TVIND ALERT

Here’s a challenge for a smart tax investigator, investigative journalist or forensic accountant.     In addition to its old-clothes collection ’CHARITIES’ and clothes drop-in boxes labelled Humana, Planet Aid and Gaia, the Tvind Teachers Group owns and operates its own COMMERCIAL used-clothes broker, Garson & Shaw Inc, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.     Garson & Shaw gets a hefty cut every time it moves some of those charity clothes on behalf of  Humana or Planet Aid, so the Teachers Group makes a tidy profit there (and less money for genuine charity).

So what is Garson & Shaw up to now, opening offices and apparently ferrying old clothes and shoes around the world between the USA, Canada, Belize, the Bahamas and Nicaragua?

 

Information to come

Fazenda Jatobà is a large agricultural estate at Correntina, in the Bahia region of Brazil



---




WHAT IS FAZENDA JATOBA?

Fazenda Jatobà, or Floryl, is a 92,000-hectare agricultural estate in Brazil, owned and operated by the Teachers Group. The TG bought the property for $12m from Shell Oil in 1994, making clandestine payments through a trail of front companies, offshore accounts and at least two fake charities. These transactions came to light during a Danish police investigation, and were central to the fraud trial of Amdi Petersen and other Teachers Group leaders in 2003-2006.

The central police allegation is that the Teachers Group used money designated for for charitable purposes, diverting it from a trust called The Humanitarian Fund and, it is suggested, also from some of Humana People-to-People‘s ‘foreign aid’ charities. Police say the Fazenda Jatobà is an entirely commercial operation with no charitable aim. The charges are outlined in the Danish police report of 2001.



A FARM THE SIZE OF NEW YORK CITY

Jatobà is huge – at around 350 square miles, it is about the same size as New York City, Berlin, or Dartmoor in the UK. It has a staff of 600. The plantation produces bananas, sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, soya, eucalyptus and pine trees for export and sale in Europe, the United States, China and Brazil. Timber from Jatobà is exported through a Tvind-controlled wood export company, McCorry and Co, for fence posts and furniture. It may be used to supply the TG’s furniture businesses in India and Africa and its large Trayton furniture factory in China.

We have information about Jatobà’s wood trade with Portugal on file.

Fazenda Jatobà is in Bahia province, near Correntina, about 500 km north of Brasilia. It is also known as ‘Floryl’, ‘Fazenda Floryl’ or ‘Floryl Florestadora’.



FARM OR NATURE RESERVE?

The Teachers Group claims Fazenda Jatobà is a nature reserve and ‘a unique nature protection project’, including 30,000 hectares of ‘biological reserves’ and a carbon-neutral, ‘biomass’ power station. It lists it as a project under its ‘Gaia’ programme.   Jatobà’s brochure states: “This is one of the few projects in Brazil, which to such a degree combines forestry of this magnitude, with preservation of natural areas and wildlife, and production of CO2 neutral energy….” [Source: Floryl brochure]

But these claims are challenged. In 2001 Danish police stated the ‘biomass’ power station was never an environmental project and the farm is just a business: “Floryl Florestadora YPE S.A. is a commercial enterprise, controlled by the defendants, where the profits accrue to the [Teachers Group's] treasury…..” 2001 Danish Police report



JATOBA AND GAIA

Despite this, the Teachers group continues to raise money for its supposed ‘environmental work’ using the name of Floresta Jatobà. Floresta Jatobà is one of the projects linked to the TG’s ‘Gaia Movement’ programme in the USA and Europe. The ‘Gaia-movement Trust Living Earth Green World Action’ charity based in Chicago collects and sells old clothes for unspecified ‘environmental projects’. Similar collections are made in the UK.

Jatobà describes Gaia is its ‘partner in environmental preservation and development’. However, this statement of a ‘partnership’ between Jatobà and Gaia is misleading – they are not independent partners. It is easy to show that Jatobà and the Gaia Movement Trust are both subisidaries of the ‘Tvind movement’, sister organisations fully controlled by the Teachers Group. We believe money raised through Gaia is used for the Teachers Group’s own purposes, not for environmental protection.



‘AID PROJECTS’?

Humana People-to-People has recently begun recruiting ‘development instructors’ at Jatobà, with the implication that the plantation is also part of a supposed ‘humanitarian’ programme. There are even indications that the Teachers Group has opened a ‘school’ there to attract gap year students. There is no clear evidence of any humanitarian aid or environmental programme at Jatobà: we believe students would likely become convenient unpiad labour

In fact, according to local people and journalists, the plantation is the very opposite of a humanitarian project: a commercial operation where migrant workers are allegedly severely exploited, denied union representation or health insurance, paid low wages, and often exposed to pesticides.

The Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, reporting in 1996 the Teachers Group’s purchase of Floryl, commented: “No messing around with giving the land workers better housing, health care or education.”

Father Moacir, a priest in the local town, Posse, told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in 2000: “There is not a trace of humanity at Floryl. The Danes at Floryl suck their workers dry. They are a disgrace as employers. They don’t deal in humanity, but in the worst kind of capitalism.”



---




HOW WAS FLORYL BOUGHT AND PAID FOR?

