TVIND ALERT

Fact File: Humana’s Hot Money

by Michael Durham

Humana People-to-People claims to be a charity, but is really part of a hugely profitable offshore corporation. Its sister ‘humanitarian’ initiatives, Planet Aid, Gaia and U’SAgain, are part of the same ‘hot money’ network. Here’s the story:

It all started as a dream of a more equal world. But by the 1980s the trail of ‘hot money’ was already under way.

The first offshore account was in Grand Cayman. In around 1983, a small group of Danish nationals arrived on the Caribbean island, 150 miles south of Cuba, weighted down with cash. They were seen carrying suitcases of dollars into a local bank, on a tax haven island already notorious for illegal ‘hot money’. Within months, there was enough cash to buy a farm and a luxury beachside villa, with a swimming pool, a fleet of Mercedes cars parked outside, and boats at anchor in the bay.

Who were these wealthy Danes? Where did the money come from? They were not in business – in fact they were self-styled left-wing revolutionaries. They were among the founders of an ‘educational’ movement with global ambitions – which has since become Humana People-to-People. The small group included left-wing activist Amdi Petersen, who had recently ‘resigned’ from the Danish Tvind schools collective, his girlfriend Kirsten Larsen, and Henning Bjornlund, their young ‘chief accountant’.

Back in Europe, they controlled a small but growing suite of ‘humanitarian’ initiatives – schools, a teacher training college, a charity that collected money and sent volunteers to work camps in the Third World – all supposedly run by a collective with a few hundred supporters, and financed by donations.

The money the Danish travellers brought to Grand Cayman can only have come from one source – the private, tax-free trust funds where the collective kept its money. The young idealists called their collective ‘The Teachers Group’, and it was supposed to be democratically administered by the members themselves. But the reality was very different. The people really running the show were a small, self-selected Humana People-to-People ‘inner circle’ – including the Danes spending so lavishly on property, cars and boats.

To this day, many of the same Danes who arrived laden with cash in Grand Cayman in 1983 remain in control of the Teachers Group, and are still firmly associated with Humana People to People. They stand accused of exploiting their own supporters, charities and the developing world. And several of them are wanted by police.

 

Land grab

Unknown to their supporters and financial backers back in Europe, the small ‘inner circle’ living in Grand Cayman then set out on a huge shopping expedition. Between 1983 and the mid-1990s they spent millions of pounds of the Teachers Group’s and Humana People-to-People’s ‘humanitarian’ funds on land and property.

They laid the foundations of a commercial empire, beginning in the Caribbean. It is an empire that endures today. At the direction of Henning Bjornlund, they bought mango, banana and citrus plantations in Grand Cayman, St Lucia, St Vincent and Belize. Money for the purchases was transferred secretly from Europe through offshore accounts in Jersey and Guernsey. Many of these accounts today form the backbone of a covert modern agribusiness.

Soon, the Teachers Group extended into Central America, buying land in Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela and Brazil. In 1996, a Danish newspaper reported they owned 24 plantations worth far more than £30 million.

The offshore companies used – in Grand Cayman, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Belize, the British Virgin Isles, Netherlands Antilles and in the City of London – are mostly still there, and today own and manage a big portfolio of Humana’s property and agricultural businesses : FCL Ltd, Argyll Smith, Caribbean Farming, Tropical Produce, Bahia Farming, Atlantic Farming.

 

A ranch in Brazil – police prosecute

The biggest prize of all was Fazenda Jatobà, a 92,000 hectare agricultural estate in Brazil bought secretly by the Humana People-to-People ‘inner circle’ from Shell for $12 million in 1994.

The circumstances of this purchase were studied by police investigating alleged money laundering in 2000-2001. The police reported that the property had been bought through a trail of offshore nominee accounts and fake charities (including two with accommodation addresses in the Champs Elysee in Paris), using money diverted from a ‘humanitarian fund’. One of the participants is today a senior manager at Humana’s US charity, Planet Aid. Since 2001, the purchase of Fazenda Jatobà has been at the heart of a criminal fraud case against Amdi Petersen and members of his ‘inner circle’, which is still on-going.

Today Fazenda Jatobà is still owned by the Teachers Group and is run in close association with Humana People-to-People, as a commercial plantation exporting wood, fruit and vegetables to Europe, China and the United States.

