Police
Pursuit of Tvind Leaders
from Jyllands-Posten, 26th April 2001
Police and tax authorities have a good chance of getting Tvind leaders
convicted of tax fraud and breach of trust, according to tax experts
after last Wednesday’s raid against several Tvind offices, the strongest
attempt so far to have the Tvind leaders arrested, including the
mysterious Mogens Amdi Petersen.
The direct aim of the police authorities in charge is to have Tvind's
legendary leader Mogens Amdi Petersen and the organization's spokesman
Poul Jørgensen arrested for tax fraud and breach of trust.
After their raid against eight Tvind offices last Wednesday, the police
have decided to prosecute four persons of Tvind’s top level management.
Jyllands-Posten has been informed that the two top leaders are among
those four persons. Poul Jørgensen was taken into custody for the
duration of the day, but was then released late Wednesday night.
The public prosecutor stands a good chance, according to tax expert
Tommy V. Christiansen, Århus. He has followed up the statements made by
defectors--former Tvind teachers--about the wrongful use of a specific
Tvind fund.
Since 1987 Tvind teachers have been able to deposit 15 per cent of their
salaries to this fund and then make a corresponding tax deduction. This
is a completely legal option, provided of course that the money in the
fund dedicated to "the support of humanitarian purposes, for the benefit
of research on and the protection of wild nature environment" goes to
public benevolent purposes.
However, the drop-out teachers claim that the money is in fact going to
projects which are not public benevolent but instead are being
controlled by the Tvind organisation itself.
Tax lawyer Tommy V. Christiansen says: "On the assumption that the
former Tvind teachers have told the whole truth, the public prosecutor
has an extremely good case. It is fairly easy to find out whether the
funded money has been given out in accordance with the stipulations of
the fund. Should that not be the case, it is a very serious situation
for the fund's management, and it could be a question of tax fraud as
well as breach of trust."
Eventually, a victory on the part of the public prosecutor might result
in a prison sentence of up to five years for the chairman of the fund's
board of directors, Poul Jørgensen, as well as for Tvind's actual
leader, Mogens Amdi Petersen.
The raids against the eight Tvind offices were in a number of cases met
by violent protests. Thus the Tvind people at Grindsted opposed the
search referring to the fact that they had rented their own rooms from
Tvind, and that the police therefore didn't have the right to go through
them. The police nevertheless pursued their search based on the overall
purpose of the raid, and this in its turn immediately caused the Tvind
people to bring several actions against the police for having instituted
a wrongful search.
The confiscated account books, reports and computer disks are now
gathered at the Holstebro police station for the police and tax
authorities to go through all of the nine projects financed by the Tvind
fund.
Seven of the nine projects have been carried out abroad. That could be a
problem for the public prosecutor, according to tax lawyer Tommy V.
Christiansen, since few countries have as strict rules as Denmark when
it comes to providing tax information.
A number of officials from the customs and tax authorities of Holstebro
have already been to Brazil to look at one of the projects, which was
supposed to be about research on environment friendly forestry in the
rain forest. The police claim that the money goes to other purposes, and
that Tvind itself is to be found among the beneficiaries.
The person in charge of the investigation, chief of police Jens
Kaasgaard of the Holstebro police force says: "We have yet to decide
whether or not we will look up other projects abroad which have been
supported by the fund. First we intend to evaluate the weight as
evidence of the extensive material we have seized so far."