Offshore companies used in a used-clothes scam
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HOT MONEY
We know of at least six trading companies the Teachers Group operated very profitably from the offshore jurisidiction of Gibraltar. Four were companies used in 1989-2005 to launder money from Humana used clothes boxes in Europe, in an operation run from the Netherlands. The fifth was a UK-registered clothes broker. The sixth was a timber company. All are now dissolved.
THE USED CLOTHES LAUNDRY
Holland Trading Ltd, Holland Enterprises Ltd, Holland House Ltd, and World Wide Suppliers Ltd
Offshore, 1989-2005
These four companies, all operated in Gibraltar but registered for tax purposes in Jersey, were important links in the Teachers Group’s hugely complex mechanism for washing money from Humana charities all over Europe.
They operated around 1989-2005, applying a transfer mispricing scam and using fake addresses and letterheads to divert cash from charity to private hands.
The leading director of all the companies was Teachers Group member Birgitte Larsen, said to be a key figure in running the offshore ‘Tvind economy’. (Larsen is mentioned several times in the 2001 Danish police report.)
The respected Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende wrote in 2002:
“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 … 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 proves to be a great success.” (Berlingske Tidende, ‘The Used Clothing Trophy‘, 2002)
None of these companies exists any more – Holland Trading and World Wide Suppliers were both dissolved in 2002, Holland House in 2004 and Holland Enterprises in 2005.
Several of the Teachers Group members associated with this scam are now known to be running TG clothing enterprises in the United States or other TG companies elsewhere in the world.
In the United States, the Teachers Group also registered a subsidiary company named World Wide Suppliers (later renamed Bostic Inc) but this too was dissolved in 2005.
See also: Hot money: an insider reveals the European clothes scams
Garson and Shaw Ltd
UK and offshore, 1999-2009
Since 2005 the Teachers Group has operated a commercial used-clothes company of this name in Atlanta, Georgia, where it is run by a senior TG member, Allan Foighel. This company is undoubtedly central to the TG’s current ‘used clothes economy’ in the USA. More information on Garson and Shaw Inc in the USA here.
Before the US company began, Garson and Shaw Ltd was a UK registered company with an address in London, and operated out of an office in Gibraltar. It began in 1999 and was only dissolved in 2009.
Like the ‘Holland House’ companies above, its role appears to have been to wash money from the Humana charities in Europe by applying a transfer mispricing scam, in this case selling clothes to ‘agents’ in eastern Europe, central Asia, Africa and even India.
Allan Foighel, current CEO of the US company, was involved in the Gibraltar company and the clothes sales to Eastern Europe. Here is Steen Thomsen’s description of him in his 2001 memoir Concerning Tvind:
“Thousands of tonnes of clothing, collected by UFF/Humana, are sold in Eastern Europe every year. The major salesman in Eastern Europe is sold by the son of former Danish Minister of Finance, Isi Foighel, Alan Foighel, driving on the Eastern European roads in his Gibraltar registered Jaguar.
“Alan Foighel is in charge of a number of so-called country leaders, for instance in Romania and in Poland. These leaders in some case live a kind of jet-set life that increasingly can look like the life of diplomats. In their big Mercedeses they go to the sports club or the airport, and the locals treat them with respect; – it is generally known that here they deal with people with money.
“In their lonesome majesties, these TG people obviously act as a new kind of upper class inside the oh-so-poor Teachers´Group.”
Garson and Shaw in London and Gibraltar ceased trading in 2004 and was dissolved in 2009. Many of its functions may now be assumed by other TG companies.
See also: Hot money: an insider reveals the European clothes scams
Challacombe Trading Ltd
c 1996-1998
Part of the Teacher’s Group’s extensive timber business, trading timber between Russia and Belorus, eastern Europe and the US. It operated from around 1996-1998.
Sources
Hot money: an insider reveals the European clothes scams 2009
Berlingske Tidende, 2002
Danish police report, 2001 (pdf)
Concerning Tvind by Steen Thomsen, 2001 (pdf)
UK, Jersey and Gibraltar company registers
Do you have information about a Teachers Group company? Tell us.
Last revised 9th March 2010