 

The offshore maze gets bigger

Meanwhile, back in Europe, the ‘inner circle’ began to look for ever more inventive ways to exploit its covert offshore network. Dozens more nominee companies were opened in Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Hong Kong. Amdi Petersen was quoted as declaring he wanted to create a financial maze so complex no outsider would ever understand it.

The Teachers Group opened scores more schools, charities and philanthropic initiatives – Humana charities all over Europe, DAPP in the Third World, Planet Aid and Gaia in the USA, U’SAgain (not a charity, but a commercial company that has been widely accused of misleading the public with charity messaging), ‘special’ schools and more private colleges.

But behind every apparent humanitarian endeavour, there is almost always a chain of businesses finally leading to an offshore company, used to milk profits away from the charity sector, out of the sight of charity regulators, governments, and the general public.

In early examples, Humana in Britain started paying large fees to a Jersey-registered company, Goliath Services, to provide the wooden boxes it used to collect clothes from the public. But Goliath was not an independent firm. It was a nominee company owned by the Teachers Group – which charged Humana whatever it could get away with. Although Goliath has long closed, we have evidence to suggest the organisation is playing the same trick through subsidiary companies in China and Hong Kong.

In 1988, the Teachers Group gave $5 million to a Jersey offshore company called Talata, to buy property. In the same year the Dutch branch of Humana transferred $75,000 to firms in the Caribbean. By 1990, a Swedish firm of accountants estimated that the Humana People-to-People group was so good at exploiting tax havens that only two per cent of the money it raised ever went outside the Teachers Group organisation to independent charitable work. All the rest, it kept. But the stakes were about to get much bigger.

 

Schools pay rent offshore

In a round 1984, as the ‘inner circle’ was enjoying the pool-side lifestyle on Grand Cayman, the Teachers Group opened a ‘small school’ at Buxton, in Norfolk, eastern Britain. It was a ‘special school’ for troubled adolescents, financed by English local authorities which paid £700 a week for each boarding pupil. It was one of several special schools opened by the Teachers Group – another was at Winestead, near Hull – run by volunteers and untrained ‘collective’ members.

Red House School was a charity and exempt from tax. But in the mid-1990s, the UK Charity Commission became suspicious and started an investigation. They uncovered a financial relationship between both schools and a Jersey-registered company, Argyll Smith & Co, together with a raft of unorthodox financial practises. In 1998, the Charity Commission closed both schools down.

The schools in Norfolk and Hull were paying rent to the Jersey-registered company – and at much inflated rates. Argyll Smith is a Teachers Group offshore nominee company. At the same time, ‘staff’ at the two schools – all members of the TG collective – were being ‘paid’ large salaries, but were not being allowed to keep the money – it was transferred back to the inner circle’s accounts. Very little of what local authorities paid was going towards upkeep of the school or paying for staff, but was disappearing into foreign bank accounts.

Argyll Smith remains to this day a registered Jersey company operated by the TG, and owns many of buildings run by or associated with Humana People-to-People in Britain, the United States, South Africa and Mexico. Argyll Smith itself is a subsidiary of a key Teachers Group Jersey-registered property companies, FCL Ltd.

 

Humana used clothes charities and ‘transfer pricing’

Humana People-to-People has also long used offshore nominee companies to strip profits out of its ‘humanitarian’ used-clothes charities. We know this because of details passed by an informant, corroborated by official information in the Netherlands.

The system the Teachers Group has employed is known as ‘transfer pricing’, a commonly used money laundering technique. In a transfer pricing scheme, a business uses a chain of linked companies in different countries to manipulate prices and profits and avoid tax, so that very little profit is posted in a high-tax country, but large profits are made in a low-tax country or offshore tax haven.

Between 1990 and 2000, the Teachers Group used a company in Amsterdam, Textile Transformation EC Trading, and nominee companies in Gibraltar and Eastern Europe to launder profits from all the Humana People-to-People charities all over Europe. We know this because of a written deposition by a whistle-blower describing many irregularities and illegal acts. In this case, transfer pricing meant the charities that actually collected the clothes made very little money, while the real profits were made by Teachers Group commercial businesses further down the chain in Poland or offshore in Gibraltar or Jersey. These profits didn’t go to charities at all.

