Fake stamps, currency, diplomatic license plates: Ghaziabad man sets up fake Embassy for imaginary country, poses as Ambassador

A 47-year-old man has been arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police for running a fake embassy of a fictional country from a rented house in Ghaziabad. The accused, identified as Harshvardhan Jain, had turned a residence in the Kavi Nagar area into the so-called diplomatic mission of Westarctica, a self-declared micronation based in the unclaimed region of western Antarctica.

According to UP Police’s Additional Director General (Law and Order) Amitabh Yash, Jain wasn’t just posing as a representative of Westarctica, he was allegedly acting as an “ambassador” for several other obscure micronations as well, including Seborga, Ladonia, and an entirely made-up country he named Poulvia.

For context, micronations are tiny, self-proclaimed “countries” that declare independence but lack any formal recognition from established sovereign states or international bodies like the United Nations. In India’s case, these entities hold no legal or diplomatic status whatsoever, making Jain’s so-called “embassy” completely illegitimate from the start.