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Principality of New Utopia
Principality of New Utopia
What would happen if you took a bunch of abandoned Gulf of Mexico oil platforms, hauled them out into the middle of the Caribbean, and lashed them together over a reef?
Why, you would have the Principality of New Utopia, of course!
That was the original idea, and the oil platforms have been dumped in favor of just building huge pillars into the Caribbean sand. And now they’ve also added modern jet service, to be provided by Utopian Air Lines, and will also feature Airship Service (giant blimps, as yet built by a company in Dallas). When you get their, you can further your education at the Utopian University, which has a Medical School which emphasizes research on longevity.
It is in the area of longevity that the Principality will have a leg up on everyone else, because of the experience of its founder, one Howard Turney (a/k/a Prince Lazarus) of that Caribbean hotspot known as Tulsa, Oklahoma, who in the past had some connection to longevity drug scams.
Indeed, the Securities & Exchange Commission has recently become interested in Turney because of his efforts to sell Utopia bonds with which the project will be financed. According to an SEC press release:
“Today Judge Michael Burrage, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Oklahoma, Tulsa Division, granted the Commission's request for an emergency restraining order to halt a fraudulent nationwide Internet scheme involving the offer and sale of a bogus $350 million bond offering. According to the Commission's Complaint, Lazarus R. Long, a/k/a/ Howard Turney, and doing business as New Utopia, used an Internet website called "New Utopia" to entice and solicit investor funds for the development of a supposed new "tax haven" country called "New Utopia." This new country would be located approximately 115 miles west of the Cayman Islands. According to its website, New Utopia is a country that will rise from the Caribbean on giant concrete platforms built on an underwater land mass. In addition to offering the unregistered bonds, Long represented that currency investments in New Utopia would yield up to a 200% market rate of return. "Prince" Long used E-mail to tell investors that they could buy a New Utopia government 5 year note at 9.5%, and invited them to become charter citizens of the new country. Long has also touted his Internet offering through the use of print and radio media, including the London Times, Dallas Morning News and a nationally syndicated radio show.”
Selling worthless bonds isn’t the Principality’s only scam. For $35,000 you can get a license to form a “Class A” bank, for $5,000 you can get an “internet bank license”, or for $10,000 you can get a “trust license”, presumably allowing you to form trusts if the Principality is ever formed. Still, somebody has wasted their time in drafting full corporation and trust laws, apparently in the expectation that someone would actually be dumb enough to pay them for their services.
But if you are going to use these services, you had better be a good swimmer. The Principality of New Utopia is one of two fake nation scams which starts out “under water” – and in more ways than one. The only place you can visit the Principality (and have a look at a photograph of “Prince Lazarus”) is at its website at http://www.new-utopia.com
sauce