Danish police alleged that between the late 1980s and 1996 the Teachers Group used “front men and companies” to secretly move money, including cash given for aid work to the charities UFF/Humana and donations to the Humanitarian Fund.

First, offshore company Tropical Farming Ltd (registered in Grand Cayman) opened negotiations with Shell. Other Tvind offshore companies (The Farmers Trust; Hobhouse Ltd; Fairbank, Cooper, Lyle…) then bought the Brazilian operating company Floryl Florestadora Ype SA.

Finally, money to complete the sale was transferred from other parts of the cash-rich Tvind economy, ‘the Teachers Group treasury’ and hidden companies or supposed charities in various countries.

From Humana/UFF and other Tvind enterprises, millions of dollars were passed to Guernsey-registered Tvind company Bahia Farming Ltd, which still owns Floryl today.

Millions of dollars were also allegedly moved as ‘charitable’ grants to a French-registered supposed ‘green charity’, La Societe Verte (also called L’Energie Eternelle), with an address in the Champs Elysee, Paris, before being transferred on to Floryl. According to police, the French charity was bogus – not a genuine charity, but a Tvind-controlled money laundering operation.

The police allegations in full

Almost every senior Teachers Group member played a role in this purchase


Four key ‘decision-makers’
In 2001 Danish police said four key members of Tvind’s so-called ‘economic directorate’, Amdi Petersen, Kirsten Larsen, Ruth Sejerøe-Olsen, Marlene Gunst, were ‘in reality behind the purchase.’ They authorised the spending and told others how to move money to achieve it. Petersen, Larsen and Gunst are charged with fraud and currently on the run from police.


Other Teachers Group members concerned

Lars Jensen

The manager at Floresta Jatoba (Brasil) Ltda is Danish Teachers Group member Lars Jensen. In 1992, he was simultaneously a founder of The Humanitarian Fund and an executive committee member of La Societe Verte, alleged by police to be a front company. That year, he signed a request from La Societe Verte for a grant of $2.5 m from the Fund. Mentioned in the 2001 Danish Police Report.

Kim Bonde Andersen

In 1992 he ran the Tvind company Tropical Farming, which initiated negotiations with Shell to buy the Floryl ranch. In the mid 2000s he was running a Teachers Group logging company in Siberia, Taiga Timber, closed down by the Rissian police. Now likely to be in Zimbabwe or Central America.

Sten Byrner

Member of Tvind’s economic directorate. In 1992 he was said to be jointly responsible for arranging the purchase of Floryl Florestadora YPE S.A. with Kim Bonde Andersen. Charged with fraud and currently on the run from police.

Poul Jørgensen

Senior Teachers Group member and adviser. In 1992, he was a lawyer acting for the Humanitarian Fund. Police say he ‘wrote letters to himself’ applying for grants for Floryl. Recently convicted of fraud in Denmark and sentenced to prison term.

Bodil Ross Sørensen

Member of Tvind’s economic directorate. The chairperson of the Humanitarian Fund in 1992. She approved the $2.5m grant to La Societe Verte.

Kirsten Fuglsbjerg / Christie Pipps.

Member of Tvind’s economic directorate. On 8th August 1994, she was the main signatory of the deal to buy Floryl from Shell. Charged with fraud and currently on the run from Danish police.

Tove Birkøe. The Teachers Group manager of Floryl Florestadora YPE S.A



---




WHO RUNS FLORYL TODAY?



The key director of Floresta Jatoba (Brasil) Ltda is Birgitte Krohn.

Krohn is a hard-core member of the Tvind Teachers Group, and has played a part in many Tvind offshore companies, secret trusts and financial enterprises. She frequently earns a mention in the 2001 Danish Police report.

In the 1990s, Krohn was a board member of IFAS, the so-called ‘Institute for Reasearch and Applied Science’. According to Danish police, this was not a research body at all, but a Tvind financial front created to launder money into the ‘Teachers Group Treasury’. She was also a director of Kirchheiner Bros, one of the main Teachers Group ‘money pots’, based in the Channel Isles.

She escaped prosecution in the 2003-2006 Danish trial, but was one of eight Teachers Group leaders separately charged with money laundering in Belgium in 2002, although charges were dropped.

Krohn is today a director of Jersey-registered Fairbank, Cooper, Lyle (FCL), the Tvind offshore company that owns the Teachers Groups’s plantations. She is also one of the TG members behind TG Pacifico, the massive new $10 million Tvind ‘headquarters building’ at San Juan de las Pulgas, in Mexico.



---




COMPANY STRUCTURE



The Floryl plantation is today ultimately owned by a Jersey-registered Tvind company, Fairbank, Cooper, Lyle (FCL). This is a major Tvind offshore company and agribusiness that owns most of the Teachers Groups’s plantations. The company structure:

Fairbank, Cooper Lyle
(Registered in Jersey)
I
Bahia Farming Ltd
(Registered in Guernsey)
I
Floresta Jatoba (Brasil) Ltda
(Brazilian operator)
I
Floresta Rio Veredao Ltda
Floryl Florestadora Ype SA
(Local operating companies)



---




THE STORY OF RIMA INDUSTRIAL S/A

Rima Industrial S/A, a Brazilian manufacturing company, has taken the Teachers Group to the Brazilian High Court in a dispute over $6 million of timber bought from Floryl which they say they never received.

