Tvind Alert

This section: How big is the Teachers Group?

> The world empire

> The schools and colleges

> Used clothes collections

> Volunteering schemes

> Commercial plantations

> Companies and business

> Buildings and property

> Offshore funds

Go deeper: our pages on selected
TG enterprises

Colleges
> The CICD, Hull
> The CCTG, USA
> The IICD colleges, USA

Used clothes collections
> Humana / UFF
> Humana UK (closed)
> Planet Aid
> U'SAgain
> Gaia
> Green World Recycling, UK
> DAPP UK (new)

The trade in used clothes
> Garson & Shaw
> EC Trading (closed)

The aid business
> Humana
> DAPP, southern Africa

Farming and plantations
> Belize
> Floryl ranch, Brazil

Other businesses
> McCorry, Malaysia (timber)
> Trayton, China (furniture)
> Taiga Timber, Siberia (closed)

Offshore and tax havens
> Gaia Movement Trust

Our detailed dossier on the TG

> About the Teachers Group
> Who's who in the TG
> About Amdi Petersen
> Henning Bjornlund

The company structure
> A - Z of companies
> A list of all clothing companies
> A list of all offshore accounts
> List of TG web sites

The arrests and fraud trial
> Ongoing fraud trial
> Belgian money laundering case

Is the TG a cult?
> Cult watchdogs and the TG

  THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA  

USA

Now

* Planet Aid, Gaia, Humana, U'SAgain

* IICD colleges, Michigan and Massachusetts

* CICD college, California

* Garson & Shaw (used clothes broker)

* Other enterprises, businesses and shell companies

Previously

* Two $7 million apartments off Miami Beach - now sold

* Aka Pecha College (closed down)

More information

* Newspaper investigation: Boston Globe. Numerous other articles and broadcasts

Canada

* Planet Aid.

* Newspaper report: Charity collected $1.7M, gave $0     (Planet Aid claimed $350,000 in losses from 1998 to 2000)   Toronto Star, Friday 26th April 2002

* A statement by Professor Alan Somerset, University of Western Ontario, on his daughter's experience at the IICD college in the USA.

  EUROPE  

  Western Europe  

Austria

* Humana Österreich.

* In 2001 Humana Österreich threatened legal action against Friedrich Griess, president of FECRIS (European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism). Humana did not proceed with the action which was dropped in mid-2002.

Denmark

* The Teachers Group founded here, 1970-77.

* The Tvind 'school centre' at Ulfborg, and many other schools and colleges.

* UFF used clothes collection

* Teachers Group headquarters, Grindsted, and property for use of Tvind leadership.

* Trial of Amdi Petersen and Teachers Group leaders, 2003-2006. Resumed 2007 against one defendant, still in progress.

* Several books in Danish, and many newspaper and magazine articles, television and radio documentaries.

Finland

* UFF / Humana

Germany

* Humana used clothes

* Mini-'school', Berlin

* Book by German journalists, Psycho- Sekten. Die Praktiken der Seelenfänger

Italy

* Humana Italy

*''School', Milan

The Netherlands

Now

* Humana Holland: major hub for collection and transit of used clothes to eastern Europe.

* Despite evidence of financial impropriety, Dutch government gave Humana more than €8 million in 2006-7.

Previously

* Network of Dutch registered and offshore companies discovered to be brokering clothes between 'charities' and 'sales agents' abroad.

* Textile Transformation EC Trading BV filed for bankruptcy, 2000, owing more than £1.4m (money written off to other Teachers Group companies).

