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.
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
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Last updated: 15th March 2010
