In January 2007, The Pirate Bay, an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software founded by the Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, attempted to purchase Sealand after harsher copyright measures in Sweden forced them to look for a base of operations elsewhere. All damage was repaired by November 2006. The Harwich lifeboat stood by the Roughs Tower until a local fire tug extinguished the fire. A Royal Air Force rescue helicopter transferred one person to Ipswich Hospital, directly from the tower. On the afternoon of 23 June 2006, the top platform of the Roughs Tower caught fire due to an electrical fault. In 2015, Bates asserted that Sealand's population is "normally like two people". Michael Bates stated in late 2016 that Sealand was receiving hundreds of applications for passports every day. They were reported to have sold 4,000 fake Sealandic passports to Hong Kong citizens for an estimated $1,000 each. The ringleaders of the operation, based in Madrid but with ties to various groups in Germany, including the rebel Sealand Government in exile established by Achenbach after the attempted 1978 coup, had used fake Sealandic diplomatic passports and number plates. In 1997, the Bates family revoked all Sealand passports, including those that they themselves had issued over the previous 22 years, due to the realisation that an international money laundering ring had appeared, using the sale of fake Sealand passports to finance drug trafficking and money laundering from Russia and Iraq. Sealand sells " fantasy passports" (as termed by the Council of the European Union), which are not valid for international travel. Sealand now sits in waters internationally recognised as British. In 1987, the United Kingdom extended its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles. įollowing the former's repatriation, Achenbach and Gernot Pütz proclaimed a government in exile, sometimes known as the Sealand Rebel Government or Sealandic Rebel Government, in Germany. Roy Bates relented after several weeks of negotiations and subsequently claimed that the diplomat's visit constituted de facto recognition of Sealand by Germany. Germany then sent a diplomat from its London embassy to Sealand to negotiate for Achenbach's release. Achenbach, a German lawyer who held a Sealand passport, was charged with treason against Sealand, and was held unless he paid DM 75,000 (more than US$35,000 or £23,000). Michael was able to retake Sealand and capture Achenbach and the mercenaries using weapons stashed on the platform. They stormed the platform with speedboats, personal watercrafts and helicopters, and took Bates's son Michael hostage. Achenbach had disagreed with Bates over plans to turn Sealand into a luxury hotel and casino with fellow German and Dutch businessmen. In August 1978, Alexander Achenbach, who described himself as the Prime Minister of Sealand, hired several German and Dutch mercenaries to lead an attack on Sealand while Bates and his wife were in Austria invited by Achenbach to discuss the sale of Sealand. 1978 attack and Sealand Rebel Government In 1975, Bates introduced a constitution for Sealand, followed by a national flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports. But as the court ruled that the platform (which Bates was now calling "Sealand") was outside British territorial limits, being beyond the then 3-nautical-mile (6 km) limit of the country's waters, the case could not proceed. As Bates was a British subject at the time, he was summoned to court in England on firearms charges following the incident. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort. In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Bates declared the independence of Roughs Tower and deemed it the Principality of Sealand. Despite having the necessary equipment, he never began broadcasting. Bates intended to broadcast his pirate radio station – called Radio Essex – from the platform. On 2 September 1967, the fort was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British citizen and pirate radio broadcaster, who ejected the competing group of pirate broadcasters. Roughs Tower was occupied in February and August 1965 by Jack Moore and his daughter Jane, squatting on behalf of the pirate station Wonderful Radio London.
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