* Inconclusive investigations by the Dutch CBF (charity commission)

Norway

* UFF or Humana

* One World Institute or Norway DNS College

Portugal

* Humana

Spain

* Humana

Sweden

* UFF or Humana

* Swedish development agency Valdelin Report highly critical of 'money go roun'd, 1991

* Newspaper investigation, Dagens Nyheter

United Kingdom

Now

* CICD college, Hull

* Planet Aid, Green World Recycling, Gaia

* DAPP UK

Previously

* Humana UK (closed down 1998)

* Winestead and Red House Schools (closed down 1998)

  Eastern Europe  

Estonia

* Humana collection and sales

Latvia

* Humana

Lithuania

* Humana

Poland

* Humana

Russia

Now

* DRH Russia ('college')

* Clothes sales agent Ist Wood

Previously

* Timber enterprise, Siberia - closed 2007

  Offshore  

Gibraltar

* UK tax haven in the Mediterranean. Used by the Teachers Group to register at least four companies.

Guernsey

* UK tax haven island off France. Used by the Teachers Group to register many important companies.

Isle of Man

* UK tax haven island in Irish Sea. Used by the Teachers Group to register an important holding company.

Jersey

* UK tax haven island off France. Used by the Teachers Group to register many important companies.

Switzerland

* Associations, trusts and numbered accounts

  Gone out of business  

Belgium

* Humana Belgium closed down in around 2005. No reason given.

* In 2004, a Belgian money laundering case against eight Teachers Group members was suddenly and unexpectedly dropped. Belgian money laundering case.

France

* Association Humana dissolved in 1996 following French government inquiry, and demand for ten years unpaid tax on clothes trade.

*Humana classified as a cult by French National Assembly, 1995.

Greece

Humana used clothes collections in early 2000s, but no longer operating.

Hungary

Clothes sales through Teachers Group affiliated company Holland Trading during early 2000s, but no longer thought to be operating

Ireland

Humana used clothes collections in early 2000s, but no longer operating.

Czech Republic

Humana-style clothes collection and sales in early 2000s, but no longer operating.

Romania

* Clothes sales agent - unknown if still operating?

Slovakia

* Clothes sales agent, no longer operating?

Slovenia

* Clothes sales agent, no longer operating?

Ukraine

* Clothes sales agent, no longer operating

  AUSTRALASIA AND THE PACIFIC  

Australia

Now

* Henning Bjornlund, a former Teachers Group 'financial director', who is credited with devising the programme to buy up plantations, left the organisation in 1989 and is now a professor at an The University of South Australia, where he remains despite complaints by other academic staff. See Henning Bjornlund. Source: Danish newspapers and informants.

Previously

* The Teachers Group owned a cattle ranch in Queensland in around 1987, but was 'run out of town' by locals. Source: informant

Fiji

* Farming operation, Pacific Farming

* Landholding at Vuni Vasa, on Vurevure Bay

French Polynesia (Tahiti)

* French-administered islands. Teachers Group set up a company here to operate a supposed 'biogas project' in the 1990s. Danish police investigated and alleged it was a shell company used as a means of laundering money to Brazil.

New Zealand

* Teachers Group believed to be active

  AFRICA  

  Current headquarters building 1998-?  

Zimbabwe

* Shamva complex - current Humana headquarters (opened 1998)

* DAPP Zimbabwe

* Extensive estates, forests and agricultural land

* Trading companies

* Ownership of leading medical clinic, Harare?

  'Aid'  

Angola

* ADPP

* Large contributions from oil companies

* Allegations of illegal money transfers by air from Luanda to Denmark in 1990s

Botswana

* DAPP

* ADPP Soya restaurants (using soya supplied by a Teachers Group farming company?)

Congo

* Planet Aid US lists Child aid in the Congo

Guinea Bissau

* ADPP

* Probable commercial cashew plantation

Malawi

* DAPP

Mozambique

* ADPP

* Thought to be a furniture factory

* Possible plantations and landholdings

Namibia

* DAPP

South Africa

* Humana South Africa

* Kwa-Zulu Natal; Experimental College (KNEC)

Zambia

* DAPP

* Investigated by UK Charity Commission during fraud inquiry into Humana UK, 1996-8

  Clothes trade / out of business  

Benin

* Clothes sales agent - not known if still operating?

