Two new files listing key Teachers Group companies in the offshore tax havens of Jersey and Guernsey, notorious for their low tax and banking secrecy. The Teachers Group uses several of these companies today to direct income from its colleges and used clothes companies into offshore accounts.
Five Jersey companies active today own many of the Tvind schools, plantations, and clothes businesses, as well as the multi-million dollar complex in Mexico. We have also identified ten dissolved Jersey companies and six dissolved Guernsey companies. Many were active in the 1980s-90s and several have been investigated by police for alleged money laundering and hot money transfers in connection with property deals in Brazil.
Archive for March, 2010
Hot money: Jersey and Guernsey
On March - 5 - 2010
Berlingske Tidende: The Used Clothing Trophy 2002
On March - 1 - 2010
The used clothing trophy
Berlingske Tidende, August 24th 2002
As the arrested Tvind founder Mogens Amdi Petersen is heading home top be tried for embezzlement, Tvind’s international trade is running as ever. Sunday Berlingske can report today how Tvind, assumingly helping the poor of the third world, is defrauding people, acting in good faith by dropping their used clothes into Tvind’s collection bins, all over Europe. A Network of secret companies, hidden in the Netherlands, Ireland and in the British tax haven Jersey, Tvind has been collecting millions out of the sale of used clothing for at least the last ten years.
By Michael Bjerre
AMSTERDAM
[Note: as this article has been translated from Danish to German, then to English, some of the quotes may not be literal.]
The small man with the graying hair points determinedly toward the main entrance:
“I have nothing to tell”, he snares.
The man’s name is Flemming Gustaffson and has been for many years one of Tvind’s leading businessmen. The 59-year-old Dane stands behind the main entrance to the office in the grey and drab building, next to a lively main road in the provincial town of Maarsen, south-east of Amsterdam.
It is rather difficult to imagine that this building should be the location for one of Tvind’s largest and shyest businesses in Europe.
From this location Tvind secretly betrayed for at least ten years all the good willing Europeans who thought the surplus of selling the clothes donated to Tvind would help the poor in the Third World, as Tvind promised. Instead Tvind channeled all the money through their secret companies into their own accounts.
Tvind even doesn’t make a distinction in this practice with their offices. Only a handwritten note gives away that the company “Conmore” resides in this building in the sleepy Dutch province.
Flemming Gustaffson’s limited hospitality might have something to do with him playing a central part in Tvind’s big used clothing cup.
“Is there anything sensible to light going on in the companies you’re involved with”, Sunday Berlingske asks while on the way back outside.
“There is something wrong with the newspapers in Denmark”, Flemming Gustaffson answers sharply and adds: “I want you to leave this office. NOW!”
Now there may be several reasons for Flemming Gustaffson to refuse to share details about his daily work with the public.
First, Tvind has never before been under such a high pressure, becoming clear lately, as the founder Mogens Amdi Petersen, after a half year in the rough American jails, yielded and accepted to return home to Denmark. Here he and seven other Tvind leaders are accused of embezzlement and tax fraud for 75 million Danish crowns.
Secondly, Flemming Gustaffson himself is accused of a white-collar-crime in Belgium. He and seven other Tvind leaders are facing a trial for money laundering from about 23 million Danish crowns, the details being undisclosed by the Belgian police.
Thirdly, there is questioning for Tvind’s trading companies that Flemming Gustaffson would like to avoid. Noticing how the companies were the gear-wheels in an extremely clever system of deceiving the donators of the used clothes and the poor in the Third World who were to profit, Flemming Gustaffson’s rejection makes sense. Thus Sunday Berlingske can reveal what up till recently used to be one of Tvind’s largest frauds.
The fraud is based on the fact, that Tvind’s humanitarian organizations in Western Europe – UFF and Humana – only receive a fraction of the profit from the sale of the clothes deposited in their collection bins.
Instead, they sell them officially to a Tvind company in Holland, which in turn sells them to Tvind’s companies, for example in the British tax haven of Jersey, earning the profit by selling them at far higher prices in Eastern Europe.
This way the largest part of the profits can be collected in Tvind’s own accounts and not into the accounts of UFF or Humana, which in turn have far less to give to the Third World as might be achieved originally.
In order to understand the structure and the background of Tvind’s economic ‘used-clothes-laundering’ we have to turn back the time to a historic date. It is November 9th, 1989; the iron curtain separating Europe falls.
The party in Berlin seems to never end. Champagne corks pop everywhere, people saluting each other and a wave of happiness and relieve rolls over the European continent.
But for some the new time is something else than just a party. In some distance to the events, Tvind’s supreme leaders, led by Mogens Amdi Petersen, begin to make new plans for their business. They consider Eastern Europe to be a whole new market to wash money into their tanks, and so Amdi, shortly after the iron curtain fell, accepted the plan for a large campaign, as sources close to the leaders for some years, explain.
Amdi’s plans are to erect an international business empire to secure Tvind’s further expansion, at some time in the 80’s he already came up with a plan for something he called “money-earning activity”.
The pedagogic project, started out in the 70’s as a revolutionary movement with educational trips in rumbling busses and almost-sinking ships, was now to use the methods of capitalism to reach their goal.