Textile Transformation EC Trading went broke and filed for bankruptcy in 2000, while police in the Netherlands and Hungary searched for the directors. Today, Humana charities in Europe appear to sell their clothes to a TG company in Bulgaria, while in the United States the charity Planet Aid has a similar commercial arrangement with a Teachers Group broker, Garson and Shaw– leading us to suspect that transfer pricing is still going on.

 

Humana and the Charity Commission in Britain

Humana People-to-People is currently banned by the Charity Commission in Britain. Nevertheless, the Humana inner circle has succeeded in opening two quasi-‘charitable’ used clothes collection businesses, a registered charity, and a clothes business linked to an association in Switzerland. All act in exactly the same way as the banned Humana.

The companies are Planet Aid UK Ltd and Green World Recycling Ltd. The registered charity is DAPP UK. The Swiss association that collects in the UK is the Gaia-Movement Trust. None of these has ever been investigated by the media or the authorities. In addition Humana in the UK runs a foundation importing African sculpture from Zimbabwe, Friends Forever, and a handful of property and agricultural businesses registered at Companies House.

Humana UK was put into receivership by the Charity Commission in 1998, following an investigation in which Charity Commission investigators found evidence of financial fraud.

 

Money laundering from Africa

Since the mid-1980s, Humana People-to-People has had deep interests in Africa. It runs many schools, volunteer programmes, AIDS education schemes, farming centres and projects for street children. DAPP charities are in at least ten African countries The Teachers Group also has commercial interests, including clothes shops, foodstuffs, and forestry.

In theory, money raised by Humana People-to-People, plus unsold donated clothes, are sent to Africa and used to finance DAPP projects. But in 2000, a young woman named Britta Junge came forward to blow the whistle on Humana-DAPP finances.

For a few years previously, she had been a trusted Humana and DAPP ‘project leader’ in Angola, with responsibility for local finances. She disclosed that in 1995, part of her job had been to repatriate to Europe up to €30,000 a week of ‘surplus hard currency’ from DAPP in Angola to Denmark. Much of the money was in ‘humanitarian’ donations by US oil companies. She smuggled the cash in dollar bills on occasional flights back to Europe, and gave it to a Danish member of the ‘inner circle’ in Copenhagen. She never knew what it was used for.

Junge told police, and her story was one of the reasons Danish police opened a fraud enquiry into the Teachers Group in 2001, leading to a criminal case which is still on-going.

 

Property deals in the USA

Money creamed off into offshore nominee accounts through bogus companies, inflated rents, transfer pricing schemes and smuggled in suitcases – but what was all this hijacked wealth actually used for?
After the big agricultural land purchases, the ‘inner circle’ clearly set its sights on comforts closer to home. In 1991, after being recognised, Amdi Petersen sold up the Cayman Islands villa. The same year, the Teachers Group ‘inner circle’ bought a $7 million luxury penthouse apartment near Miami. Again, it was bought covertly, using money transfers through nominee companies in the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Jersey, Guernsey and the USA.

For the next ten years, Petersen, Larsen and selected members of their inner circle, lived secretly at 5302 Fisher Island Drive, on a luxury private ’billionaire’s island’ in the company of playboy businessmen, reclusive movie stars, drug smugglers and oligarchs. They enjoyed the pleasures of golf club membership and private beaches. A second apartment in the same complex was bought later. Berthed not far away was a $6 million ocean-going yacht, the Butterfly McQueen. The apartments were in use until US police arrested Petersen on fraud charges in 2002.

The Fisher Island homes were not the only luxury apartments bought using money laundered into the USA. Around the same time, Humana’s free-spending inner circle used a different set of offshore nominee accounts to buy 12 other luxury condominiums in the La Gorce Palace and The Sterling apartment buildings in Miami.
One of the witnesses to that deal is today a senior Teachers Group fund-raiser, raising millions of dollars for Humana People-to-People initiatives in China.

In 2008, Humana People-to-People opened a $10 million luxury retreat in the Mexican desert near Ensanada, Baja California. The sealed complex is protected by armed guards and only accessible to Teachers Group members and staff. Nobody knows how this complex has been financed.