Rima executives met Birgitte Krohn and Bolette Gunst (left) to discuss the wood deal. However in late 2005, a company spokesman contacted us. He wrote: ‘We would like to receive as much as possible information about the dirty business of Tvind , because we paid them US $ 6 million for wood from the Floryl project and they simply decided not to deliver the wood.”

Rima executives travelled to Europe to meet Danish police and also contacted Interpol. The company made a complaint in the Brazilian courts and took the case to the Brazilian High Court. We do not know the outcome of the case.

One Rima official told us they had heard the money was transferred out of Brazil to Belize where it was ‘needed’. Krohn and Gunst also showed them pictures of the ‘resort’ under construction in Mexico. Both Krohn and Gunst are involved with the Teacher Group’s $10 million new development, TG Pacifico, at San Juan de las Pulgas.



---




PRESS REPORTS

Ekstra Bladet, Denmark (22nd September 1996): Tvind shops for new plantations. By Kurt Simonsen. A detailed account of Tvind’s ‘buying spree’ of land in Ecuador, Belize and Brazil and the conditions for workers it employs.

Dagens Nyheter, Sweden (10th June 2000): What is UFF hiding on its plantation in Brazil? By Bengt Lindström. “Profit seems to have replaced humanity as the aid organisation’s driving force.”

Berlingske Tidende, Denmark (June 29th, 2001) Stolen document reveals Tvind-fund. A document indicating Tvind’s ownership of the Jatoba plantation and revealing its true purpose – logging – was stolen from court files by one of the defendants in the Danish fraud court case against Tvind.

VEJA, Brazil (11 de julho de 2001) Uma fazenda misteriosa. Madeireira bancada por entidade filantrópica dinamarquesa agride leis brasileiras na Bahia Flávia Varella (in Portuguese)





---




Share




Do you have any information about Humana or the Teachers Group? Please tell us.


Last updated: 26th November 2010



Used clothes collections

Shops in Warrington and Northampton

Registered as a charity – despite complaints

Updating and formatting required

Links to be restored




---




What is DAPP UK?

October 2007 – ten years after Humana UK and Tvind schools were closed down by the Charity Commission for ‘serious financial impropriety’, the Teachers Group has again registered a used clothes ‘charity’ in the UK.

DAPP UK collects its clothes using young people lured to Britain with promises of ‘training’ and volunteer work, who often complain of being exploited and abused.  It has charity shops in Warrington and Northampton.

The founding trustees of DAPP UK include a Scandinavian Teachers Group member already exposed in the Swedish press for financial misdeeds.



---



Who really runs DAPP UK?

Sebastian Mecfal
Information passed to Tvind Alert suggests that the DAPP UK shops in Britain are run by a certain Sebastian Mecfal, who according to contacts is a right wing activist from Poland who has recently become a central figure in Humana operations in Poland.     This suggests that Mecfal is becoming a new and powerful figure in Humana clothes opertations throughout Europe.   Very little information is publicly available on Sebastian Medfal in English – we would like more.   See our file on Humana in Poland.


See also information on DAPP UK trustees, below.



---




PROVING THE CONNECTION WITH THE TVIND TEACHERS GROUP

This information was posted in 2007 and needs updating.



The name

DAPP – Development Aid from People to People – is a name used by the Tvind Teachers group since the 1970s for its supposed aid projects in the developing world. DAPP UK is the only ‘DAPP’ outside Africa.

Just as Humana UK was until 1997, DAPP companies and aid projects (mostly in Africa) are totally controlled by the Teachers Group and, we believe, run today from Europe, Zimbabwe and through offshore accounts.

Whilst small scale DAPP aid projects certainly exist, there is mounting evidence that only relatively small amounts of old-clothes money raised in Europe have ever actually supported DAPP projects. It appears likely that much larger sums raised in the name of DAPP have in reality been transferred through a chain of companies to Teachers Group offshore accounts and used for business enterprises and land purchases.

In its 1996 investigation, the Charity Commission believed DAPP Zambia was not funded by Humana in Britain as claimed. Danish whistleblower Britta Junge recently revealed comprehensive fraud in DAPP (ADPP) in Angola in the early 1990s that involved massive illegal cash transfers. Most DAPP accounts are non-transparent.

Evidence points to the Teachers Group, not poor Africans, being the ultimate beneficiaries of the DAPP network. A Humana Alert dossier on the DAPP charities is in preparation.



The location

DAPP UK’s registered address is in Stockton on Tees, county Durham. Within just a few months, leaflets have started appearing in Stockton giving the name CICD and appealing for old clothes.

CICD (College for International Cooperation and Development) is the name of the Teachers Group’s controversial DRH college at Winestead Hall, near Hull. We believe it is no coincidence that ‘CICD’ and ‘DAPP’ have suddenly appeared in the same British town.

When a Humana Alert voluntary researcher called the charity’s mobile phone number, she spoke to Anne Marie Madsen, who told her she was moving to Manchester.