Eastern Europe fitted perfectly for that strategy. These countries are an extremely good market for a good with which Tvind’s storage facilities are almost overflowing with – used winter clothing.
In 1989 Tvind had been collecting used clothing in some European countries for a couple of years already. In Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland they collected under the name “Ulandshælp fra Folk til Folk” (UFF) [Development Aid from People to People]. In England, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Austria they resided as ‘Humana People to People’.
But a substantial part of the used clothing people dropped into the yellow and green collection bins were warm winter clothes, which for obvious reasons were unsuitable for use in Africa.
Unlike Africa, Eastern Europe is perfect for the sale of these clothes. As always, whenever Tvind is under way with great plans, the so-called ‘distribution group’ hunts for possible keynote themes in the Teacher’s Group.
This ‘distribution group’ is made up of Mogens Amdi Petersen and his girlfriend Kristen Larsen, and shortly after, as Tvind-informants report; they had selected a number of trustworthy employees, who had proven well in business before, for the job at hand.
One of those is Flemming Gustaffson.
On September 3rd, 1992 Flemming Gustaffson founded the company ‘E.C. Trading’ in Holland. Gustaffson is the only shareholder of the company. Later all shares are taken over by a Kirsten Kristiansen. And later yet, they are taken over by Poul Laurits Jørgensen.
The changing of the stockholders is only trying to conceal the relations to Tvind, as several Tvind-informants report for Sunday Berlingske.
Flemming Gustaffson is not the only one of the three who has been a long-time-member of the Teachers Group. Kirsten Kristiansen has been with Tvind for 30 years, at first as a teacher for the traveling folk high school, later as coordinator for the container transports of the used clothes.
Poul Laurits Jørgensen – inside Tvind called ‘Poul junior’ as not to be confused with the Tvind spokesman Poul Jørgensen – has been with Tvind for 20 years, most of the time with UFF.
Even though E.C. Trading is a Tvind company, there is a reason for Tvind to keep this a secret. E.C. Trading’s main task is to buy used clothing collected by UFF and Humana all over Western Europe.
By cooperating closely, there is the opportunity to channel away a great part of the funds collected by the humanitarian national sections of UFF and Humana supposed to be distributed to Tvind’s projects in the Third World.
And this is exactly what’s happening.
E.C. Trading is, as mentioned before, just a stopover in Tvind’s great eastern European fraud. E.C. Trading sells the larger part – about 85 percent – to five other Tvind companies, four of them hidden in Jersey, the British tax haven.
Low Taxes are not the only advantage of the Jersey addresses. Here you can hide everything from key numbers to staff members, as there is no need to supply that information to the authorities.
Sunday Berlingske came into possession of documents about those four companies – Holland House, Holland Trading, Holland Enterprise and World Wide Suppliers.
Member of the board of directors of all these companies is Birgitte Larsen. She is not just somebody. For years she played a central part in leading the Tvind economy. From the Tvind headquarters at Grindsted she looked after the private economy, the issuing of tax cards and the pocket money for all the members of the Teachers Group, who all had signed up for the “mutual economy”.
But now it is her job to channel the profits from the Jersey companies to the secret accounts. This doesn’t happen physically on the green British Island, but from an equally secret Tvind office located on Mill Lane 28 in the tax haven of Gibraltar.
As the day-by-day leader of Tvind’s tax haven companies Birgitte Larsen soon gets many other tasks. Tvind’s decision to venture into the eastern European market proofs to be a great success.
East European people are going crazy for the modern western-style clothes. Unlike when they had to spend a month’s paycheck to buy some used Levi’s at the black market, they can now buy used brand clothing for a reasonable price.
The buyers let the Jersey phones ring all day long. Actually though the calls were rerouted by answering machines to E.C. Trading in Holland, and in their Amsterdam office the order forms are filled out, too, as former Tvind workers point out to Sunday Berlingske. The demand is so high that E.C. Trading sometimes almost can’t satisfy it. In a steady stream trucks filled with used clothing pull away from one of the 37 loading ramps in the 200 meter long building housing the sorting facility heading toward Eastern Europe.
The same thing happens in England, Belgium, Germany, and Sweden and wherever else in Europe Tvind is collecting clothes. E.C. Trading even picks up clothing from UFF’s large sorting facility in Ballerup near Copenhagen and in Århus, as several hundred freight bills possessed by Sunday Berlingske prove.
In 1997 Tvind directed over 25,000 tons of used clothing through E.C. Trading and the Jersey Companies. With an average load of 17 tons this equals 1,500 trucks stuffed with used clothing heading from Western to Eastern Europe.
Other key figures reveal how gigantic the business with Eastern Europe for the Teacher’s Group becomes.
The E.C. Trading turnover rises strikingly in the mid-90’s.Up from 17.2 million Dutch Guilders [about 60 million Danish Crowns] in 1995 to 35.5 million Guilders [about 130 million Danish Crowns] in 1998. Tvind’s moneymaking machine ran smoothly. But the Hungarian police had a watchful eye on the transports with used clothing from the west.
The Hungarian customs officers noticed that the Tvind-trucks were showing false customs forms. There was far more clothing loaded on the trucks than accounted for in the customs forms.
Thus in the fall of 1999 the Hungarian customs police asked their Dutch colleagues to start an investigation on E.C. Trading.
