Look at this site:

http://www.conchrepublic.com/welcome.htm

and their passport application:

http://www.conchrepublic.com/passports1.htm

There was a story appeared in one gujarati online newspaper regarding people entering united states using this country and its passport.

Apperantly they also fell in trap with the contect of the site. It is not at all good for any media to print a story without checking what is it. Having said so, they desinged the site in a nice way that anybody can fall in trap.


Look at following from the same site:

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Q: Can I travel on my Conch Republic passport?
A: We do not represent our passports as valid travel documents. That said, people have traveled all over the world on them. The Conch Republic passport even saved one man's life in Guatemala when confronted by armed revolutionaries…"Americano no! Republica de la Concha". He was filled with shots of Tequila instead of shots from the Kalishnikovs.

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A Proud Indian Canadian

I wrote a note to the newspaper:

Quote:

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Dear Sir,

I am writing this with reference to your story appeared for people entering united status via 'the conch republic'. I am in Canada and would like to let people of Gujarat know that there is nothing like 'the conch republic'.

It is a small island in florida state and people of the island created a fake passport to protest against their entry to the main land. It is part of Florida.

As Gujaratis are always looking for opportunity to enter to United states, this should catch eye of many people so please publish the clarification as soon as possible. Please see following information for further deails:

List of false passports: (Taken from: http://www.finor.com/en/unacceptable_passports.htm
Unauthentic (spurious or false) passports have the appearance of an actual passport, but are issued by organizations with no authority and to which no official recognition has been given. Such bogus passports are therefore not an acceptable statement of either nationality or identity. Unacceptable and imitation passports and other fake documentation known to the authorities are listed below:

A.D.E.H. Association D’Entrade Humanitaire International (International Humanitarian Society)

Anishinabek Ojibway American Indian nation

Antigua (State of)

Carolingian Bernician States and Dynasty

Castellania Grand Master of the Order of Free Templars and Prince of Castellania

Centre d’Information Corps Diplomatique et Consulaire

Colonia (Kingdom of)

Conch Republic

Confederate States of America

Confederation Mondiale des Correspondants Diplomatiques

Cornish passports

Corps Diplomatiques of the United States

Corterra (Republic of)

Department of Foreign Affairs Silver Card

Ecumenical World Patriarchate

Empire Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah

Haudenosaunee Mohawk American Indian nation

Hutt River, Hutt River Province and Principality originally claimed to be an independent American Indian nation in Canada, but now claims to be an independent state in South West Australia.

Imperial Constantinian Military Order of St. George

International Biographical Association

International Humanitarian Society

International Parliament for Safety and Peace

International Society for Krishna Consciousness

International Solidarity Centre

Iroquois Nation held by some American Indians who are also American or Canadian citizens

Khalistan used by some Sikhs seeking the separation of the Punjab from India. Issued by persons claiming to be the "Khalistan Government in Exile" based in Gravesend, Kent.

Knights of Malta also known as The Sovereign Principality of St John

Koneuwe (Republic of) KOmmunist NEUtral WEst is someone’s back garden in Zurich, Switzerland

Kosmopolitan passport

Maori Kingdoms of Tetiti and Polyaesiea the Titi or Mutton Bird Islands off the South Island of New Zealand, declared "independent" in 1985 by their "King and Absolute Ruler"

Melchizedek (Dominion of) claims to be a transnational state with no definable national borders

Mohawk Nation held by some American Indians who are also American or Canadian citizens

Nation of Israel

Neue Slovenische Kunst (NSK) Slovenian Art Collective

Nishnawbe-Aski held by some American Indians who are also American or Canadian citizens

North American Indian Nation Government

Oceanus

Organisation of African Unity

Paisos Catalans Catalunya/Cataluña is a region of Spain

Palmerya (Principality of) believed to be an uninhabited Hawaiian island

Parliamentary passports

Patriarchate of Antioch

Planetary passports

Romano or Roma passports

Romano Jumako Khetanipe

San Cristobal (Republic of)

Sealand (Principality of) in the North Sea off the coast of Harwich, it is a concrete gun tower built in 1942

Service d’Information

Symbolic European

Texas passports

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

UNO (United Nations Office, Inc.)

Vera Cruz (Free and Independent State of)

Wikingland/Vikingland Furstentum Wikingland (the Viking Principality)

World Parliamentary Confederation of Chivalry

World Service Authority available in both standard and diplomatic versions, these also unacceptable documents are so popular even counterfeit copies of them have been identified!


And also read this story related with Mohamed Atta - the great killer of 9/11 (Taken from: http://www2.bostonherald.com/attack/investigation/ausconch10032001.htm)

The FBI is investigating whether a novelty passport from Florida's fictional ``Conch Republic'' was issued to one of the hijackers who slammed a jet into the World Trade Center, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
The joke passports, stamped with the republic's conch shell crest, are issued by a Key West group that staged a mock secession from the United States in 1982 to protest a Border Patrol roadblock that cut off the islands from the mainland.

The passports are not legal travel documents, but the Conch Republic's leader told The Miami Herald he has used his several times to enter the United States and Caribbean nations.

The newspaper said FBI agents carted away boxes of records from the Key West home of Peter Anderson, the republic's secretary general, after learning a Conch Republic passport was issued in September 2000 to a Mohamed Atta, who used a New York address.

The FBI identified a 33-year-old Egyptian named Mohamed Atta as one of the lead hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks that left nearly 6,000 people feared dead in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Atta, a pilot, was aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the World Trade Center, the FBI said.

It was unclear if the suspected hijacker was the same Mohamed Atta who bought the Conch Republic passport. The group requires passport applicants to submit notarized copies of their real passports, three photos of themselves, and a form listing their address, phone number and other details.

FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela declined to comment, but the Herald said federal investigators had not yet found the documents that accompanied Atta's passport application.

The newspaper said the FBI went to Anderson's home after postal inspectors alerted them about the passports. Anderson, who pledged the Republic's full cooperation, could not be reached for comment.


PROTEST OVER A ROADBLOCK

The Conch Republic was formed in 1982 when the U.S. Border Patrol set up a roadblock to check cars leaving the Florida Keys for illegal immigrants and illegal drugs. That created a 17-mile traffic jam on the only road linking the island chain with the Florida mainland.

City fathers in proudly quirky Key West declared that if they were to be treated as a foreign country, they would become one. They staged a mock secession and called themselves the Conch Republic, adopting as their symbol the large pink mollusk shell whose name, conch, is also a nickname for Keys natives.

The republic stages a silly independence festival each year and sells memorabilia such as conch-embossed flags and license plates. Since 1993, it has issued some 10,000 passports -- standard blue ones for $100 and red ``diplomatic'' ones for up to $1,200. They look like many real passports, with photos, crests, personal data and official-looking pages for immigration stamps.

Anderson said there was a sudden flood of passport applications in 2000 after the Discovery Channel regularly replayed a segment about the Conch Republic. Requests came from as far away as India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

``We started receiving a lot of requests from people all over the world and from people who were in the U.S. who we had reason to believe may not have been in the U.S. legally,'' Anderson told the newspaper.

He said a private investigator friend alerted immigration authorities, who never contacted the group.

Anderson said people have used the Conch passports to enter more than 30 countries. His own bears what appear to be five U.S. immigration stamps from Miami, Key West and San Juan, and stamps from several Caribbean nations that do not require U.S. citizens to show passports, the newspaper said.

Anderson said he could not recall whether U.S. immigration officials scanned his real U.S. passport through their computers before stamping the Conch Republic one.

I hope you will publish this in your newspaper and continue serving our comminity.

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A Proud Indian Canadian