The website

The website www.dapp-uk.org makes explicit links to Humana People-to-People and to DAPP in Africa. Moreover, the website is designed in a similar style to most other Humana sites, and, like many TG websites, it is officially registered at the Danish company address Fonden E-advice, Odinsvej 17-19, Grindsted – the address of the Teachers Group’s Danish administrative headquarters.




The leaflet

DAPP UK’s own leaflet states at bottom: “Development Aid from People to People UK” works in partnership with Planet Aid UK.  If YOU want to do development work in Africa contact Planet Aid UK.  info@planetaid-uk.org .  Please visit our home page www.planetaid-uk.org “.

Planet Aid UK is one of the Teachers Group’s two commercial clothes collection companies in the UK. An up to date Humana Alert dossier on Planet Aid is in preparation.



The trustees

Trond Narvestad (treasurer)

Trond Narvestad has come up through the Tvind system and been a loyal member of the Teachers Group for decades. Most of his work for the TG has been in Scandinavia, recently appearing as chairman of Humana (UFF) Norway and also listed as a contact for Humana Sweden.

But we know Narvestad best from events of 2001-2002 when he was vice-chairman and chairman of UFF Sweden. In December 2001 the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter launched an investigation into UFF Sweden, revealing that it was controlled by the Teachers Group and alleging a corrupt financial relationship

See the Dagens Nyheter articles below.

Anne Marie Madsen (company secretary)

Madsen has been a Teachers Group member for around 20 years. In 2002 she was head teacher at the Teachers Group DRH college at Holsted in Denmark. There is a story that she once helped run a Teachers Group ‘cattle ranch’ in Queensland, Australia, although we have no independent corroboration of this. She has a son who is believed to work for the Teachers Group in China.

Susanne Windisch

Formerly a volunteer teacher with with ADPP in Guinea Bissau




---




Trond Narvestad and the UFF scandal in Sweden

In late 2001, shortly after Danish police raided Tvind schools and offices in Denmark, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter launched an investigation into UFF Sweden – a used clothes ‘charity’, which was mysteriously close to bankruptcy despite collecting and selling garments worth millions.

The Stockholm based charity’s spokesman, Trond Narvestad, claimed UFF Sweden had no connection with Tvind or the Teachers Group.

In a series of articles journalist Nuri Kino, who has since won awards for his investigative work, picked apart the complex financial affairs of UFF Sweden and revealed that it was making plenty of money, but giving little to charity – and sending large sums to the Teachers Group through a clothes trading scam with TG companies in the Baltic states.

Trond Narvestad was extensively quoted, robustly insisting that UFF Sweden was above board and denying any covert financial agenda or any connection with the Danish Teachers Group.

In February 2002, two days after TG leader Amdi Petersen was arrested by the FBI in the USA, Narvestad was revealingly interviewed on Swedish radio by Kino. Kino confronted him with a 1999 memo, explicitly stating that UFF Sweden was under Teachers Group control. We have a transcript.

In March 2002, UFF Sweden was stripped of its special ’90-account’ charitable status by the Swedish charity regulator, SFI.



The Dagens Nyheter articles

UFF recruits young people to Danish sect – 29th December 2001

UFF (Sweden) pays for Danish sect – 29th December 2001. “Huge amounts of money are channeled into the world wide Tvind-movement, despite the clothes-collector being near bankruptcy.”

Swedish radio interview – 21st February 2002.

Polish volunteers ‘exploited’ in Stockholm – 21st February 2002. “And when we complained we were told by the managers Kristina Johansson and Trond Narvestad that this was the only way to learn how it is to be poor in Africa.”

UFF loses its authorized fundraising “90-account” – 19th March 2002: “UFF has a debt of more than 4 million SEK and much points to the organization having made a system of not paying it. In other words, UFF sells the clothes cheaply to the UFF organizations abroad, which in their turn make the big profits.”

UFF tied in with Danish fraud case – 20th March 2002: “At the same time as Swedish UFF has mismanaged its finances and incurred over 130 records for non-payment of debt – unpaid bills and taxes amounting to 4.2 million Swedish kroner – it might, in other words, have payed huge amounts to the [Humana] Federation.”

Tvind is in business selling wood to IKEA – 24th March 2002. [IKEA subsequently stopped using wood supplied by Tvind companies]




---




Do you have any information on a Teachers Group company? Please tell us.

Last revised: 2nd May 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




The Cayman Islands

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




Belize

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.

2001 Danish police report

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




Russia

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




Zimbabwe

There are known to be large eucalyptus plantations and agricultural landholdings around the Humana headquarters at Shamva.



Mozambique

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




Fiji

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

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.

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




Do you have information about a Tvind company? Tell us

Information from company records indicates that the Teachers Group has registered a US company called TS Recycling.

We have no information to suggest the Teachers Group is actually collecting clothes using this ‘brand name’.  If you can help us research this, know any more or see any boxes anywhere in the US labelled TS Recycling, please tell us.



---




Revised:  28th February 2010

Key offshore holding company, based in Jersey and  Belize.

Owns thousands of acres of land and property and major companies including U’SAgain.

Founding directors all Teachers Group leaders

Links have been restored

Corrected 15th March 2010

---

Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle (or FCL) is an absolutely key offshore company at the heart of the Teachers Group money machine.    It is the ultimate owner of almost all the main sources of income:  many of the plantations, including enormous estates in central America, Brazil, Malaysia and the Caribbean; the colleges; and several of the commercial used clothes companies including U’SAgain.

