Three foreign ministers, a United States governor, and a member of the US Congress were reportedly contacted sometime in June by the country’s top diplomat through email and a messaging app — but it wasn’t him.
A US diplomatic cable dated 3 July revealed that the Signal voicemails and text messages showing the display name marco.rubio@state.gov were generated by artificial intelligence and did not belong to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. An impersonator was suspected of creating the account to steal their personal accounts, according to CNN, citing the cable.
The cable advised diplomats worldwide to report Rubio impersonations to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, while State Department personnel should report impersonation attempts to diplomatic security.
Meanwhile, Indian authorities have arrested a consul after he was disowned as a diplomat of a “country.”
Harshvardhan Jain was arrested at the two-story building in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh state which he had reportedly been operating as an unauthorized embassy for the past eight years.
During the raid on the Ghaziabad premises, police seized four cars with fake diplomatic number plates, forged documents, and valuables suspected to be evidence from an alleged overseas job placement scam, NDTV reported.
The embassy’s nameplate read “Grand Duchy of Westarctica” and “H.E. H.V. Jain, Honorary Consul,” according to NDTV.
The premises displayed the flags of India and Westarctica, a micronation in Antarctica not recognized by any sovereign state in the world.
Westarctica apparently made Jain its honorary consul in 2016 when he donated a generous amount to the international volunteer organization for its environmental and charitable missions in other countries.
US Navy officer Travis McHenry founded Westarctica—a 1.6 million-square-kilometer area in western Antarctica—in 2001 and appointed himself its Grand Duke, according to NDTV.
The so-called micronation has its own flag and currency and claims to have 2,356 citizens who don’t live there. Its counterpart organization, the nonprofit Grand Duchy of Westarctica, is based in Southern California.