Ghana

* Clothes sales agent - not known if still operating?

Morocco

* Clothing factories, no longer believed to be operating

Nigeria

* DAPP style projects, no longer believed to be operating

Tanzania

* DAPP style projects, but no longer believed to be operating

Togo

* Clothes sales agent - not known if still operating?

 

 CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA  

 New headquarters building, 2008  

Mexico

* 'TG Pacifico' complex - new $10m headquarters, opened 2008

 Farms and plantations  

Belize

* Five large banana and mango plantations, bought between 1983 and 1988 with . More recently, extensive shrimp farms. At least 11 different locations.

* Monkey River Estate - 5,000 hectares, the largest mango farm on the American continent. Caribbean Farming - 40 per cent of Belize's banana production. Toledo Fish Farming (shrimps)

* 2005: Belize TV reports that the Teachers Group failed to pay interest on a $2m loan and seven companies are in receivership: no further information.

* Extract from book 'Psycho-cults: how the Soul-Catchers Work' by two German investigative journalists describing a visit to Monkey River Estate.

Brazil

* Huge Floryl plantation - bought from Shell in 1991. Danish police say money ws laundered from the Humanitarian Fund to fund the purchase

* 'School' and Humana-type operation

Ecuador

* Three banana plantations bought around 1988. Two sold following bitter strikes by agricultural workers in 2001-2, but one likely to remain in Teachers Group ownership.

* An administrative building in Guayqil believed to run network of Teachers Group plantations in Central & South America.

El Salvador

* Banana, sugar and rice plantations, bought during the 1980s.

* Humana El Salvador and Planet Aid were present in 1999, but no longer believed to be operating in the country.

Venezuela

* Five fruit farms and plantations

 

 Out of business 

Guatemala

Planet Aid was present in the early 2000s, but is said to have 'collapsed' and no longer operating

Honduras

Planet Aid no longer believed to be operating in the country.

Nicaragua

Planet Aid - thought to be no longer operating

  THE CARIBBEAN  

 Plantations  

St Lucia

* Extensive banana and fruit plantations at River Doree and Mount Lezard

* Resident Roy Lawaetz claims the Teachers Group used bullying tactics to buy the Mount Lezard Estate cheaply from his family in 1986

St Vincent

* Fruit plantation at Orange Hill Estate, bought 1985

* Richmond Vale Acedmy or DRH Caribbean college

 

  Offshore companies  

Cayman Islands

* UK-owned tax haven south of Cuba. Used by Teachers Group to register at least six offshore companies, several in existence today

* Mango and orange plantations bought in 1980s.

* Well-appointed beachside hideaway used by Amdi Petersen and other top Teachers Group leaders up to 1991.

* 'A luxury villa, a Mercedes jeep, yachts and cash in suitcases.' Article from the Caymanian Compass.

Netherlands Antilles

* Dutch-owned tax haven off the coast of Venezuela. One Teachers Group offshore company registered here, in around 1991-1997, now dissolved.

British Virgin Islands

* British run offshore tax haven. The Teachers Group has registered at least two offshore companies here

  ASIA  

Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan

Teacher resident in Georgia in early 2000s to develop clothes trade, not known if currently operating in any part of the region.

China

* The Trayton Group. Furniture company, owned by offshore holding company in the Isle of Man, and managed by senior Teachers Group members.

* Yunnan Institute for Development, Kunming.

* Investigative news article in Berlingske Tidende, March 2000

Hong Kong

* Special economic zone and tax haven: Teachers Group has registered at least three offshore companies.

India

* Humana India

* DRH Sikkim college (may be closed)

Mauritius

* Timber company - Trayton Timber Ltd (Mauritius)

Malaysia

* Timber sales company, McCorry, based Borneo

* Teachers Group set up a network of companies here to operate a supposed 'sawmill' in the 1990s. Danish police investigated and alleged it was a shell company used as a means of laundering money to Brazil.