 

The Swiss bank connection

All the Humana People-to-People charities belong to a Swiss association, the Federation for Associations Humana. This charges each of the member charities huge sums in enrolment and ‘administration’ fees – up to 15 per cent of income.

There are at least two other associations linked to the Humana financial system in Switzerland, staffed by members of the Humana ‘inner circle’.

 

Trial for fraud

In 2002 Amdi Petersen was extradited to Denmark and put on trial with other members of the ‘inner circle’ for fraud. The trial was not conclusive – in 2006 one defendant, Sten Byrner, pleaded guilty on minor counts, the rest were acquitted. The Danish public prosecutor announced an appeal, but before legal papers could be served all but one of the defendants escaped abroad. In a subsequent trial, the remaining defendant, Poul Joergensen, was found guilty and sentenced to a prison term of two and a half years for fraud.

Amdi Petersen and four other senior members of his ‘inner circle’ are today wanted by Danish police and by Interpol to answer charges of fraud in their native Denmark.

 

Where are they now?

Amdi Petersen and other members of the Humana People-to-People ‘inner circle’ sought by police are thought to be living in the $10 million complex near Ensanada, Mexico, and travel regularly to Zimbabwe, where Humana People-to-People has its African headquarters. Petersen may travel on a Zimbabwean diplomatic passport.

 

The Teachers Group today

Humana People-to-People and the Teachers Group run schools, colleges, charities and used-clothes collection schemes in 26 Western countries, and ‘development projects’, education and volunteering programmes in 16 Third World countries.

The Teachers Group owns property and agricultural estates in at least ten developing countries, and factories, forestry concessions, timber, import-export and trading companies in China, India, Malaysia and the USA.
Its ‘charity’ and ‘commercial’ arms are tied together in a network of more than 50 active offshore and nominee companies. The total assets of the group have recently been estimated by police at around $860 million.
Five senior members of the Teachers Group are currently wanted by Danish police and Interpol for alleged fraud.

Since 2001, no proper official attempt has been made to investigate the current web of charities, or to explore Teachers Group’s finances, organisation, membership, structure or political significance. The Teachers Group is now moving strongly into South America, Eastern Europe, and China.

Memo

Niels Holst to Poul Jorgensen, 24-9-1995

About direct donations from Humana Holland.

We very sincerely want the European members to pay the donations directly to the projects in Africa.
We use Humana Holland as an example.
Humana Holland only supports projects in Angola and Zambia.

I suggest:

According to contract:

1. Humana Holland makes an agreement with ADPP and DAPP Zambia. To begin with the agreement only goes for 1995. In this agreement is stated, with how much money Humana Holland wants to support each project and under which conditions.

The Dutch really want to be able to check the sending of the money. The accountant therefore has said that a copy of the year-turnover and a certificate of the accountant of ADPP Angola is enough. So that is in with the agreement.

Practically

2. Every month Humana writes out a cheque, for 150.000 USD to ADPP Angola and sends it with DHL to Luanda. ADPP        Angola will write a receipt for this amount and sends it to Humana Holland.   In the receipt is written what for the money is being used.

Humana Holland charges this on the account for every project.      ADPP Angola charges these income on the same way to the account of the Land Association.    ADPP Angola makes a special donation-report for this money.

ADPP Angola sends these USD 150.000 to Denmark. The Federation makes a special charge in this way that it is sent to the account of the project leaders. ADPP charges this as loan for project leaders.

Because the money goes to a foreign country, to foreigners, with money from a foreign donation, there is no need to inform the Angolian tax office.

ADPP’s accountant revises where the money has been used for and confirms this to Humana Holland. ADPP becomes the loan-receipts from the project leaders.

What do you think of this?

Kind regards,
Niels Holst

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Tvind Alert comment: This is a memo from a senior financial manager of Tvind, outlining proposed new arrangements for ‘laundering’  money raised from the public by Humana in Holland, pretending it has been sent to Africa but in fact circulating it back to the Teachers Group in Denmark.    The purpose is quite clear – to hide from the public and tax authorities the amount of money involved and what it is used for.

Anecdotal evidence and testimony sent by many former TG members and Humana staff to Tvind Alert suggests similar money laundering techniques have been used  -  and are still being used  -    to hide money transfers between Humana and other Tvind companies and the Teachers Group.   Tvind Alert believes such money laundering has been carried out within Tvind on a large scale.

