Coming soon - Hot Money: we present a detailed dossier on the links between Planet Aid in the USA, clothes collections, property companies and real estate in Miami, Swiss accounts and named members of the Teachers Group. To be informed when the dossier goes on line, please add your email address to our mailing list.
6th February 2010
Mysterious Danish group builds exotic compound on Baja Coast
Journalist Michael Waterman travels to Mexico to investigate the Teachers Group's astonishing hideaway at San Juan de las Pulgas, Baja. His detailed account is the cover story of this week's San Diego Reader.
Along the way he meets members of the elusive Teachers Group, talks to local people, and uncovers fascinating new material about Tvind and its real purpose.
This is an excellent and very accurate summary of the Tvind story right up to the present and recommended for anyone new to this site.
San Diego Reader article
Slideshow: San Juan de las Pulgas
Tvind Alert Mexico page
28th December 2009
US Government to investigate $96 million payments
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to investigate what has happened to more than $96 million in grants to Tvind / Humana over the last five years. The move follows concern expressed by Tvind Alert. As already reported here, the US government agency is one of the biggest funders of the Teachers Group, handing over money and produce for 'projects in Africa'.
Tvind Alert warned the USDA more than a year ago that it was making huge grants to an organisation associated with financial crime, whose leaders were wanted for fraud by Danish police. The USDA initially declined to act.
Danish newspaper Morganevisen Jyllands-Posten reports today that Tvind-Humana receives more funding from the USDA than any other organisation, amounting to more than half a billion Danish Krone ($96 million) since 2004.
Much of the USDA support has been in the form of wheat and soya donated to Planet Aid under USDA's 'Food for progress' scheme. But it is not known what measures are in place to ensure the 'food aid' is properly administered once it arrives in Africa, and is not simply sold for profit.
Jyllands-Posten today quoted a senior USDA official, Judith A. Phillips, saying the USDA would in 2010 make a 'serious investigation' of Tvind and the USDA grants.
Jyllands-Posten story
USDA gives $33 million to Planet Aid, Dec 2008
Hall of shame: the TG's corporate and charity sponsors
27th December 2009
Breaking News
Police catch Tvind 'chief accountant' Gunst in London
A joint operation by Danish, Mexican and British police has led to the apprehension of Tvind 'chief accountant' Marlene Gunst at Heathrow Airport. Gunst is one of five fugitive Teachers Group bosses who fled abroad in 2006, thwarting Danish judiciary plans for a High Court trial. The arrest means the authorities have now served legal papers on her, obliging her to attend court in Denmark.
According to the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Gunst was apprehended by UK police, acting on a request from Danish police, while changing planes 'recently' at Heathrow Airport. The Danes had received a tip-off from Mexican police. After she was served with the papers Gunst was allowed to continue her journey. If she fails to attend court, Danish police will now legally be able to issue an international arrest warrant through Interpol.
The move is a breakthrough because it demonstrates that police forces are working co-operatively to find and bring to justice the missing Teachers Group leaders. According to Jyllands-Posten, the move has stiffened the resolve of Danish police to find and serve papers on the other four fugitive Teachers Group leaders who are believed to be hiding in the organisation's $10m compound near Ensanada, Mexico.
Jyllands-Posten story
Who is Marlene Gunst?
26th November 2009
Hot money: the offshore company at the heart of Tvind
A summary of what we know about Jersey-registered Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle, the landholdings it owns, and police allegations of hot money transfers.
23rd November 2009
Danish Supreme Court:
yes, Amdi and Kirsten are in charge
A Danish supreme court verdict affirms that the Tvind schools are not independent bodies, but part of a 'corporation' run by the Teachers Group leaders, including 'KLAP', Kirsten Larsen and Amdi Petersen.
17th November 2009
'Millions In Clothing Donations Diverted From Charity'
US TV investigates U'SAgain
An investigation by Kiro 7 TV, Seattle, into used clothes collector U'SAgain concludes the public is being deceived because the company is falsely masquerading as a charity.
The Teachers Group enterprise has recently installed 600 clothing donation boxes in the Seattle area. Investigative reporter Chris Halsne tells viewers: "Drop the clothes in a red U’SAgain bin and you're essentially giving away cash to a multi-million dollar enterprise .... The company cashes in on peoples’ preconceived notions that all bins represent charity."
The material includes a revealing video interview with U'SAgain CEO Mattias Wallander. Wallander admits he is in the Teachers Group, but claims no association with the Group's leaders members prosecuted for fraud in Denmark, now fugitive. But Kiro TV says financial records 'indicate otherwise'. Tvind Alert provided interviews, information and documentation for this report, but received no acknowledgement.
Kiro 7 Eyewitness News report
Story on KiroTV.com
Extended interview with Mattias Wallander
Mayor calls for removal of for-profit donation bins (25th November 2009)
16th November 2009
Hot money: an insider reveals the used clothes scam
A former employee has turned whistleblower and revealed exactly how the Teachers Group used
offshore accounts, front companies, false invoices and fake letterheads to cream off the profits from Humana / UFF used clothes donations in Europe, 1990-2000. And today?