In the Amsterdam offices of E.C Trading the employees were shocked as two police officers showed up to ask about the false customs forms, but the police left empty-handed. Now Tvind panics, as the police leaving empty-handed is no clue toward Tvind not being an active offender in the Hungarian matters, as a former employee states.
This former employee wishes not to reveal his identity as he has been involved in issuing the false customs forms for E.C. Trading.
“We sent out two different sets of customs forms. One of them showed the real amount, while the other showed a far smaller amount of the loaded clothes. In some cases, it only showed 10 percent of what was actually loaded on the truck”, the former employee states.
As Tvind sources tell, action was taken by Tvind members after the police had showed up at the Amsterdam offices to destroy all proofs for irregularities.
The sources interpretation is as follows:
On the same evening as the police had visited the offices one of the Tvind leaders went hastily through all the files with the customs forms at the E.C Trading office to make sure, that nothing can be traced back to the company. Afterwards one piece of paper after another disappears in the shredder.
Tvind also had gotten very active in Hungary. Some time before, Flemming Gustaffson had travelled to Hungary to set up a Tvind office for one of the Jersey companies, as the sale of used clothing is booming.
Now everything is done to find a way our of the country as fast as he can. Immediately a container is ordered in order to clear away the office within 24 hours. Furniture and computers are packed removed, and as the police appear at the office the only thing left is Flemming Gustaffson’s leased Mercedes.
The Dutch police are looking for Flemming Gustaffson, too. But he seems to have been swallowed by the ground.
According to the information available to Sunday Berlingske Flemming Gustaffson had fled to Kenya’s capital Nairobi, where he still has an address even while working in Holland again. Sunday Berlingske would have liked to hear Flemming Gustaffson’s own interpretation of the proceedings, but the request was being turned down as he didn’t wish to talk to the newspaper.
The police in Holland have not found any proofs for the customs forms fraud, and some months later, on May 23rd, 2000, E.C. Trading files bankruptcy.
So quietly the company tries to disappear from sight, explaining they were not able to get their feet back on the ground after the collapse of the trade with used clothes in Eastern Europe.
The appointed trustee, The Hague lawyer J.C. Rosenberg Polak, quickly realizes that this is not an ordinary bankruptcy. “Actually, I haven’t seen something like this before”, J.C. Rosenberg Polak states, who is specialized in bankruptcies.
At first, the lawyer thinks it is just a regular liquidation. But after receiving the hint that a sect like Danish school movement of the ‘70 owns the bankrupt company and all of their trade partners – UFF, Humana and the Jersey companies – he begins to wonder.
This model is great for everyone who wants to drain a company to channel away the assets.
While trying to reveal the trade relations between the companies, J.C. Rosenberg Polak finds a very suspicious pattern.
The debtors of E.C. Trading are the four Jersey companies and a fifth, registered in Ireland, Brichwood Trading.
At the same time, the annual statement of accounts shows that the five companies shortly before E.C. Trading’s bankruptcy had paid out a stock profit of 2 million dollars to their common holding company, Coriander Holding Ltd.
“The question is whether this is a coincident or the dividend had been paid consciously at the expense of the – practically – bankrupt company”, the suspicious receiver writes in a report on this matter, dated September 11th, 2000.
Therefore J.C. Rosenberg Polak asks for information about Coriander Holding, which Tvind also is behind at and is, according to Sunday Berlingske information, controlled by Mogens Amdi Peterson.
Even though J.C. Rosenberg Polak asks the Tvind director of the Jersey companies, Birgitte Larsen at Gibraltar, for information regarding the holding company again and again, he receives no answer. On other occasions, the receiver is being lied to.
“At first they denied that the bankrupt company was part of the Tvind companies. In a later phase among others the board of directors of some companies based on the Channel Islands [i.e. Jersey, ed.] confirmed the companies being part of the Tvind group. All seems to show that the bankrupt company [E.C. Trading, ed.] is part of the Tvind group”, J.C. Rosenberg Polak writes in the receiver’s report of this year May 7th.
The Matter is not finished yet. But after J.C. Rosenberg Polak threatened some of the Jersey companies with filing a lawsuit in Jersey, the Tvind people obviously got nervous and paid part of their debts to E.C. Trading.
“It seems they fear a lawsuit filed in Jersey. Because then it would become obvious in court, who is behind Coriander Holding”, J.C. Rosenberg Polak says.
Today, the receiver does not hold much for Tvind.
J. C. Rosenberg Polak: “I find it hard to see what their way of doing business has to do with humanitarian work. If they wanted to do good for the people in the Third World, they shouldn’t be selling their used clothes to their own companies, skimming off the biggest profit.”
The lawyer also shakes his head on the idea that Tvind set up a different company after E.C. Trading’s bankruptcy, Conmore, to keep up the fraud.
“This is always the problem with bankruptcies, the people can just continue with a different company”, J.C. Rosenberg Polak closes his statement.
ISOBRO is a union of 39 humanitarian organizations in Denmark. Members are among others the Fokekirkens Nødhjælp [People’s Church Emergency Aid], BØRNEfonden [the Children’s Fund] and UNICEF. ISOBRO reacts strongly on the revelation of Tvind’s economic laundering of used clothing.