This memo formed the basis for a Dutch TV  Netwerk programme on Tvind and the Dutch government’s call for a Europe-wide inquiry.    Humana in Holland has denied it indicates any malpractice.     (Danish original: English translation)

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Official reaction of Humana People to People in Harare, Zimbabwe:

The allegations in the media that the money is going back into the Teachers Group is not true.

The letters are internal communication from the Federation, containing some prelimanary proposals from 1995 which have never been executed as described in the letters.

The letters do not discuss funnds being redirected to the Teachers Group or anywhere else but the objectives for which they have been donated.

No funds from Humana Holland have ever been redirected tot the Teachers Group.

The financial figures in the letters are illustrative and not actual figures

All salaries paid by the Federation have been duly reported to the respective tax authorities.

The letters are part of a broader correspondence. The letter of 24.9.95 is from Niels Holst, financial manager, to Poul Joergensen, the former chairman of the Federation, asking his opinion on the matter.

Maria Darsbo

Chairperson

The Federation




DID YOU EVER WORK FOR PLANET AID IN THE USA?

WERE YOU EVER A PLANET AID VOLUNTEER?

DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO WAS – OR IS NOW?

PLEASE HELP US EXPOSE THEM





Planet Aid is is becoming larger and more influential as a used clothes and volunteering charity in the United States, despite its well-documented links with financial malpractice and shady business dealings.   Planet Aid is affiliated with and controlled by an international body called The Teachers Group or ‘Tvind’.  One of the leaders of this controlling body is in jail for financial crimes, several are in hiding from the police and others are firmly associated with property deals and offshore money movements.


We need your help.     The reason is that Planet Aid is today very widely accepted by town halls, school boards, state legislatures and even the US government as a bona-fide aid organisation.  It is receiving official support and large sums of public money.   We are challenging this uncritical acceptance on the basis of Planet Aid’s explicit connection with Tvind Teachers Group (which it publicly denies), police documentation, statements already sent to us over several years, and other evidence in the public domain.


We know what we are looking for and how easy it is to prove our case.   But despite media exposure, nobody is listening.     Now we need testimonials from anyone with recent (say within the last three or four years) experience of Planet Aid or its directly associated organisations (Garson & Shaw, DAPP, ADPP, etc), either in the USA or abroad, who can help put together our dossier on the Planet Aid ‘money-go-round’.  This could refer to anything relevant to Planet Aid’s finances, its conduct as a charity, its management in the US, its use of foreign labor, its linked colleges, or to activities in the field in developing countries.


If you have any information to pass on, please write us a brief 1-2 page testimonial and mail it to feedback@tvindalert.com.  We will add it to our growing private dossier and pass it on to organisations that need to be properly informed.    We will also soon put our dossier in the public domain.      Generally, to be credible our dossier requires information to be accurately sourced.  Please include your name and contact details (not for use or publication without express consent).     Material will be treated as strictly confidential unless explicitly agreed otherwise. If you have any questions, write to us first.



THANK YOU

The Tvind Alert team of professional and ‘citizen’ journalists




Hot Money: Five ways Planet Aid moves money into offshore accounts




Some further information on Planet Aid




OUR DOSSIER ON THE TEACHERS GROUP




Two luxury apartments on private island near Miami

5302 and 5352 Fisher Island Drive



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In 2001,  journalists from the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten traced fugitive Amdi Petersen to a private ‘millionaire’s retreat’ off Miami – Fisher Island.     The paper reported the Teachers Group had bought two apartments, 5302 and 5352 Fisher Island Drive,  one valued at $6m, in 1991 and 2000.   They were being secretly used by Amdi Petersen and Kirsten Larsen, with other Teachers Group leaders.



Fisher Island

Fisher Island is a high security millionaire’s retreat with high rise private apartments, a top class hotel, golf course, marina and sandy beaches.    It is reached by a private ferry from Miami, patrolled by security guards.   It was described by Conde Naste Traveller magazine in 1998 as ‘One of the best places to stay in the world.’     Among famous residents and visitors have been Oprah Winfrey, Luciano Pavarotti, Ricky Martin, Julia Roberts, Robert de Niro, Sylvester Stallone, and tennis stars André Agassi and Boris Becker.