The commercial plantations supply mangos, bananas, oranges and other produce for large profits on world markets.   There is a listing of Teachers Group plantations here.

The Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle website is here.

WHAT DOES FCL GROUP LTD DO?

Fairbank Cooper and Lyle, or FCL Group Ltd, is an offshore holding company, registered for tax purposes  in Jersey and run from Belize, where the Teachers Group has large plantations.



FCL portfolio

• FCL owns Teachers Group plantations in Brazil, Belize, Ecuador, the Cayman Islands , St. Lucia and Fiji
• It owns Fazenda Jatobà ranch in Brazil, the $12m property at the heart of the 2003-6 fraud prosecution against the Teachers Group.
• It owns U’SAgain
• It also probably owns Garson and Shaw, a commercial used-clothes broker “selling clothes to big customers in USA, Latin America, Europe and Africa’”
• It is a majority shareholder in “four American companies, engaged in collecting recycled clothes in nine states, for resale in USA and world wide.” [We think those companies are: U'SAgain, dormant subsidiaries U'SAgain 2000, U'SAgain 3000, and perhaps  TS Recycling.]
• It may own Argyll Smith and Company Ltd, the Jersey-registered offshore company that owns most Teachers Group schools. (This was stated to be so by Danish police in 2001.)
• Through Argyll Smith, it is therefore ultimate owner of the mysterious compound in the Mexican desert.
• Until 2005 it was owner of another key Jersey-registered holding company, Kirchheiner Bros. (Police said so in 2001, stating that Kirchheiner was ‘centrally placed in the Tvind group’, and directly controlled by KLAP [Kirsten Larsen and Amdi Petersen].) Kirchheiner is now dissolved.
• It may own forestry companies or loggingt concessions on Malaysia.  This was cited in the 2001 police report.




Who runs FCL Group Ltd?

FCL was formed by the merger of three separate offshore companies (Fairbank Limited, Cooper Investments Ltd and Lyle Enterprises Ltd) all of which were originally registered in Jersey in 1991. The companies merged after 1995.

There were then six directors, all of them Teachers Group.  They were all identified by police as top managers of the secret ‘Tvind economy’ and are on our list of the top thirty Teachers Group financial wizards. Of those six, one, Kirsten Larsen, is on a Danish police want list because they would like to charge her with financial crimes.  She is believed to be a fugitive in Mexico or Zimbabwe.    The others are running various Teachers Group enterprises around the world. They are: Else Jensen, Birgitte Krohn, Anne Hansen, Svend Sorensen, and Joep Nagel.



Dirty money?

Danish police say Fairbank Ltd, Cooper Investments and Lyle Enterprises were all key Teachers Group ‘operating companies’ in the years after 1991.   They and their successor FCL Group Ltd have a long history of ‘hot money’ transactions, according to the 2001 Danish police report.

The main police allegation is that Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle was used to mount an illegal operation to covertly channel funds from a ‘humanitarian’ Teachers Group charity into property and land for commercial purposes. The money, they say, was secretly transferred through FCL subsidiary companies with false identities.   This was the charge at the heart of the 2003-2006 fraud charge against the Teachers Group.

One network of FCL-owned companies in the USA and the Cayman Islands was allegedly used to buy a properties in Miami and a ranch in Brazil. Another nest of subsidiary companies was based in Jersey and Hong Kong. A third revolved around a fake ‘environmental project’ in Malaysia and a fourth was run through an FCL-owned investment company in Miami.

The ultimate object, say police, was to move enough money to buy the Fazenda Jatoba ranch in Brazil for $12m.  The contract for this sale was signed on 8th August 1994 by Anne Hansen and Kirsten Fuglsbjerg.  Fuglsbjerg, who also goes by the name Christie Pipps, is among those wanted for questioning by Danish police.  This ranch is still in the hands of the Teachers Group.   The money transfers through shell companies also helped buy apartments at the Sterling, Miami in 1992 (now sold).



What plantations does FCL Group own?

The Cayman Islands – Furtherland Farm

St Lucia – Park Estate Ltd, River Doree Holding Ltd, Mt Lezard Estate Ltd?

Belize – at least 13 companies including Belize Gold Bananas, Cowpen Farms Ltd, Monkey River Estate, Toledo Citrus Company Ltd and Toledo Fish Farming Ltd

Brazil – Floresta Jatoba.

Ecuador – Ecpomartes SA, Frioport SA, Grupo Danés and Jokay SA?

Fiji – Pacific Farming, Pacific Produce Ltd?




There is a list of Teachers Group Plantations here



Sources: FCL Group website and 2001 Danish police prosecution evidence



---




Do you have information about a Teachers Group company?    Tell us

Last updated: 15th March 2010




Five ways the 501c3 diverts money into the bank accounts of the Teachers Group

by Tvind Alert

Links restored


---

Planet Aid Inc was started in 1997 by Michael Norling and Ester Neltrup as a non-profit 501c3 (tax exempt) organization, and has quickly grown into the largest Tvind / Teachers Group used clothing operation in the USA.

