TVIND ALERT

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

THE TOP 30
TEACHERS GROUP MEMBERS

Who they are

Back to gallery

Do you have additional information or a photograph
of any of these people? Please tell us.

FIVE WANTED BY POLICE

All five left Denmark in late 2006. The Danish government has asked police forces abroad for help to locate them, and it is likely they would be charged with fraud if they returned to Denmark

Mogens Amdi Petersen

Born 1939. Founder of Tvind and of the Teachers Group in 1969-70 and unchallenged leader since.

Built up the Tvind school movement in Denmark in the 1970s, but went ‘underground’ in 1979 and his whereabouts were unknown for 22 years. In 2001 he was found to be living in a $7m luxury apartment in Miami and he was arrested, charged with fraud and extradited to Denmark. In late 2006, after a three year trial in which he was found not guilty, he fled Denmark to avoid a retrial and is now a fugitive, believed to be living in Mexico.

More on Amdi Petersen

Kirsten Larsen

Joint leader of the Tvind Teachers Group with Amdi Petersen. Often described as ‘Amdi’s chief girlfriend’ and also his regular driver.

Documented as chairman or manager of several key Jersey-registered offshore companies, and owner of a Cayman-registered farming company. A founder director of Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle. One of eight ‘Teachers’ charged with fraud in 2002, now a fugitive abroad and believed to be living in Mexico.

Further information on Kirsten Larsen available on request

Marlene Gunst

Board member of many Teachers Group companies and private trusts for many years. She is a director of several wealthy Teachers Group companies we have recently located in the USA.

According to Danish police, Gunst played a key part in arranging money transfers for the 1994 purchase of the $9 million Fazenda Jatoba ranch in Brazil. Following Danish police inquiries, she left Denmark for Britain in 2001, using a Kensington mailbox address.

Charged with fraud in 2002, acquitted in 2006, but now a fugitive abroad and believed to be living in Mexico. She has now been intercepted by police at Heathrow Airport and served with legal papers obliging her to attend trial in Denmark.

Further information on Marlene Gunst available on request

Kirsten Fuglsbjerg (Christie Pipps)

A trained lawyer, connected to many Teachers Group enterprises, key offshore companies and trusts, including recently in the USA. According to Danish police, signed for the Teachers Group’s $9m purchase of Fazenda Jatoba, Brazil in 1994. Has used the name Christie Pipps since 1992.

She has been accused of fraud in two separate cases. A charge of money laundering by Belgian police in 2002 was withdrawn. Also charged with fraud in Denmark, but acquitted in 2006. Now a fugitive abroad, whereabouts unknown.

Further information on Kirsten Fuglsbjerg available on request

Sten Byrner

According to Danish police, ‘centrally placed’ in Tvind and a key member of the ‘Teachers Group Economy’, the central financial directorate, 1987-92. In 2002 police charged him in relation to funds and trusts he helped manage ten years earlier.

Byrner admitted several minor frauds in the 2002-2006 Teachers Group fraud trial, and received a suspended sentence. He is currently a fugitive outside Denmark, whereabouts unknown, and faces further charges if he returns.

Further information on Sten Byrner available on request

IN JAIL

Convicted of fraud, January 2009. The only one of six defendants
caught by Danish police in late 2006 – the rest fled abroad

Poul Jørgensen

Convicted of fraud in Denmark in January 2009 in connection with Teachers Group finances. He was found guilty of embezzlement of 15 million DKK, and tax fraud of 53 million DKK.

Described as ‘Tvind spokesman’ and in day-to-day control of Teachers Group affairs since 1979. Jørgensen is a trained lawyer. He was until 2001 chairman of two key financial trusts – the Humanitarian Fund and the Faelleseje Foundation.

Jørgensen is the only one of six Tvind leaders served with legal papers in late 2006 – five others evaded police and fled abroad to escape prosecution.

Further information on Poul Jørgensen available on request

FIVE IN THE USA

The most prominent names in our research in the USA

Mikael Norling

A key Tvind organiser. Current chairman of CCTG, and a director of Planet Aid. Founded the first US Tvind college, IICD Massachusetts, in 1986 and Planet Aid in 1997. He was reported in 2001 to run a Wall Street fundraising office for Planet Aid.

In the 1970s he is notoriously said to have praised Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge dictator responsible for the death of millions in Cambodia’s ‘killing fields’.

Further information on Mikael Norling available on request

Ester Neltrup

Currently president of Planet Aid, Inc, an organisation she jointly founded in 1997 with Mikael Norling. She is also a former principal of IICD Massachusetts.

We also know that in November 2001 she helped create HPP Inc, an enterprise at the very highest level of Tvind which would have relocated Humana People-to-People to the USA – she was to be secretary. In the event HPP Inc did not get off the ground. However, it indicates that Neltrup is regarded as very senior in the organisation.

