Landholdings, a beachfront villa and offshore companies
British overseas territory in the Caribbean
The Teachers Group arrived in the Cayman Islands (notorious as an offshore tax haven) during the 1980s, buying up property and opening a large number of offshore companies.
Until exposure in 1991-3, the TG owned a large beachfront villa here used by Amdi Petersen and high ranking colleagues. Police allege some TG Cayman-registered companies were used to launder money for property deals. Several TG companies are still registered here.
The beachfront villa, Bodden Town (to 1991)
Reportedly sold after newspaper reports
As reported by the Washington Post, the Caymanian Compass newspaper in around 1990 described a luxury $500,000 villa in Bodden Town, owned by ‘Danes’, who also owned a Mercedes jeep, several boats and had acquired extensive orange groves. ’The Scandinavians’ could be seen walking into banks in Grand Cayman with ‘briefcases full of cash’.
Norwegian investigative journalist Leif Gunnar Lie wrote in 1994: “Mr Petersen went underground in 1979, after the first wave of criticism against the schools. After that, he has only ever been sighted once, outside Tvind’s luxury villa in the Caymans. Realising he had been spotted by a journalist, he fled in panic into the villa and did not come out for three days. When he did, he kept a hat over his face and scurried into his Mercedes. Rushing to the airport, Mr Petersen boarded a flight to Miami, Florida. The Cayman journalist found out he had booked – and paid for – a seat on all seven Miami flights that day. Former Tvind teachers believe he is paranoid.
“Neighbours of Tvind’s beachfront villa have told Scandinavian journalists that a whole congregation of Danes had been there for what seemed to be a board meeting a couple of years ago.” [Source: Leif Gunnar Lie, 1994]
One Teachers Group member in the Netherlands recalled the ‘huge villa’ occupied by TG leader Amdi Petersen and his entourage. “I remember a couple of Tvind teachers running away there. They had to dig a swimming pool. The existing pool was smaller than that of the neighbours and Petersen did not like that.” [Source: Rotterdam Dagblad, 1995]
High Rock Estate and Furtherland Farm
Fruit plantations
The Teachers Group owns large tropical fruit plantations on Grand Cayman, probably at at High Rock Estate and Furtherland Farm. This land was bought during the TG’s 1980s expansion into Caribbean landholdings, masterminded by Henning Bjornlund.
At Furtherland Farm, around 115 hectares of bananas, citrus, mango and pumpkin are still owned and managed by the large Teachers Group multinational agribusiness FCL Ltd, which is based in Belize and registered for tax purposes in the offshore tax haven of Jersey.
Offshore companies
The Cayman Islands is notorious as an offshore tax haven, a hideaway for ‘hot money’ and a location for shell companies designed to conceal the ownership of funds. The Teachers Group has created and registered many companies and shell companies here. In 1992, following newspaper exposure, the registered names and addresses of some companies were slightly changed, but the companies remained. Some of the most interesting:
Furtherland Farming Ltd: According to police, a company 98 per cent owned by Kirsten Larsen, joint leader of the Teachers Group and ‘Amdi’s girlfriend’. Police allege the TG used this company to launder money to help purchase Fazenda Jatoba in Brazil.
B&B Shipping: This company owned the TG vessel ‘The Return of Marco Polo’. The ship was leased out to a different Tvind enterprise for a supposed (and non-existent) ‘project’, and police allege the TG used it to launder cash as ‘leasing’ and ‘expenses’ in order to buy the property in Brazil. The scam is described by Hans la Cour in his memoir, ‘The Traveller‘.
Caribbean Farming Ltd, Tropical Farming Ltd, Eastover Properties Ltd: Intermediary companies, according to police used to pass money on to buy apartments in Miami and the Fazenda Jatoba plantation in Brazil.
The full police statement of evidence on which this information is based is available here (pdf)
Other companies
Other Cayman-registered companies we are aware of are: Tropical Produce Ltd; Distributors and Merchandisers International (closed 1989), Westpac Hamlyn (formerly Talata), and DAPP International. All these companies are likely to have had multiple purposes: a mixture or legal trade and dodgy money movements.
Sources
Caymanian Compass newspaper (c 1990-3)
Leif Gunnar Lie’s journalism MA thesis on Tvind, 1994 (pdf)
Rotterdam Dagblad (1995)
Danish police prosecution evidence, 2001 (pdf)
FCL Group website
Last revised 24th November 2009