It now has over 12,000 donation bins in 23 states which collected nearly $26 million worth of used clothing in 2008 alone. Planet Aid claims to use the proceeds from the sale of the clothing to fund humanitarian projects in several developing countries. These projects are not run by independent charities, but by the parent organisation Humana People to People.



Money scam 1:   not much given to charity

Planet Aid Inc generates millions of dollars through used clothing donations, but only small percentages are ever given away. The rest is said to be spent on ‘operating costs’. But what are they? These costs are much higher than most 501c3s. The same claim is made by Tvind charities all over the world.

In 2006 the American Institute for Philanthropy gave Planet Aid an “F” rating because only 28% of its funds were used for charity purposes. Likewise, the Better Business Bureau refused to accredit Planet Aid in January 2008, in part due to its low charity funding.

Planet Aid has always maintained that because its operational costs are high, it has less to give. But a closer look at Planet Aid’s tax returns and audits shows that Planet Aid’s financial dealings are even more questionable.



Money scam 2:   the USDA ‘Food For Progress’ grants

Since 2005 Planet Aid has received millions of dollars each year in funding from the USDA’s Food For Progress program. This is a programme by which U.S. agriculture commodities are provided for the benefit of developing countries. The USDA donates the produce directly to NGOs and pays for it to be sent abroad; the NGOs are responsible for distributing it and using it effectively, or selling it to fund development.

In 2004 Planet Aid received only ‘soya produce’ which it used in its ADPP soy restaurants in Africa. (ADPP and DAPP are Tvind-run financial entities in southern Africa.) Since 2005, USDA has made grants of wheat instead, which Planet Aid was told to sell in Mozambique and Malawi. The proceeds were used to finance ADPP projects such as Teacher Colleges and its so-called One World University in Malawi. Planet Aid has received more than many millions of dollars from USDA since 2004.

But since Planet Aid started receiving the money, a strange thing has happened. As the grant funding increased, the percentage of funds Planet Aid has donated to the developing country projects from its used clothing proceeds has gone down – and this despite a steady increase in the quantity and value of clothing collected.

In 2004, when Planet Aid received soy products but no money from the USDA’s generosity, it donated over 22% of its used clothing proceeds to humanitarian projects. By 2005, when the USDA wheat grants began to be turned into hard cash, the percentage of the budget from clothing had dropped to less than 21%. And by 2008, the figure was roughly 8%.

In 2008, Planet Aid’s used clothing collections soared to almost $26 million, but the Humana projects received only $2.1 million from these clothing donations…roughly 8%. The remaining proceeds, a reported $14.3 million in 2008, came directly from the USDA grants.

In other words, each year, Planet Aid’s clothing collections increased and their total charity ‘donations’ went up as well, so it looked good. But a closer look reveals that these donations were largely due to US tax payer funded USDA grants, with less and less coming from the clothing given by the public. What happened to the remaining proceeds from the clothes collections?

Planet Aid is reported to be the biggest recipient of USDA funds in the Food for Progress scheme. The USDA recently said it would investigate how Planet Aid is using the cash.



Money scam 3:   ’Membership fees’ paid to Humana Federation

Planet Aid is a member of ‘The Federation for the Associations Connected to the International Humana People to People Movement.’ This ‘membership’ connects Planet Aid to the rest of the Tvind / Teachers Group financial network. The 36-member ‘Federation’ was formerly run from Denmark, but since around 2001 it has operated in Switzerland, from an address that it shares with at least one other mysterious international Teachers Group financial trust.

According to a recent independent auditors report, Planet Aid is “required to pay an annual membership and program facilitation fee based on a specified percentage of the larger of actual or budgeted contributions.”

A quick calculation from published accounts shows how much they have paid and we can calculate that this fee averages 5.5% of a reported total of $2,276,826 raised by Planet Aid since 2004.

But in fact these fees were NOT based solely on the value of clothes donated by the public, but on everything that Planet Aid raised – including the USDA grants. We can calculate that $1.38 million paid to the Humana Federation came directly from the USDA grants. The USDA is not just paying money to Planet Aid, but directly supporting this mysterious ‘Federation’.



Money scam 4:   the Garson and Shaw connection

Garson and Shaw is a commercial used clothes company based in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the main purchaser and broker of clothes collected by the three Teachers Group clothing enterprises in the USA – Planet Aid, U’SAgain and Gaia. We know that Garson and Shaw is itself controlled by the Teachers Group: its managers are all TG members, and it is owned by Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle, the offshore company at the heart of The TG’s property empire (which also owns U’SAgain).

Since 2004, Planet Aid has collected and sold over $82 million worth of used clothing. Some of it may be sold to independent dealers, but it is no secret that Planet Aid’s biggest customer is Garson and Shaw.

Garson and Shaw acknowledges its commercial business with Planet Aid. G&S states on its website that Planet Aid is a supplier of ‘credential clothing’ (unsorted used clothes) which G&S buys and then sells on to other companies.