“Lynn Sailsbury”

Danish, but emigrated to England in 1995 and has been involved with AS Properties since 1998. She is on the boards of four US/Florida companies: AS Properties, McCorry USA Corp, Allwoods Trading Inc, and Bostic Inc. She shares a TG condo in Miami, The Sterling Condos, with fellow TG member Ann Marie Moeller. Her real name is “Soerensen.” She is considered to be as close to Amdi Pedersen as is Kirsten Larsen.

Anne Hansen

President director of AS Properties Ltd, a TG-run company that is the landlord of three US schools.

Danish police consider her a senior member of ‘The Teachers Group Economy’, the central financial directorate. A founder director of Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle. She has been connected with almost every key offshore account and trust in the TG financial web, and was a signatory of the $9m Floresta Atlantica deal in Brazil in 1994.

Hansen was one of eight TG members accused of money laundering in a failed prosecution in Belgium, 2002.

Further information on Anne Hansen available on request

Michael Hermann

A German-born accountant, who formed the US/Florida based company World Wide Suppliers Inc. in 1995 with fellow TG member Janice Bostic. The company was changed to Bostic Business Services, and then to Bostic Inc. (dissolved 2005). In 2001, Hermann was given power of attorney for Planet Aid Philadelphia, which closed in 2003. He has also been on the board of U’SAgain in Texas along with Per Jensen and Janice Bostic. His official address is the Humana HQ in Zimbabwe, but he shares several addresses with Janice Bostic, including one at the TG’s Sterling Condos in Miami. He uses several alias names and may be the known TC accountant HERMANN LOTZ.

MORE FINANCIAL WIZARDS

Ruth Sejeroe-Olsen

A very senior financial operator, who has been on the board of up to eight Danish-registered Tvind companies, and connected with many of the key offshore companies and private trusts. Danish police say she too played a key role in the acquisition of the $9m Fazenda Jatoba ranch in Brazil in 1994.

Sejeroe-Olsen was charged with fraud by Danish police in 2002, but acquitted in 2006 and no new charges have been made. Her present whereabouts are unknown.

Further information on Ruth Sejeroe-Olsen available on request

Niels Peter Holst

A top Teachers Group money-man – he is today an officer of an offshore Swiss private trust called Humana and PlanetAid Finance SA, in existence since 2005.

His special responsibilities in the 1990s appear to have included creating hidden financial pathways between Africa and Denmark. A private memo he wrote to Poul Joergensen in 1995 suggests ways of secretly moving money between Humana Holland and Angola to avoid financial scrutiny and tax.

He was also the individual named by a former volunteer, Britta Junge as the person who received large amounts of cash she was instructed to smuggle back by air from Angola to Holland during the 1990s.

Niels Holst is close to the Chinese Trayton Group. He was a founding trustee in 1995 of Trayton Holdings, the tax haven-registered holding company. In 2006 he was appointed a non-executive director of the Trayton Group in China.

Bodil Ross Sørensen

Head of Tvind’s schools and described as Amdi Petersen’s second in command, said to operate much like a ‘political commissar’.

Closely involved in Teachers Group’s financial affairs. Chairman of the Humanitarian Foundation from 1987 to 1993, when Danish police believe she had a key role in making grants to bodies which turned out to be front organisations for the TG.

She was charged with fraud in 2002, but found not guilty in 2006. Police have not brought any new charges. Present whereabouts unknown

Further information on Bodil Ross Soerensen available on request

Maria Darsbo

“Chairperson of the Federation for Associations connected to the International HUMANA People to People Movement”. Based in Zimbabwe.

Jytte Nielsen

Very active over many years in Tvind clothes collection in Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, the UK, Austria, Sweden and Denmark.

She was a trustee of Humana UK and one of those dismissed by the UK Charity Commission following investigations into its financial affairs in 1996.

Else Jensen

Described as a kind of Tvind ‘political commissar’ and key figure in ‘The Teachers Group Economy’. On the board of key offshore trusts and director of several companies. A founder director of Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle.

Jensen was one of eight TG members accused of money laundering in a failed prosecution in Belgium, 2002-4

Birgitte Krohn

High ranking member of the Teachers Group inner circle, a key trustee of many offshore companies, private trusts and enterprises. Very frequently cited in Danish police investigations. A founder director of Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle.

Most recently she has played a key role in construction of the Teachers Group’s $10 million new headquarters and luxury retreat at TG Pacifico in Mexico. Krohn is also believed to be a director of Jersey-registered Fairbank, Cooper, Lyle (FCL), the offshore company that owns the Teachers Groups’s plantations.

Originally Birgitte Krohn was Amdi Petersen’s private cook, arranging his meals according to a special diet.

Krohn was one of eight Teachers Group leaders unsuccessfully charged with money laundering in Belgium in 2002.

Further information on Birgitte Krohn available on request

Anne Nielsen

Senior Teachers Group member known to have been appointed to the boards of several offshore companies, private trusts and other enterprises.

Further information on Anne Nielsen available on request

Marie Lichtenberg

A director of the CCTG college in California (2006), but possibly currently resident in South Africa.

