isola che non C’è (never land, in reference to the Peter Pan story), started by chance.
In April of last year, the police received an anonymous tip that an address in the Calabrian city had something wrong. “When we arrived to search, the people who were there said that the police could not enter there because it was a territory with diplomatic immunity”, recalls Caliò. Two people were arrested for possession of drugs.
According to the investigation, which is still ongoing, participants in the coup were especially attracted by the alleged tax advantages and the possibility of obtaining non-Italian and diplomatic documents, for use in illegal purposes, including small-scale drug trafficking and the release of professional records. .
One of the detainees is a denialist doctor who had previously been suspended for prescribing unsubstantiated therapies to patients.
Mentors also made use of false documents. The money raised from the scam went through several stages of laundering through a bank account in Malta, on the Mediterranean Sea. The participation of residents in other countries in the scheme is still under investigation.