But Planet Aid and Garson and Shaw have a second commercial relationship. Besides supplying large amounts of product to Garson and Shaw’s customers, Planet Aid also uses Garson and Shaw as its own sales broker. Simply put, Garson and Shaw gets a percentage of the proceeds for possibly every sale that Planet Aid makes. G&S is also the main broker for U’SAgain and Gaia. The accounts for Planet Aid show that sales commission expenses for 2006 and 2007 charged by Garson and Shaw totaled $1,311,601.

The Teachers Group is ‘trading with itself’ and the commercial Teachers Group company Garson and Shaw is reaping a steady profit from the income generated by the Teachers Group’s supposedly ‘humanitarian’ clothing charities. Once again, the Tvind Teachers Group finds a way to bank some of the proceeds for itself.



Money scam 5:   the loans from Denmark

But the scandal does not end here; the money trail is much more complex. We may not yet know all the other ruses means the Tvind Teachers Group has used to move money from its charities into its private and offshore accounts, but here is a further hot money scam – the interest on loans.

Den Selvejende Institution Faelleseje (The Faelleseje Savings Institiute) is a Danish registered trust, founded in 1977, which is at the heart of the Teachers Group’s financial network. Following police enquiries in around 2001, and the decision to prosecute Amdi Petersen for fraud, the Danish government placed two independent members on the Faelleseje board to monitor transactions. But despite this vigilance, Teachers Group members have managed to retain considerable control.

In 2006, Faelleseje, developed a new way of making money; through loans to member organisations in the Humana Federation, and especially to those running schools and clothes schemes. In Faelleseje’s 2006 annual report, the following passage appears: “Besides the donations mentioned above Faelleseje has made a new sort of donations.
These donations are loans for purposes, that are expected to generate cash flow, e.g. buying containers for the purpose of collecting used clothes. The loans are given on terms equal to that of a credit worthy lender.”

In other words, Faelleseje is advancing money on a commercial basis at normal or above normal commercial rates of return, to its sister organisations in Tvind. It is selecting those Tvind organisations with the most available money.

In 2006, the Teachers Group’s IICD school in Williamstown, Massachusetts received a loan from Faelleseje of $180,077. By year’s end, this loan had generated interest of over $13,000. In 2007 and 2008 more loans were given out to several other Humana Federation members and schools, including all three Tvind schools in the US, in Massachussets, Michigan and California.

Interestingly, the largest loans of all were given to the very same Federation members that had received grant money through the USDA ‘Food for Progress’ sch with established used-clothing programs, or to projects that had already received large donations from Planet Aid, Inc. Therefore, each recipient had a known cash flow.

It is not clear from the US schools’ published annual accounts whether these loans have been repaid or are being allowed to accumulate, and at what interest. (By failing to document and report these loans properly, IICD Massachusetts and the two other US schools are breaking IRS rules.) If these loans are allowed to set and generate interest, Faelleseje stands to make several thousands, if not millions, of dollars as a result – again, from money donated for humanitarian purposes.

It appears that Faelleseje has developed yet another way to divert charity funding into Tvind’s bank accounts.



---




Do you have information on a TG company? Tell us.

Revised: 1st March 2010

How the Teachers Group used offshore accounts, front companies, false invoices and fake letterheads to cream off the profits from Humana charities, 1990-2000

by ‘Whistleblower’

Links have been restored

---




As told to Tvind Alert

‘Whistleblower’ is a Dutch former Tvind employee who worked for ten years in the Teachers Group’s used-clothes business in Amsterdam. He has come forward with information about the methods the TG used to evade tax and cream off profits from Humana and UFF used clothes boxes throughout Europe. This is his story.




I didn’t go to a Tvind college. I was recruited to work direct for Tvind in Holland in the used-clothing business in around 1990, after replying to a job advert.

And I never joined the Teachers Group, but I knew all the Tvind people in the Netherlands, and a lot from elsewhere too. I dealt with a lot of paperwork, sales and invoices. My job was to work out the logistics and movement of clothes between various suppliers and customers all over Europe and the USA.

I ended up staying for ten years and a day.

My employer was an Amsterdam-registered company Textile Transformation EC Trading BV – a Tvind company, of course. I worked direct for a man named Flemming Gustafsson, a Teachers Group member. (He is now elsewhere but still working for the TG, probably in Africa – and is wanted by the Russian FSB for a recent timber scam.)

EC Trading (for short) was the equivalent of the current TG clothes broker Garson & Shaw, a middleman company that never handled any clothes - there was no warehouse and the company did not make any collections.

Essentially the purpose of EC Trading was to buy clothes from UFF (Scandinavia) and Humana (rest of Europe) charities and drop-in box schemes. EC trading bought all the good quality ‘surplus’ clothes that had been donated to UFF/Humana but were not suitable for Africa – that is coats, woollens, and so on. They would then sell them on to East Europe and other places. But we never actually saw the garments at all.

In the beginning it seemed like just another job, but gradually, as the boss was often out on trips, I took on more responsibilities. I noticed some odd things. I began to see more and more strange mail coming in, that it was sometimes my job to open and deal with.

There were two key paperwork scams we used that made sure that as much money as possible went to Tvind, and not to either of the charities.

Here’s how it worked:

EC Trading dealt exclusively (more or less) with three ‘sales offices’. They were companies called Holland House, Agence Notre Dame and Transco Shipping. They were all, of course, Teachers Group-owned operations.

