‘Luxury cars, fake passports’: UP man arrested for running fake embassy

A bizarre diplomatic scam came to light after Uttar Pradesh STF officers raided a house in Ghaziabad’s Kavi Nagar, where 45-year-old Harsh Vardhan Jain was running a fake embassy of the unrecognised micronation Westarctica.

Jain, who had converted the rented house at KB-35 into what he claimed was an “official diplomatic mission,” had been posing as an ambassador, complete with luxury vehicles bearing fake diplomatic number plates.

“He had built an elaborate network with forged documents, international seals, fake passports, and even claimed ties to fictional micronations like Seborga, Ladonia, and Poulvia,” an STF officer told The Indian Express.

From the house, the STF recovered four vehicles with diplomatic number plates, 18 additional fake plates, 12 forged diplomatic passports, documents with forged MEA seals, two fake PAN cards, Rs 44.7 lakh in cash, foreign currency, forged press cards, 34 stamps of various countries and shell companies, suspected to be used for hawala transactions.

The operation had been running under the radar for months. “It was cloaked in pseudo-diplomatic legitimacy,” an official said, calling it a “sophisticated deception.”

This isn’t Jain’s first run-in with the law.

In 2011, he was booked for illegally possessing a satellite phone. Police say he also claimed past ties with controversial figures like Chandraswami and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.