ISOBRO’s main target is developing a high ethic standard for collections and donations. The union has therefore drawn up common ethic rules for this area.
“First of all, it is fantastic, Tvind holding some of the poorest humans on this world hostage in this kind of speculation” ISOBRO’s Chairman Stig Fog says.
“Secondly, the Danish authorities will have to become more conscious of their responsibility. It is insane that they free UFF/Humana from their duty to pay VAT, even though they seem not to stand on the proper side of the law.”
This week’s Friday, Coop Danmark A/S – the former FDB, operating among others SuperBrugsen, Kvickly and Fakta – announced Tvind would no longer be allowed to have their collection bins in front of their shops.
This was decided on as Tvind is operating so closed, it doesn’t fit Coop Danmark’s ideals of openness and dialogue. Stig Fog thinks the local authorities should follow this example.
“It would be peculiar if the Danish local authorities would continue to supply space for UFF’s collection bins after all the information becomes public”, Stig Fog declares.
The question of legality of Tvind’s economic arrangements has to be answered by others. For the time being, Tax and Customs authorities investigate, closely cooperating with the Bagmandspolitiet [backer’s police], if UFF/Humana has drained sales tax or turnover tax-free funds from Denmark illegally. Upon reading the information collected by Sunday Berlingske the public prosecutor Henning Thiesen declares:
“What in this context is happening in Holland and other countries will of course be included in our consideration.”
Henning Bjornlund
On March - 1 - 2010
HENNING BJORNLUND
Many of these plantations were bought as commercial business investments in the 1980s on the advice of a Teachers Group member who was then the organisation’s ‘chief accountant’ Henning Bjornlund. Bjornlund has since retired from Tvind and is working as a university professor in Australia and Canada.
In an unguarded moment, Bjornlund once told an undercover reporter that the investments were nothing to do with foreign aid but ‘all about money’. Many people believe the Teachers Group used profits from its charitable and humanitarian enterprises to make these investments, an idea supported by the Danish police report of 2001.
Plantations
On March - 1 - 2010
A list of all known plantations and landholdings bought by the Teachers Group since 1983
Any further information or corrections welcomed!
We would also like information on where produce from these farms is traded.
Material to be added
Links have been restored on this page
CARIBBEAN
Large fruit and vegetable plantations on Grand Cayman at Furtherland Farm. At least 115 hectares (bananas, citrus, mango and pumpkin). Since (?). Active. Owned by Jersey registered offshore company Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle. Possibly separate plantation at High Rock Estate No information on where produce is sold.
St Lucia
Mount Lezard Estate, bought in 1986 despite local opposition and apparently run by a UK-registered management company – active.
The River Doree plantation is a 332 hectare plantation of pepper, cassava and mahogany owned by Jersey registered offshore company Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle. Date of acquisition unknown. A third plantation is probable at Park Estate. Teachers Group has two St Lucia registered companies, Park Estate Ltd and River Doree Holding Ltd.
St Vincent
Banana plantation at Orange Hill Estate bought in March 1985 despite local opposition and using shell companies to get around local laws. The Teachers group was subsequently expelled from St Vincent, but has since returned. We are not certain whether this plantation still belongs to Tvind or whether there are others. We know of two likely farming companies registered on St Vincent, Orange Hill Estate and Windward Properties Ltd.
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
The Teachers Group is one of the largest producers of bananas, mango and seafood in Belize and produces 40 per cent of the country’s banana exports.
It owns and operates Monkey River Estate, a vast plantation bought in 1986. Originally this was the largest privately-owned mango farm in Belize. The estate now produces mango, citrus, banana, cassava, shrimps,and limes. The TG also owns a large area of forest in southern Belize.
The ultimate owner is offshore-registered company Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle, through a subsidiary registered in the Cayman Islands. We have a list of more than 15 further companies registered in Belize.
Brazil
Fazenda Jatobà (also known as Floryl), a 92,000-hectare agricultural estate, bought by the Teachers Group in 1994 for $12 million. Ultimately owned by Jersey offshore Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle.
This is the plantation at the heart of the legal action for fraud against Amdi Petersen and Teachers Group leaders in Denmark in 2003-2006. Danish police Department of Serious Economic Crime alleged that to make the purchase, the Teachers Group laundered millions of dollars from a charitable trust (the Humanitarian Foundation) through a maze of front companies and fake charities. Although not guilty verdicts were delivered, the Danish public prosecutor has appealed and outstanding wanted notices have been issued by Interpol.
Our file on Fazenda Jatoba
Ecuador
Banana plantations. Teachers Group companies registered in Ecuador include Ecpomartes SA, Frioport SA, Grupo Danés and Jokay SA.
El Salvador
Teachers Group companies registered in El Salvador include: Banana Tropic SA de C.V.
Venezuela
Teachers Group companies registered in Venezuela include El Rosario and La Vigia S.A.
ASIA
Timber trading, although the Russian-registered, Teachers Group companies logging in Siberia now appear to have closed down in 2006. The story is told elsewhere on this site. The companies were Taiga Timber Industries, Taiga Timber Trading and Trans World Forest Enterprise.
