A secretive but wealthy worldwide financial network, controlled by a small number of people using companies based in offshore tax havens. The Teachers Group runs ‘charities’ and businesses, but leaders direct much of the profits into private property and landholdings.
The Teachers Group is a truly remarkable phenomenon – a kind of provident association for a few wealthy individuals, based on the hard work and idealism of thousands. Is it a club, a secret society, a multinational corporation, a ‘humanitarian body’, a political sect or a revolutionary commune? The answer seems to be that it is a wealthy international business – and a cult.
Its supporters say it is humanitarian. In reality, it is a very profit-oriented body controlled by a small number of individuals most likely currently based in the USA, China, Mexico, Brazil, Zimbabwe and the Cayman Islands, where the Teachers Group has offices and property. Hundreds of other people work for it, in a junior capacity, in between 50 and 70 countries. The Teachers Group controls Humana, Planet Aid and U’SAgain, many other businesses, and lots of property, through offshore accounts.
It has no official existence, no letterhead and perhaps no legal status, but is more like a ‘movement’. On the face of it, it is like a ‘club’ or association, with between 500 and 1000 members, all firmly associated with the colleges, charities and projects listed on this site. ( ‘Membership’, in fact, is a privilege only extended those who complete training at one of the colleges.) It appears, to outsiders and to the uninitiated, to be a genuine charity, run as a democratic body by its own members.
In reality, it is a pyramid shaped organisation. All important decisions, including big financial and business projects, investments and policy, are made by a small, self-appointed group of senior leaders at the top. This group have been directing money into their own coffers for years. Many of those leaders (of between 30 and 100 individuals) are living in relative comfort in pleasant surroundings, such as the Caribbean, south America and southern Africa. Some are wanted by police. Below them are a strata of good and faithful servants, whose job is to facilitate this thievery.
The vast majority of ‘members’ however are in ignorance of this and contribute money and labor, idealistically working hard in miserable conditions in Europe, the United States and in the Third World, without realising that their lives are controlled by a handful of corrupt ‘executives’, most of whom they will never meet.
All financial and business affairs (and especially those of the leaders) are controlled by proxy, through companies and businesses that may appear unrelated, but are, in fact, controlled by individuals drawn from the same group (often as directors or shareholders). But this subterfuge is easily exposed. Llinks between all the components of this network are also easily established through, for example, Swiss trusts, Internet sites, and other basic research. This is all one very large, centrally-run, ‘empire’.
Many people have experienced it a s a cult not so different from Scientology or the Moonies. A significant number of long-serving and even senior ‘members’ have left and told their stories. The ‘cult’ dimension and pyramidal structure are accepted by police, who have investigated offshore accounts and money laundering and found it to be directed from the most senior levels.
After exploiting its own members, businesses, charities and governments for 30 years, the senior leadership is now extremely wealthy, with properties, landholdings and businesses throughout the world. Senior leaders recently built themselves a $10m hideaway in Mexico. There are rumoured to be plans afoot for a new luxury retreat in Fiji. Police recently put the assets controlled by the leadership at more than $800 million.
The charismatic overall leader – cult guru, if you like – is a former teacher, Amdi Petersen. Petersen was put on trial in 2003-2006 for financial misdemeanours, but escaped in 2006 after new charges were about to be laid. He is now on the run and believed to control the organisation from Mexico, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Belize, Fiji or some other developing country. Police forces around the world have been put on alert for him, but have so far failed to track him down. If he is discovered in Europe, he will be arrested.
Sadly, what may have begun as a genuinely idealistic movement in the 1970s now appears to have become corrupted into a body engaged in the ruthless and clandestine pursuit of money, power and business, for a few individuals. We urge you not to have anything to do with Planet Aid, U’SAgain, Humana People-to-People or any other Teachers Group concern, and to support us in our drive to expose this scandal.
Some Teachers Group facts
- Worth an estimated $840 million (recent police estimate)
- Operates in more than 50 countries, including the USA and all of Europe
- Pyramidal organisation, with top leader, and heirarchical structure
- More than 250 companies and offshore accounts identified by us so far
- Among world’s wealthiest used-clothes collectors with hundreds of thousands of boxes
- Massive landholdings and fruit farms in Caribbean and South America.
- Numerous trading companies, timber companies, and factories
- Newly constructed $10 million campus retreat in Mexico
- Multi-million dollar ‘headquarters’ in Zimbabwe.
- Until recently owned two luxury apartments on private island off Miami.
- Owns $6 million luxury ocean-going yacht, Butterly McQueen.
- Leaders recently prosecuted for fraud and tax evasion , one senior leader currently in jail for financial crime
- Leader, Amdi Petersen, and others now in exile and wanted by police
OUR FULL DOSSIER ON THE TEACHERS GROUP
Last revised: 24th March 2010