The luxury apartments

Number 5302 Fisher Island Drive is a luxury 10th floor penthouse apartment with several bedrooms, five bathrooms, a roof terrace, fitness room, outdoor spa, and picture windows overlooking Miami, according to the Jyllands-Posten report.   There are marble floors throughout.  The 91 square metre living room was furnished with a piano, a sofa and ten leather-upholstered chairs, corner bar and lit by a chandelier.   The master bedroom had a four-poster bed, jacuzzi and steam shower.

According to the newspaper, one room was was furnished as an office with computers and  ‘all the necessary technological equipment for running a worldwide business empire’.

In the underground car park were two 8-cylinderMercedes ML55 four wheel drive vehicles with tinted windows.



‘An apartment for the dog’

Jyllands-Posten reported the whole apartment had been redecorated to Petersen’s instructions in 1991 by an interior designer at a cost of $624,000.      Jyllands-Posten also reported that Amdi Petersen, Kirsten Larsen and Anne Hansen were all members of the Fisher Island Golf Course (membership numbers E0070 and E9006) – fees $98,479.

J-P further alleged that the second apartment, 5352, was bought for ‘Amdi Petersen’s dog’.   Petersen has two thoroughbred Leonbergers that accompany him everywhere.  Fisher Island rules allow only one pet per apartment.   The solution, the paper said, was for the Teachers Group to buy a  smaller second apartment in the same block five floors below.    This apartment was bought in October 2000 for $792,000.




Who bought the properties?

According to J-P, the penthouse was bought by J. F. Parson, a Tvind company in Tampa, Florida, for $4.3 million in December 1991.    It was immediately resold to another Tvind company registered in the British Virgin Islands, the Markham Corporation.  A similar method was used to buy and transfer offshore the second flat method in 2000.  In this case, the ultimate purchaser was a third Tvind company, also registered in the British Virgin Islands, Xoreux Limited



News reports




The Man in Miami (Jyllands Posten, 28th October 2001)




Ritzau, (13 August 2003).

Summary: Papers recently delivered from the USA about Amdi’s luxury apartments on Fisher Island may be a gold mine for the prosecutor because they reveal a lot about the power structure in Tvind, Poul Gade said to De Bergske Blade on Wedneday. ….   In addition, the prosecutor is working to get access to the accounts in France and England which could reveal the cash flow in the Tvind organisation, and to confiscate further documents from the British auditor David Swain who was examined during the summer vacations.




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Do you have information about a Teachers Group property? Please tell us

Updated 19th March 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




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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.





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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.



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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.



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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.




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PACIFIC AREA




Fiji

Teachers Group companies operating in Fiji we know of are Pacific Farming and Pacific Produce Ltd




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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



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Do you have information about a Teachers Group company? Please tell us
Last updated: 12th March 2010

The Teachers Group offshore property companies and the money they make from school rentals.    Information to come.

Some of the corporate sponsors and charities that are giving millions to the Teachers Group:




Action Aid

Africare

Catholic Relief

Concern

USAID program

Belgian Dev. Coop

Irish Aid

Sida – Sweden

De Beer

American Express

MasterCard

Johnson & Johnson

BP

Shell

Statoil Hydro

Canon

Texaco Oil

Elton John

World Bank

UNESCO

UN AIDS

US Agriculture

US State Dept

Unilever

Tata Steel

Presidents fund

Agfund

Anglo American

EU

The Global Fund

IBM

Unicef

And many others




Source: research by Tvind Alert. Information from Humana and Teachers Group websites



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Last updated: 25th February 2010

The Charity Commission investigation 1996-9

Schools and used clothes recycling charity closed down

Links have been restored on this page



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In 1996, following a series of critical articles in the Guardian and Observer newspapers, the British Charity Commission decided to investigate Humana UK.   Its staff visited Humana UK’s clothes sorting plants and seven charity shops, as well as two Small Schools in England, Winestead Hall and Red House. They also travelled to Zambia to see for themselves the ‘DAPP’ projects supposedly financed by the Humana UK charity.