Malaysia
Logging. The Malaysian company conducting the Teachers Group’s Malaysian timber trade is McCorry & Co. Associated companies we have found, all registered in the USA, are: Allwood McCorry Trading Company, Allwoods Trading Company Ltd, McCorry (USA) Corp, McCorry Timber Ltd Inc and McCorry & Co Limited Inc. Other Malaysian companies we have records of are Nasib Daya SB and South China Sea Farming Ltd.
AFRICA
There are known to be large eucalyptus plantations and agricultural landholdings around the Humana headquarters at Shamva.
Commercial farms growing various crops. Teachers Group companies registered in Mozambique include Mozambique Agricultural Company Lda
Mauritius
We believe there is likely to have been logging, owing to the discovery of a company called Trayton Mauritius.
Elsewhere in Africa
The Teachers Group is or has recently also been active in Angola, Botswana, Congo, Guinea Bissau, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. We believe it is likely there could be landholdings in any of these countries.
PACIFIC AREA
Teachers Group companies operating in Fiji we know of are Pacific Farming and Pacific Produce Ltd
OTHER COMPANIES
These Teachers Group companies are – or have been – involved in agriculture, lanholdings or the fruit trade. We would welcome further information on these. Can you help?
Atlantic Trading Holdings (International) Ltd (n/k) – fruit trade
University of the Seven Seas (n/k)
Nellcombe Ltd (location unknown) – landholdings?
Challacombe Trading (Gibraltar) – timber
Isterødgaard aps (Denmark) – farming
Løvdahl a/s (Denmark)
One World Enterprise (n/k) – timber
P13 a/s (Denmark) – farming
Tropical Farming Atlantic (Jersey)
Tropical Farming Caribbean (n/k) – farming
Tropical Farming Pacific (n/k) – farming
Tropical Fruit (Netherlands) – fruit trade
World Trading (Netherlands)
There is evidence of a substantial network of other offshore companies used by the Teachers Group to manage different landholdings abroad. See our A-Z of all Teachers group companies and enterprises
Do you have information about a Teachers Group company? Please tell us
Last updated: 12th March 2010
Hot money: the offshore rent racket
On March - 1 - 2010
The Teachers Group offshore property companies and the money they make from school rentals. Information to come.
Vincentian 1985
On March - 1 - 2010
Orange Hill Sale
How it was negotiated
From the Vincentian, 29th March 1985
by special reporter
The Deed of Conveyance transferring approximately 8,500 acres of land at Orange Hill from Orange Hill Estates Limited to a new company known as Windward Properties Limited was registered at 2.25pm on Friday 22nd March 1985 at the Court House Registry.
The deed was signed by Cyril Barnard and Martin Barnard on behalf of Orange Hill Estates Limited, and was perused on their behalf by Barrister-at-Law Errol Layne
Dated 25th February 1985, the Deed was prepared on behalf of Windward Properties Limited by Barrister-at-Law Othniel Sylvester, who also witnessed the Barnard’s signatures.
According to the Deed, the property was sold for $5,337,600 EC ($2.1 million US).
The registration of the Deed of Conveyance took place three days after publication of the Government Gazette in which the Government gavce notice of its intention to acquire the same lands.
There has been widespread popular opposition to the sale. All opposition pareties - the Labour Party, the United People’s Movement, and the Movement for National unity - have all called on government to prevent the sale of the Orange Hill Estate to the Danes.
The Vincentian has obtained the full details of the legal manoeuvres which have resulted in the transfer of 10 per cent of all arable land in St Vincent and the Grenadines into foreign hands without government permission.
It appears that advantage was taken of certain loopholes in the law. For example, of the seven signatures on the registration documents for Windward Properties Limited, not one is Vincentian. yet according to the law, Windward Properties Limited is a Vincentian Company.
This is how it was done. In the laws of St vincent and the Grenadines, a company must be formed by at least seven subscribers. If one half or more than one half of the subscribers are unlicensed aliens, then the Company is an alien company. But if more than one half of the subscribers are vincentians, then the Company bvecomes a Vincentian Company. So if 7 people form a company and 4 of them are Vincentians whilst 3 of them are unlicensed aliens, then the company is a Vincentian company.
An unlicensed alien is a foreigner who has not received a license from the government. An unlicensed alien cannot own land in St Vincent and the Grenadines. land can only be owned by a foreigner if the foreigner is granted an Aliens Land Holding Licence by the Cabinet.
However three unlicensed aliens can join with four Vincentians and form a CVompany. The company so formed will be a Vincentian Company and so will not need an Aliens Land Holding Licence.
What happened was that four companies were formed between 18th and 19th February 1985. All four companies were formed by Barrister-at-Law Othniel Sylvester and all had their office at orange Hill.
The four companies were: Rose Cottage Limited, Denver portland Limited, Blue Ridge Limited and ZBF Limited.
Each company was formed by three different unlicensed aliens believed to be Danes, and four Vincentian women employed in the legal chambers of Othniel Sylvester.
Each company was therefore a Vincentiuan company since the majority of subscribers were Vincentians.
Eachj company has an authorised share capital of $10,000.00divided into 1,000 shares of $10.00 each.
Eleven different unlicensed aliens are involved in the formation of the four companies:but the same four Vincentian women - a solicitors’s clerk, a secretary, and two typists - are the subscribers to all four companies.