She is the sister of Simon Lichtenberg, founder of the Trayton group of companies in China and rhe man most widely expected to be the next leader of the Teachers Group.

Svend Sørensen

One of the original 100 founder signatories of the Teachers group in around 1970. Since then he has worked for Amdi Petersen all over the world.

Has been a board member of several key offshore accounts and private trusts, and founder director of Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle. Was a director of South China Sea Farming SB (Malaysia), a company Danish police alleged was associated with money laundering through a Malaysian sawmill.

Further information on Svend Sørensen available on request

Eva Vestergaard

A trained lawyer, and senior Teachers Group financial manager who has ‘worked secretly with Amdi for years’ and is decribed as ‘hard core’.

She has been a board member of many key offshore companies and trusts, and is known to be appointed to two Teachers Group companies currently registered in the UK. She is thought likely to be living in Belize.

Vestergaard was originally among those charged with fraud by Danish police, but charges against her were dropped before the trial began in 2002.

Further information on Eva Vestergaard available on request

Joseph (Joep) Nagel

Dutch-born Nagel was originally Amdi Petersen’s bodyguard, and has since been a board member, director, trustee or shareholder of a wide variety of key Teachers group offshore companies and trusts. A founder director of Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle.

Nagel was one of eight TG members accused of money laundering in a failed prosecution in Belgium, 2002

Further information on Joseph Nagel available on request

Lena Jensen

THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY

he left with a golden handshake

Henning Bjornlund (Henry Henning)

Today a humble research fellow at the University of South Australia, Adelaide – but before 1989 Henning Bjornlund was a key financial director of the Teachers Group.

According to reports Bjornlund was the ‘financial mastermind’ principally responsible for turning the Tvind TEachers Group from a small alternative school into a multi-billion property empire with landholdings all over the world.

Bjornlund left the Teachers Group suddenly in 1989, reportedly with a large ‘golden handshake’ (perhaps to guarantee his silence).

If so, it has worked. Bjornlund’s university CV unaccountably fails to mention his 15 years with Tvind. His presence at the University has upset many other academics, who have asked the vice chancellor, Denise Bradley, to look into it – but so far without success.

Danish police say they ‘would like to talk to’ Bjornlund if he returns to Denmark.

Further information on Henning Bjornlund available on request

TIMBER TRADERS, FARMERS

and other businessmen

Simon Lichtenberg

Regarded as the ‘crown prince’ most likely to take over as leader of the Teachers Group in future.

In China since the early 1990s, Lichtenberg runs a group of companies based in Shanghai known as the Trayton Group, which manufactures and sells furniture around the world. The Trayton Group is widely regarded as being closely linked to the Teachers Group.

Lichtenberg grew up in the Teachers Group. His parents joined the TG when he was just seven years old, and he was brought up in a private Tvind school. A sister, Marie, is also a leading Teachers group member.

More information on the Trayton Group

Jonas Israel

American-born Jonas Israel runs a well established logging company in Borneo called McCorry and Co, with branches in the USA

Logging is a core business activity for the Teachers Group and the company fits in with the pattern of timber trading. In fact Israel has long been a senior Teachers Group operator. He was a director of several companies in Malaysia investigated by Danish police, and has been associated with a large number of the Teachers Group’s international portfolio of offshore companies and private trusts.

Further information on Jonas Israel is available on request

Soren Sorensen

Known as ‘The Farmer’, this senior Teachers Group member manages much TG agribusiness in Central and South America.

He is currently believed to be responsible for the Fazenda Jatoba timber and fruit plantation in Brazil, and is also on the board of the new Teachers Group ‘headquarters building’, TG Pacifico, in San Juan de las Pulgas, Mexico. Previously, until around 2003, he was manager of the Teachers Group banana plantations in Belize and Ecuador.

Further information on Soren Sorensen is available on request

Flemming Gustafsson

Currently thought to be in Zimbabwe, where he is in charge of several large eucalyptus plantations – but Flemming Gustasson has a colourful past with the Teachers Group.

In early 2008, Gustafsson and fellow TG member Birgit Dinesen-Jensen were on the run from the Russian FSB, after their Siberian logging company collapsed amid allegations of fraud.

Previously, up to 2000, Gustafsson was a key director of EC Trading, an Amsterdam clothes trading company that went bust in very grubby circumstances. In 2002-4, Gustafsson was one of eight TG members accused of money laundering in Belgium. The prosecution failed for ‘lack of evidence’.

See Hot Money: the European clothes laundry

Further information on Flemming Gustafsson is available on request

Kim Bonde Andersen

A key member of ‘The Teachers Group Economy’, associated with various dodgy enterprises – notably the supposed sawmill company in Malaysia investigated by police.

Andersen was most recently in charge of the failed Siberian logging venture, Taiga Industries, that closed in 2008 following allegations of fraud and a complaint to the Russian FSB.

Sune Jørgensen

Curator of ‘Friends Forever’ and leader of Tvind’s Kunstforening (Tvinds Arts Association)

last revised 7th April 2009