Holland House [registered in Jersey] had offices in Poland and was run by a Teachers Group member named Allan Foighel, and handled clothes sales all over Eastern Europe – Romania, Russia, Hungary etc. (Allan Foighel today runs Garson and Shaw in the USA).

Agence Notre Dame [registered in the UK] was also a ‘sales office’ exporting clothes to East Europe.

Transco Shipping [registered in Guernsey] handled exports to west Africa – Togo, Benin and Ghana (for some reason – quite why these kind of ‘surplus’ clothes still went to Africa is a mystery).

Each sales office had their own customers in various parts of the world. In some cases (such as in west Africa and central Asia) these were also Teachers Group-operated companies – mostly known as ‘Trade Link’. Others were genuine independent retailers.

Now here is the key thing.   All three of these ‘sales offices’ used fake or misleading letterheads.    None of the companies were actually registered in Holland, but they all had letterheads printed with an Amsterdam telephone number, an Amsterdam mailbox address (not a real office, just a mailbox), and an overseas bank account – Holland House’s was in Jersey.

So when they raised an invoice, the money would be paid into the overseas bank account, not to charity. In fact, none of the three sales offices raised their own invoices or paperwork for the sales they made to customers at all. I did it for them using the fake letterheads.

My job was to write the invoices on their behalf in Amsterdam, using the letterheads I was given. I would send the original to the customer, as if it had come from the sales office, with a copy to UFF or Humana.

Then I would arrange transport for the clothes direct from, say, UFF in Sweden to a company in Warsaw, or from Humana to, I suppose, somewhere like Latvia.

The customers got the clothes, and the price they paid was quite normal. But everything was structured so that neither UFF / Humana nor EC trading made much profit on these deals – the big profits were taken by the three sales offices and sent to their Jersey bank accounts.

The banks and account numbers were changed regularly – which I suppose all fits in.

Out of curiosity, I once visited all three addresses of the “Amsterdam based” sales offices on the letterheads. All three turned out to be nothing more than independent secretarial service offices, that received mail and some telephone calls and forwarded everything on to my office.

Most of the fixed phone lines we used came in through a re-route, though I don’t know from where.

However you looked at it, the profits went back to Tvind in Denmark, but the biggest profits were made with companies registered in the places where the least possible tax was paid, for example in Poland, and that is what went to the foreign bank accounts – not to Humana or UFF.

There was a second scam involving split invoices used by EC Trading.  This involved writing two invoices for each consignment, splitting the bill into 50-50, or 40-60. Then only one part of the bill would be sent with the goods. When EC Trading exported to Hungary, for example, customs would only be presented with one of the two documents, so only a proportion of the duty was paid.

This went on in various countries for about 5 years.

Eventually customs and tax authorities in several countries (Holland, Belgium and Hungary) grew suspicious and the network had to be folded up.

Gustafsson fled to Nairobi, Kenya, with his crony Birgit Dinesen. There they started yet another sales office called Holland Trading (this company also worked in Budapest) to capture the market for clothes in Kenya and Tanzania. But this never worked well, and they eventually returned to Holland.

I left the company in 2000, and a few months later, EC Trading folded – went bankrupt.  This was clearly anticipated, as for some time the company’s business had gradually been taken over by another enterpise  -  and that enterprise was   -  Garson & Shaw.

Garson and Shaw was a new company that took over the clothing business, first in London at a mailbox address, then in Gibraltar and the United States.  All the business was moved over in around 2000.

EC Trading left large debts, but as most of these were to its Teachers Group trading partners, of course this just meant more money falling into Danish Tvind coffers.

In Gibraltar, Garson and Shaw shared a building with three other Tvind companies in the same block, each registered on a different street around the block and so each with a different postal address. I imagine the set up in Gibraltar was the same as everywhere else – secretarial services and accountants forwarding mail and phone calls.

In the end Gustafsson returned to Holland to found yet another Teachers Group used clothing enterprise called Conmore (what’s in a name!), and he also became the European representative of Garson and Shaw.

Strangely enough, the Dutch authorities never apprehended him.

None of these network of companies now exist – they have all stopped trading (although some of the Trade Link companies in for example Almaty and Kiev might still exist). But Garson and Shaw is still in business in the USA.

What were these people like? Well, there were some odd things about the people running the show, as well as the business. Everywhere I looked, I noticed there always seemed to be a Dane in charge, always with his own private phone and fax (this was in the pre-mobile phone era – remember that?)

There was something not very businesslike about them, strange as that may seem. They were all very intelligent people but a bit absent minded, “not quite of this world”. They were all single, not in any relationship – they all appeared completely “neutered”. And they all had a glassy, brainwashed look in their eyes, and did nothing but work, work, work.

Looking back, I suspect they were from the lower ranks of Tvind recruits. They reminded me of the kind of unattractive, needy children who have been bullied at school, and desperately want to belong to something, anything. Perhaps that’s why they were selected.

That’s my story.

‘Whistleblower’




See also:

Hot Money: The clothes laundry in Gibraltar

Berlingske Tidende, ‘The Used Clothing Trophy’, 2002




---




Do you have a story? Tell us.

Posted: 10th November 2009, revised 1st March 2010