Then on 20th February 1985, these four Vincentian companies got together with three unlicensed aliens (who themselves were already members of those same four companies) and formed a fifth company called Windward Properties Limited.
In the Memorandum of Association of Windward Properties Limited, the first object for which the company was formed is set out as follows:
“To acquire the whole or any part of the undertaking and assets of orange Hill Estates limited and for that purpose to enter into and carry into effect with such (if any) modifications or alterations as may be agreed upon an agreement which was made in the year 1984.”
The registered office of Windward Properties Limited is Orange Hill.
Windward properties Limited has an authorised share capital of $1,000,000 divided into 10,000 shares of $100.00 each.
Being a Vincentian company, Windward Properties Limited did not need to obtain an Aliens Land Holding Licence to purchase Orange Hill.
Legal opinion is divided as to whether the aliens have in fact beaten the system. The Vincentian is advised that it is possible for the Attorney General to challenge the whole manoeuvre in the law courts, by going behind the transactions to find out just where the $5,337,600 came from, and to see whether the four Vincentian women actually control the majority share holding in the Company.
Some lawyers feel that government should acquire the shares held by the four Vincentians and so obtain control of all the companies, including Windward properties Limited. it is said that these legal mechanisms would be far cheaper than acquiring the lands from the aliens.
Sources close to the government say that the government is keeping all of its options open.
Calls have already been made for amendments to laws that would allow eleven aliens to join with four locals and manage to avoid the provisions of the Aliens Land Holding Regulations Ordinance.
Jamaica Gleaner 2005
On March - 1 - 2010
Man on CCJ selection body faces fraud rap
April 18, 2005
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC:
See complete article Jamaica Gleaner
THE CARIBBEAN Court of Justice (CCJ) was inaugurated on Saturday amid claims that a member of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission, which is charged with appointing judges to the Court, had defrauded a Danish foundation of EC$5.2 million.
The Sunday Express newspaper reported that the foundation is suing Commissioner Othniel Sylvester, Q.C., to recover the money reportedly expended for the purchase of a parcel of land. It has also filed court action seeking to discipline the former temporary High Court judge.
The newspaper added that president of the CCJ, Michael De La Bastide, intends to launch an investigation into claims, which have sparked suggestions that Sylvester could end up before the very court, for which he is one of those charged for selecting judges.
BID TO BLOCK THE LAWSUIT
Sylvester, reportedly shied away from answering any questions relating to the pending lawsuit when approached by the Sunday Express at the CCJ launch in Trinidad, noting, “the position is once there is pending litigation one just can’t comment.”
Sylvester has made a bid to block the lawsuit, claiming abuse of process. He lost the first round in his bid but has appealed and that hearing comes up tomorrow in the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal in St Lucia.
Sylvester, a native of St Vincent and the Grenadines, was the former president of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Bar Association and was appointed a member of the RJLSC in July 2003.
According to details of the pending court action which was filed in February 2004, a Danish private commercial foundation, Faellesje, claims that in July 1984 it entered into an agreement with Sylvester, who then acted as their solicitor, to purchase a group of estates on the island of St Vincent and the Grenadines, comprising of approximately 3,300 acres and known as the Orange Hill Estates.
Two months after the purchase of the estate, the Government compulsorily acquired the land because of an outcry from the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines and, in November 1991, awarded EC$4.7 million, which carried interest of five per cent per annum.
The Danish foundation said it received some money but has sued Sylvester for what it said is the remainder.
Trayton Group – a furniture factory in Shanghai
On March - 1 - 2010
Furniture and sofa factories in China, and India
Products sold by the TG worldwide
Timber trade – probably sourcing wood from TG’s own forest plantations
Design and consultancy companies
The Trayton Group, based in China and the offshore tax haven of the Isle of Man, is a family of companies mainly concerned with making and selling furniture. Associated companies are in the United States, Hong Kong and elsewhere, and there is a Trayton furniture factory in India. Set up in 1995 by Teachers Group member Simon Lichtenberg, and now a lucrative source of funds for the Teachers Group. Lichtenberg has stated in interviews that he passes at least $1m from Trayton to the TG.
Trayton’s Chinese-made sofas are most likely manufactured using timber and raw materials supplied from Tvind forestry plantations in central America, and perhaps elsewhere. The Floresta Jatoba plantation in Brazil – which, according to Danish police, was bought in the 1990s using funds illegally diverted from humanitarian funds – is known to export timber. Trayton sofas are sold in China, Europe, the United States and in TG-run stores in Africa.
In 2004-2008 Simon Lichtenberg made three attempts to close www.tvindalert.com, but in each case libel writes against this site were thrown out by the Danish courts.
The Shanghai Furniture Factory
The Trayton Group makes sofas and other furniture at a large factory in Shanghai, and also has an address in Jiaxing, and a web page here. The sofa manufacturing is carried out by a subsidiary company, Trayton Furniture, and the trading arm appears to be Simon Li Furniture. There are also design and consultancy companies.
