TVIND ALERT

US TV investigates U’SAgain

An investigation by Kiro 7 TV, Seattle, into used clothes collector U’SAgain concludes the public is being deceived because the company is falsely masquerading as a charity.

The Teachers Group enterprise has recently installed 600 clothing donation boxes in the Seattle area. Investigative reporter Chris Halsne tells viewers: “Drop the clothes in a red U’SAgain bin and you’re essentially giving away cash to a multi-million dollar enterprise …. The company cashes in on peoples’ preconceived notions that all bins represent charity.”

The material includes a revealing video interview with U’SAgain CEO Mattias Wallander. Wallander admits he is in the Teachers Group, but claims no association with the Group’s leaders members prosecuted for fraud in Denmark, now fugitive. But Kiro TV says financial records ‘indicate otherwise’. Tvind Alert provided interviews, information and documentation for this report, but received no acknowledgement.

Kiro 7 Eyewitness News report

Story on KiroTV.com

Extended interview with Mattias Wallander

Mayor calls for removal of for-profit donation bins (25th November 2009)

A former employee has turned whistleblower and revealed exactly how the Teachers Group used offshore accounts, front companies, false invoices and fake letterheads to cream off the profits from Humana / UFF used clothes donations in Europe, 1990-2000. And today?

A little bit of research and a restored page tells the story of four Teachers Group companies in Gibraltar, used to wash millions of pounds from used clothes donations into offshore accounts. Coming soon – more details from a ‘whistleblower’.

This restored page tells of a luxury beachside villa, landholdings, and Teachers Group money washing through the world’s most notorious offshore tax haven.

Our newly rewritten biography of the fugitive Teachers Group founder and leader, Amdi Petersen, now restored to the site.

If you can add to our biography, please contact us.

Silminnäkijä: Ryysyillä rikkauksiin?

Exclusive – a 30-minute report by Finnish TV’s channel 2, about UFF in Finland, exposes the links between UFF, the Teachers Group and the senior TG leader Poul Jörgensen, currently serving a jail sentence in Denmark for fraud.

UFF is the sister organisation to Humana, founded in Finland in 1989, and dominates the collection of used clothes and the second hand clothing market in Finland. However UFF Finland is shrouded in secrecy.

”Eyewitness” decided to visit Denmark to gather information about the background of UFF. The programme describes how the Tvind empire saw daylight in Denmark and how idealism turned into greed and led to systematic economic crimes. The programme goes on to reveal that UFF is a tiny link in a vast net of organisations led by the so-called Teachers Group, and also reveals that Poul Jörgensen, the founder of UFF Finland, was sentenced to a 2,5 year jail-sentence for economic crimes in January 2009.

Frede Jakobsen, Danish editor of www.tvindalert.com, was interviewed for the programme.

For more information on the programme and how to watch it until December 3rd see our Finland page or visit http://areena.yle.fi. The TV website and programme are in Finnish.

Horror stories from inside the Teachers Group ‘volunteering’ college on the Caribbean island of St Vincent.

One former volunteer writes: ‘There is no teaching, they lie and they exploit local people.’ So many students have left this college in disgust this year they have set up a Facebook page called Richmond Vale Academy Alert.

We have made a new page on St Vincent including Daniel’s story and other insights. (Can anyone tell us if Tvind still owns the big banana plantation on the island? And what’s this about cotton fields?)

At last! A simple gallery of photographs of used clothes bins operated by the Teachers Group around the world – Planet Aid, U’SAgain, Gaia, Green World, Humana, UFF, College Aid, IICD. Are there others?

Please send us your photographs. We particularly need up to date pictures of DAPP UK bins (and shops) and any others missing from our gallery. If you see a bin you think is TG, please send us a picture and we will check it out.

The ex-member who blew the whistle on the Tvind fraud

Hans la Cour, the former ‘Tvind’ volunteer who became a whistleblower and whose evidence launched a successful fraud prosecution against the Humana bosses, has died, aged 55.

La Cour, from Denmark, was only 18 years old when he joined Tvind as a volunteer in 1972, and soon became a member of the controlling Teachers Group (TG). For the next 18 years he remained an important and senior TG member, personally appointed by the TG leader, Amdi Petersen, to handle important operations all over the world.

Hans la Cour (left) was a true internationalist who wanted to help the people in the Third World. But over the years he realised that the official goals of the Tvind-movement were being corrupted by the leadership of the TG.

Hans la Cour was appointed leader of a supposed humanitarian project on the ship Return of Marco Polo, sailing all over the world to create fake projects that were used to launder million of dollars out of one of the Tvind ‘charitable’ foundations, The Humanitarian Fund. Much of the money was used to buy property and land in Central America, Brazil and the USA.

It was in the end too much for Hans la Cour. He left the ship in 1990 in New Zealand – and at the same time he left the TG. But contrary to TG policy he had kept copies of many of the letters and documents from the TG leadership. In 2000 he agreed to appear on Danish Television in two documentaries about the organisation, that led to a trial in Denmark against the TG leadership for tax fraud and embezzlement.

He was subsequently the Crown witness in a second trial that led to a two and a half year prison sentence on one of the central TG leaders, Poul Jørgensen. Amdi Petersen and four other TG members are still wanted by the Danish Police to stand trial. Hans la Cour also wrote a remarkable book about his time in the TG – The Traveller (Den Rejsende) published in 2002.

In the end Hans la Cour got only a little more than 18 years to create a new life for himself outside the TG – first in New Zealand, later in Denmark. He was always willing to help www.tvindalert.com in our research. He died of cancer on October 22, aged only 55 years.

Our restored and updated page on Poland, including two witness statements, Polish newspaper coverage, and a brilliant article exposing Humana (in Polish and English) published in Gazeta Wyborcza in 2002. We would welcome commercial and business information on Polish Teachers Group companies.