The Commission’s fraud investigation team found cause for concern over ‘serious financial irregularities’ in Humana, the schools and in Zambia. In 1997, the Charity Commission took the highly unusual step of placing Humana UK and the Red House School charities into receivership – it was the first time tough new powers had been used to do this.

The Commission initially adopted a compromise position and tried to work with the organisation’s Danish trustees to place Humana and the Schools on sound legal and financial footings. The Danish trustees proved uncooperative.

Eventually, the receiver was called back in, all the Danish trustees were sacked, and new, independent boards of trustees were appointed.

Effectively, Humana UK and the schools were closed down. Humana UK’s shops closed and it assets were transferred to a new charity, Traid, which is entirely independent of the Teachers Group and still very successful and active today. The two schools were closed. Winestead Hall remains in Teachers Group ownership. Red House school was sold.



Humana UK – what they found

In 1993, the Guardian pointed out that only ten per cent of the money raised by Humana UK actually went to charity. “Questions have been raised over the charity’s apparently commercial nature. In 1990, the last year for which It has submitted full accounts, it donated under 10 per cent of turnover to aid projects,” the paper reported.

The Charity Commission undertook a close investigation of Humana UK, which led to the closure of its shops, clothes charity and schools. Details of what the Commission found have never been officially published.

However, Humana Alert has spoken independently to the investigators, trustees and other parties, and pieced together an account of the Commission’s  indings. Those sources spoke of ‘serious financial impropriety’.

The clothes charities

Huge administration costs and big salaries for the leaders

The Charity Commission confirmed that Humana UK’s apparent ‘administration costs’ were unreasonably high – large sums of money were retained by the charity for its own administration rather than being sent abroad.

Money was supposed to benefit Humana’s own ‘DAPP’ projects in Africa. But there was no way to verify how much of the money earmarked for Africa got there, or what it was spent on. Since Humana and DAPP are essentially the same, there was no independent book-keeping.

The investigators also found another striking fact – DAPP’s ‘project directors’ in Africa, mostly Scandinavians and all Teachers Group members, were being ‘paid’ colossal salaries. Since as Teachers Group members they had undertaken to return their salaries to the common fund, in effect TG was keeping the money.

Finally, investigators visiting Zambia concluded that as well as being poorly conceived, DAPP’s projects there were very probably ‘double funded’ – they might not be paid for by Humana UK at all, but instead financed by other sources, such as other charities, embassies, consulates, grant-making bodies and the UN.

The schools

Poor facilities and payments to an offshore company

Although the Charity Commission’s statement does not go into great detail, we were told there were several grounds for closing the schools – the poor quality of the ‘education’ on offer, a lack of investment, and an unexplained relationship with a Jersey-registered offshore company (ArgyllSmith and CompanyLtd).

Winestead and Red House Schools were boarding schools for ‘problem’ children. English local authorities, who have responsibility for educating children of all backgrounds but often with no facilities of their own, paid hundreds of pounds a week to send misfit children to the schools.

Investigators quickly realised that there was a problem. The staffing, facilities, equipment and physical environment of the schools did not match the vast sums being poured in to them by local authorities. Hardly anything appeared to be spent on upkeep and running costs.

Despite the handsome publicly-funded income, the schools appeared to be run on a shoestring. Some of the staff were volunteers, and many day to day tasks like cooking, cleaning and maintenance were being carried out by the pupils themselves. There should have a been a surplus – but there wasn’t. Where did the money go?

Investigators soon established that, like the DAPP project leaders abroad, a few key Teachers Group staff were being paid large salaries, money which was returned to the Teachers Group common fund under the terms of TG membership. They also found a curious relationship between the school and its landlord, a Jersey-registered company called Argyll Smith. Argyll Smith owned the schools, their land, contents and several boats used by the pupils, and the schools paid rent on them.

The rents charged by Argyll Smith were way above market rates – the schools were paying their landlord a remarkably large sum of money. For months, the schools Danish trustees denied there was anything unusual about this. But it then emerged that Argyll Smith was a Teachers Group company – an offshore enterorise owned and operated by the same Teachers Group leadership as controlled the schools themselves. Very little was being spent on the schools, but the Teachers Group was paying itself handsomely.