Simon Lichtenberg with Danish ambassador Bo Bramsen, 1999
According to insiders, Trayton was started up after Teachers Group leader Amdi Petersen decided on a worldwide expansion into China in the early 1990s, and senior ‘Teacher’ Simon Lichtenberg was chosen for the task. Trayton began trading about 1995. Its relationship to the Teachers Group (or Tvind) was unknown until March 2000, when the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende revealed the connection:
Danish Government Supports Tvind Venture in China (Berlingske Tidende, 26th March 2000)
The Chinese Mask of Tvind (Berlingske Tidende, 26th March 2000)
This caused a major scandal at the time because the Danish government was unwittingly ploughing large sums into the Danish-run business, unaware that it was funding the Teachers Group. There were also concerns about Lichtenberg’s access to the Danish embassy, seen as a security risk. Lichtenberg remains close to Chinese government leaders, and has recently been seen in meetings with Danish politicians, so perhaps the Danish government has conveniently now forgotten the connection.
Initially Lichtenberg denied any links to the Teachers Group, but in interviews in 2004 and 2006 he admitted giving $1.1m a year (a third of Trayton’s profits) to the Teachers Group. However he has denied this makes Trayton a ‘Tvind company’.
Simon Lichtenberg Admits Chinese Trayton Makes Money for TG (Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Sept 2004)
Affiliated companies that Trayton supplies include BoConcept, Sofapop, Kvadrat and Georg Jensen.
Trayton in the United States
Trayton America, Inc. ‘USA. Dealers in imported furniture made in China.’ Incorporated in the State of Georgia May 2004, with Simon Lichtenberg as named officer. and in North Carolina in June 2006, with Simon Bisbo president and Simon Lichtenberg chairman. US corporate office is listed as 101 S. Main Street, Suite 100, High Point, North Carolina 27260. Both officers list their addresses as 1999 Lianyou Road, Shanghai 201107 P.R. China.
Trayton in Africa
The Teachers Group is now selling its own Chinese-made furniture and other goods in Mozambique through two stores in Maputo, ‘Sofa City‘ and ‘Office City‘, according to an informant. The sofas and furniture for sale are made by Trayton and Sofa City is believed to be a part of Teachers Group company CATLINK (China-Africa Trade Link), a TG import-export company registered in China.
Trayton in India
There is also a Trayton furniture factory in Chennai, India. The address found on the Internet is Trayton Furniture India Pvt Ltd, 345/282, Old Mahabalipuram Road, Sholinganallur, Chennai, 600119, Tamil Nadu. If this factory is also part of the Teachers Group commercial empire, it has probably existed since around 2002 when Tvind Alert was informed about negotiations for an Indian factory held by Simon Lichtenberg and Simon Bisbo. More information please.
THE TIMBER TRADE
Several Trayton companies – we have records of Trayton Timbers Ltd, Trayton Sourcing (Hong Kong) and Trayton Timber (Mauritius) Ltd – appear to be related to the timber trade and probably refer to timber imports to China for furniture manufacture. We believe it is likely Trayton is sourcing raw materials from the TG’s own extensive forest landholdings and plantations in Brazil, Borneo, Belize and possibly Mauritius or India.
One of the biggest Teachers group forestry plantations is at the Fazenda Jatoba ranch in Brazil which was bought, according to police, in 1994 using money transferred through front companies from Tvind charities and the Humanitarian Foundation. This was the scandal at the centre of the fraud case against Amdi Petersen and other Teachers Group leaders in 2002-6, and remains the reason why police are still searching for them.
The Teachers Group is also associated with a Malaysian timber company, McCorry and Co, run by Teachers Group member Jonas Israel. The Teachers Group also recently branched into forestry in Siberia, Russia, but its operation there Taiga Industries was shut down in around 2006 by the Russian police and security services amid accusations of fraud.
WHO RUNS TRAYTON?
The Trayton Group directors
Simon Lichtenberg (CEO and managing director) - a rare ‘Teachers Group child’, educated from the age of seven entirely within the Teachers Group, who has remained a loyal member into adulthood. Lichtenberg is now (2010) aged around 42 His parents joined the TG in around 1973 and Lichtenberg was placed in a special Tvind ‘children’s school’ and various private Tvind schools in Denmark and Africa. A sister, Marie Lichtenberg, is also in the TG and is prominent in the US operations.
Lichtenberg went on to progress inside the TG, working for the organisation in Europe, Africa and Asia. Information given to Tvind Alert suggests that by the early 1990s he was one of a number of top-ranking TG members gathered together by Amdi Petersen in Miami and despatched around the world as part of a plan to expand Tvind’s business empire. Lichtenberg was tasked with growing the Chinese market. The Trayton Group is the result. He is now widely tipped as an eventual successor as the head of the Tvind Empire on the retirement of the present guru Mogens Amdi Petersen.
Niels Peter Holst (non executive director) – a maths expert and one of the business brains behind the Teachers Group. Holst has with good reason been described by insiders as ‘Tvind’s chief book-keeper’. Among other appointments within the TG, he is currently an officer of a Swiss-based trust called Humana and PlanetAid Finance SA. In the 1990s, his special responsibilities appear to have included creating hidden financial pathways between Africa and bank accounts in Europe: a private memo he wrote for TG bosses in 1995 suggests a method of secretly moving money between Humana Holland and Angola and back again while avoid financial scrutiny and tax, and according to former volunteer Britta Junge (in interviews with Danish TV in 2000) it was Holst who took charge of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash she was ordered to smuggle back from Angola to Denmark. Holst is mentioned by name in the 2001 Danish police report.