10th November 2009
Hot money: Gibraltar
A little bit of research and a restored page tells the story of four Teachers Group companies in Gibraltar, used to wash millions of pounds from used clothes donations into offshore accounts. Coming soon - more details from a 'whistleblower'.
7th November 2009
Hot money: the Cayman Islands
This restored page tells of a luxury beachside villa, landholdings, and Teachers Group money washing through the world's most notorious offshore tax haven
5th November 2009
The guru: the story of Amdi Petersen
Our newly rewritten biography of the fugitive Teachers Group founder and leader, Amdi Petersen, now restored to the site.
If you can add to our biography, please contact us.
2nd November 2009
Finnish TV - 'Eyewitness - Rags to Riches?'
Silminnäkijä: Ryysyillä rikkauksiin?
Exclusive - a 30-minute report by Finnish TV's channel 2, about UFF in Finland, exposes the links between UFF, the Teachers Group and the senior TG leader Poul Jörgensen, currently serving a jail sentence in Denmark for fraud.
UFF is the sister organisation to Humana, founded in Finland in 1989, and dominates the collection of used clothes and the second hand clothing market in Finland. However UFF Finland is shrouded in secrecy.
”Eyewitness” decided to visit Denmark to gather information about the background of UFF. The programme describes how the Tvind empire saw daylight in Denmark and how idealism turned into greed and led to systematic economic crimes. The programme goes on to reveal that UFF is a tiny link in a vast net of organisations led by the so-called Teachers Group, and also reveals that Poul Jörgensen, the founder of UFF Finland, was sentenced to a 2,5 year jail-sentence for economic crimes in January 2009.
Frede Jakobsen, Danish editor of www.tvindalert.com, was interviewed for the programme.
For more information on the programme and how to watch it until December 3rd see our Finland page or visit http://areena.yle.fi. The TV website and programme are in Finnish.
2nd November 2009
Witness: Inside Richmond Vale Academy
Horror stories from inside the Teachers Group 'volunteering' college on the Caribbean island of St Vincent.
One former volunteer writes: 'There is no teaching, they lie and they exploit local people.' So many students have left this college in disgust this year they have set up a Facebook page called Richmond Vale Academy Alert.
We have made a new page on St Vincent including Daniel's story and other insights. (Can anyone tell us if Tvind still owns the big banana plantation on the island? And what's this about cotton fields?)
2nd November 2009
Picture gallery:
the clothes bins
At last! A simple gallery of photographs of used clothes bins operated by the Teachers Group around the world - Planet Aid, U'SAgain, Gaia, Green World, Humana, UFF, College Aid, IICD. Are there others?
Please send us your photographs. We particularly need up to date pictures of DAPP UK bins (and shops) and any others missing from our gallery. If you see a bin you think is TG, please send us a picture and we will check it out.
30 October 2009
Hans la Cour 1954-2009
The ex-member who blew the whistle on the Tvind fraud
Hans la Cour, the former 'Tvind' volunteer who became a whistleblower and whose evidence launched a successful fraud prosecution against the Humana bosses, has died, aged 55.
La Cour, from Denmark, was only 18 years old when he joined Tvind as a volunteer in 1972, and soon became a member of the controlling Teachers Group (TG). For the next 18 years he remained an important and senior TG member, personally appointed by the TG leader, Amdi Petersen, to handle important operations all over the world.
Hans la Cour (left) was a true internationalist who wanted to help the people in the Third World. But over the years he realised that the official goals of the Tvind-movement were being corrupted by the leadership of the TG.
Hans la Cour was appointed leader of a supposed humanitarian project on the ship Return of Marco Polo, sailing all over the world to create fake projects that were used to launder million of dollars out of one of the Tvind 'charitable' foundations, The Humanitarian Fund. Much of the money was used to buy property and land in Central America, Brazil and the USA.
It was in the end too much for Hans la Cour. He left the ship in 1990 in New Zealand - and at the same time he left the TG. But contrary to TG policy he had kept copies of many of the letters and documents from the TG leadership. In 2000 he agreed to appear on Danish Television in two documentaries about the organisation, that led to a trial in Denmark against the TG leadership for tax fraud and embezzlement.
He was subsequently the Crown witness in a second trial that led to a two and a half year prison sentence on one of the central TG leaders, Poul Jørgensen. Amdi Petersen and four other TG members are still wanted by the Danish Police to stand trial. Hans la Cour also wrote a remarkable book about his time in the TG - The Traveller (Den Rejsende) published in 2002.
In the end Hans la Cour got only a little more than 18 years to create a new life for himself outside the TG - first in New Zealand, later in Denmark. He was always willing to help www.tvindalert.com in our research. He died of cancer on October 22, aged only 55 years.
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