Conclusion – the money machine

In the light of what we now know, following the Teachers Group trial of 2003-6, we can see a pattern to Teachers Group enterprises across the world – and the Humana UK example is absolutely classic. It looks like as much money as possible was returned to Teachers Group coffers – where, during the 1990s when the Teachers Group was beginning to expand worldwide as a commercial enterprise, it may quite possibly have been used to finance the Teacher’s Group’s property portfolio in central and south America, and its business expansion across the world.



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Details of the two charities




Humana UK Ltd

Humana charity shops, hundreds of bins branded HUMANA for used clothes collection.

Trustees 1987-98 were Mikala Gottlob, Helle Lund, Ellen Moeller and others



The Small School at Red House Ltd

Winestead Hall School

[pic] A converted hospital building at Patrington, near Hull, UK. This operated as the Tvind-run Winestead Hall School for around ten years until its closure in 1999. Today it the CICD – the College of International Cooperation and Development, another Teachers Group enterprise for over-16s.



Red House School

[pic] A school building near Buxton, Norfolk until its closure in 1999. The property has now been sold.

Trustees to1998. Hanne Hansen, Jytte Nielsen, Steen Conradsen, Agnes Steffensen, Lise-Lotte Soerensen, Mikala Gottlob (‘school adviser’, Oeyvind Wistroem,, Jesper Wohlert, Carl Petter Nielsen, Else Kragholm Nielsen, Steen Thomsen (head teacher, Winestead), Lena Eriksson (head teacher, Red House), Karen Barsoe and others.




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Steen Thomsen’s story

[pic] The last headmaster of Winestead Hall School when it came under investigation by the Charity Commission in 1996-8. Steen Thomsen had been educated as a Tvind student and a member of the Teachers Group since 1974. After questioning by the police and Charity Commission officials, Thomsen decided to defect from the Teachers Group and become a whistleblower.

In a long and detailed report to the Danish education ministry, reproduced here (pdf file) he described his life in Tvind and described the Teachers group as a cult. In one section of the document, he alleged that the Teachers Group used fraud and tax dodges to milk the small schools of money for its own purposes – ‘the English money machine’.



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Interviews

Shortly after the schools were closed, Tvind Alert carried out interviews with key trustees and participants in the events. Interview with a management consultant. This interview was carried out on condition of anonymity with a management consultant appointed to review the closure in late 1997.

Interview with an independent educationist. This interview was carried out on condition of anonymity with an educationist appointed to the trustees in 1997. “They are the most plausible, most charming, most devious conniving bastards….”



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Press reports

There were no press reports of the decision to close Humana and the two schools.  Here are the Guardian articles that originally prompted the Charity Commission to act




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Where are they now?

Ten years on, where are the directors of trustees who once ran Humana and Red House?  Here is the most recent information we have about some of them


Mikala Gottlob -Non-executive director of the Trayton Group, Shanghai, China.

Helle Lund – Manager, Gaia second-hand clothes, Chicago, a Teachers Group company

Jytte Nielsen – Manager, Humana used clothes in Holland, Austria, Sweden and Spain

Jesper Wohlert – Manager, Humana used clothes, Spain

Lise-Lotte Sørensen – Humana HQ, Zimbabwe

Hanne Hansen – Went on to become a member of council of management, CICD

Steen Thomsen – Left the Teachers Group, now teaching in western Denmark

Øyvind Wistrom – Probably left the Teachers group and become police witness.

Steen Conradsen – at the Tvind School Centre in Ulfborg, Denmark

Ellen Moeller, Agnes Steffensen, Carl Petter Nielsen, Else Kragholm Nielsen – no recent information



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Developments since closure



Humana swiftly returned to the UK under new guises. The Teachers Group opened clothes recycling enterprise Green World Recycling in April 1998 and Planet Aid UK in October 1998. Both are commercial, non-charity companies. Winestead Hall School has become CICD – the College for International Cooperation and Development. None of these entities is a registered charity.

In March 2007, the Teachers Group turned again to the Charity Commission and registered a new used clothes charity, DAPP UK, part of the Humana group. You can now read the Humana Alert dossier on DAPP UK, and the charity details.



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Last revised 19th March 2010

Do you have further information about Humana UK or the schools?  Please tell us.

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

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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



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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


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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.



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

Revised: 1st March 2010