Mikkala Gottlob (non-executive director) – a Tvind Teacher of more than 30 years standing, described as a sociologist and ‘educational advisor’ on the Trayton website. Since 2002, Gottlob has been engaged in the clothes trade – presumably for the Teachers Group – in Russia. Previously Gottlob was closely involved with the Teachers Group in Britain and was director and company secretary of Humana UK at the time it was investigated and closed down by the British Charity Commission in 1998.
Trayton Holdings (Isle of Man) directors
Trayton Holdings is an offshore company set up in tax haven Isle of Man in 1995. Simon Lichtenberg, Neils Peter Holst and Kirsten Fuglsbjerg are all named as trustees.
Kirsten Fuglsbjerg (also known as Christie Pipps) (director of Trayton Holdings) – a senior Teachers Group member with legal training, who was a co-founder of the Faelleseje trust at the heart of the Tvind financial system in 1977. In 1994, she was the main signatory in the Teachers Group’s $9m purchase of Fazenda Jatoba ranch in Brazil, which led to Danish police investigations and in 2002-2006 Fuglsberg was one of six senior Teachers Group leaders put on trial for fraud in Denmark in 2002-6. There are few Teachers group financial enterprises in which she does not seem to have been involved. Fuglsberg fled fromEurope in 2006, and remains ‘wanted’ by Danish police. She is believed to be in Mexico or Brazil. She changed her name to Christie Pipps for unknown reasons in 1992.
Other individuals in China
Kim Hansen (Teachers Group computer and IT expert), Michael Hermann (involved in US companies and now fundraising in China), Simon Bisbo.
ALL KNOWN TRAYTON COMPANIES
Here is a list of Trayton companies we have found:
Shanghai Trayton Furniture Co Ltd – furniture
Shanghai Trayton Trading Co (China) – imports of Danish-made furniture under franchise to Bo Concept
Simon Li Furniture (China and USA)
Trayton America Inc (USA) – furniture
Trayton Consulting (China) – consultancy.
Trayton Furniture India Pvt (Chennai, India)
Trayton Furniture (Jiaxing) Co Ltd (China)
TRAYTON HOLDINGS LTD (Isle of Man) – offshore holding company
Trayton Hothouse (Shanghai) Trading Co Ltd (China) – trade
Trayton Sourcing / Trayton (Hong Kong) Ltd (Hong Kong)
Trayton Systems (China) – computers
Trayton Timber Co Ltd (China) – timber trade
Trayton Timber Ltds (Mauritius)
Trayton Timbers Ltd
Trayton Trading Ltd (China) – consultancy
Trayton Systems and “s’Cool Tool”
s’Cool Tool was a computer pre-loaded with the unique Teachers Group’s so-called ‘educational system’ DmM, that was produced by Trayton in around 2001-2. A Trayton subsidiary, Trayton Systems, manufactured the computers in red and white, branded with the s’Cool Tool name, apparently for the Chinese or developing world market. The pre-loaded software was Tvind’s own-brand ‘Definition of the Modern Method’, the programme still used in some TG colleges, together with another entity, ‘sdbV’ (Schools Digital Books).
The s’Cool Tool project was almost certainly masterminded by senior Teachers Group member Kim Hansen. The project does not seem to have lasted long.
Simon Lichtenberg and ‘Tvind Alert’
Starting in May 2004, Simon Lichtenberg has made several attempts to take legal action against Tvind Alert. In 2004 he demanded that all references to himself and Trayton were deleted from the site – we refused, and hosting of www.tvindalert.com was moved from UK to Denmark, to take advantage of freedom of expression laws. Lichtenberg and Teachers Group member Jonas Israel (of McCorry and Co) went on to launch legal actions in Denmark.
In subsequent hearings and appeals, the Danish courts consistently ruled that neither Lichtenberg nor Israel had any grounds for legal action and dismissed their case. The actions were defended by TDC, one of Denmark’s biggest telecommunications providers and Tvind Alert’s hosting company. In a final verdict, in January 2008, the Danish Østre Landsret court confirmed an earlier ruling by a Copenhagen court in favour of Tvind Alert’s right to publish.
The legal action was the more surprising since Tvind Alert has never done more than to summarise, repeat and place in context material already published in the Danish language press, including interviews given by Lichtenberg himself. Our conclusion is that Tvind Alert’s high ranking on Google was hitting his business in China and elsewhere.
Google censors www.tvindalert.com in China
At the request of Simon Lichtenberg, the Google search engine has blanked out pages critical of the Trayton Group from its Internet search results, including parts of Tvind Alert. Certain pages on the Internet about Trayton – like this one, perhaps – are not found when web surfers in China (and sometimes elsewhere) search ‘Trayton’ or ‘Lichtenberg’.
Even outside China, surfers are not being given the full results when they run a Google search on Trayton. For a demonstration, search ‘Trayton Simon Lichtenberg’. At the bottom of the page is a message: In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 5 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org.
In China, most of the censored pages appear to be English translations of the Berlingske Tidende article of 26th March 2006, carried on www.tvindalert.com.
Last revised 1st July 2010
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