Members of the Washitaw Nation claim to be descendants of the "Ancient Ones," the "black ones" who they claim peopled the North American continent tens of thousands of years before white Europeans arrived. The Nation is currently headed by a woman calling herself Empress Verdiacee "Tiari" Washitaw-Turner Goston El-Bey. She and several of her associates in the Nation are under investigation by Federal, Colorado, and Louisiana authorities for possible money laundering, offshore banking fraud, and sale of apparently illegal license plates. The Nation issues, for a fee, its own driver's licenses, birth certificates, passports and other "official" documents. The documents and the theories from which they derive, are classic common law, the notion that one can declare one's "sovereignty" and separate from State and Federal Governments. The Nation is believed to have followers in 20 States, and hangers-on from other separatist groups. The article describes some of the Nation's money-making schemes and several of their most recent troubles with authorities.