ON THE PLATTER

CITIZENSHIP Cyber nations offer dual citizenship for $150 to $1,500. No eligibility criteria. Some of them list their consulates-mostly e-mail addresses. PASSPORT Diplomatic passports and visas available for a small processing fee. The seal of the state and design of the passport look credible. DRIVING LICENCE No driving test, no legal paperwork. Licence available for all types of vehicles. Fill out a simple form with personal details on the Internet. Kingdom of Kerguelon offers international licence for $100. BUSINESS LICENCE Some cybernations also sell licences for setting up banks, corporations and raising debt bonds. Kingdom of Kerguelon offers bank, corporates and church charters for up to $50,000.

Spread over a few islands in the southern Indian Ocean surrounded by Antarctica, Africa and Australia is the Kingdom of Kerguelon founded by a royal decree issued by King Zachariah in 1995. Its website carries photographs of the country's unsullied landscape, flora and fauna. It has a coat of arms, a national flag and also an office in Room No. 3200 in the UN Building in New York. Nothing unusual, except a message from its acting head of the state on the website: "We hope to eventually become a fully functional nation complete with a land area occupied by our citizens." And from the "Vice Roy's Desk" an "offer of citizenship ... whether you are looking for privacy or a new start in life".

Here's another. The Principality of New Utopia in the Caribbean, midway between George Town and Swan Islands. Founded by King Lazarus or Howard Turney, the country-built on abandoned oil platforms hauled from the Gulf of Mexico-was conceptualised on the principles of free nation in 1998. Its website boasts about Utopian Airlines, Utopian University and provisions for hassle-free passports, an international driving licence with no tests and checks, bank charters and registration of companies. At a cost, of course. Utility seekers are expected to understand the concept of "tanstaafl (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch)".

Besides the Kingdom of Kerguelon and the Principality of New Utopia, there's Dominion of Melchizedek and Kingdom of EnenKio-names perhaps inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth realms. Descriptions of idyllic countrysides allure you as does the account of everyday life-the ease with which you can avail a citizenship, passport, driving licence and bank licence. No police verification for a passport, no tests of your driving skills. Just fill a form with all personal details on the Internet and send in the processing fee. Presto, you can have anything you've wanted, virtually. And from a virtual country.

Welcome to the free, borderless world of cybernations ruled by self-styled, egalitarian kings and princes. There are no flights to these countries. No geographical location in the atlas. Everything here is real, but for the land and the people. Everyone is gladly received and no one is discriminated against. But somewhere along the way, lofty ideals have given way to fraud and corruption

None of these nations has bona fide claims to territory, contrary to what their websites suggest. None of the governmental operations is actually conducted on the territory they declare as theirs. The virtual nations have been selling passports, driving licences and registering banks, private corporations and insurance companies without any legal paperwork, but for a fee of a few thousand dollars. Many of these alleged countries provide a wide range of service, including doling out university degrees and lawyers' certificates.

Cybernations offer citizenship with no eligibility criteria at a fee of $150-1,500.

Most of these cybernations have also made misleading claims of being recognised by major nations or having de facto recognition from them. The reality, in most cases, is quite the contrary-the law enforcement agencies of the major nations have already issued warnings about the "Fake Ecclesiastical Sovereignty Scam" (www.quatloos.com). Ian W. Sawyer, member of the board of governors for the Principality of New Utopia, admits in one of his e-mails: "I'm still very interested in the principle of free nation ... But as late as the end of 2000 it (New Utopia) seems to have regrettably become little more than a scam."

The fraud could not have been more blatant. Some claim land that is not theirs. A few claim areas that do not exist and others admit that they are landless countries but are well on their way to acquiring some. Take the Kingdom of EnenKio or the "islands of the orange flower". The website describes its location as being in the north Pacific Ocean, about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to the Northern Mariana Islands. The "sovereign Micronesian state" was first conceived of in 1987, began to emerge in 1993, was formally established in 1994, "but in truth, has its roots enmeshed in over 2,000 years of mostly unrecorded oral history of primitive human culture, religion and tradition". The website alleges that EnenKio "has been subjected to a wide assortment of deliberate disruptive actions by persons and agencies of the federal government of the United States". The US Securities and Exchange Commission (USSEC) in 2000 called the island nation a hoax.

There are other countries like Wessex Principality where you can have a "diplomatic appointment to represent the principality in your area of the world". Diplomatic appointment comes for $250 (Rs 12,000) and citizenship for $100. If you take both, you get a discount of $50 and could choose to be an ambassador, consul-general or consular representative. Payments must be made in dollars, cash, bank cheque or money order payable to "cash" and sent to an address in New Jersey.

These cybernations have made the virtual world dream a nightmare for the real world. New Utopia has been enticing and soliciting investor funds for the development of a supposed new tax haven country. "In addition to offering unregistered bonds, Lazarus Long (the alleged prince) has been luring people with his belief that currency investment in New Utopia would yield up to 200 per cent market rate of interest," says a USSEC release.

Similarly, the Dominion of Melchizedek-comprising the virtual islands of Taongi, Malpelo, Clipperton, Karitane, Solkope and even Antarctica and claims that the original capital of the nation was Salem ("now called Jerusalem")-has become a tax haven with little banking legislation and no taxes. Promoted by an American David Korem, the "country" has been extensively written about in international publications. In 1999, Bangkok daily The Nation reported the arrest of three officials holding Melchizedek passports in the Philippines. They had duped hundreds of Filipinos, Chinese and Bangladeshis into paying $3,500 for Melchizedek travel documents, which the conmen said were internationally recognised. They reportedly raked in an estimated $1 million before they were picked up by the police. But the website suggests the nation is yet to be wiped out from Internet memory and access is only a click away. Among other things, the website lists a domex Stock Exchange, university and Dom TV, which beams photographs of the Bondi Beach in Australia, Mount Fuji in Japan and O'Connel Street in Dublin.

As credible an existence as the websites may suggest, cybernations are but dot cons. Just as with the dotcom boom a few years ago where everything looked deceptively possible before the bubble burst, the worldlywise are realising there's no such thing as unregulated, unrestrictive tax havens in the real, legal world.