Humana People-to-People Alert

  1990s: The 'Butterfly McQueen' luxury yacht  

A large ocean-going luxury yacht, the Butterfly McQueen, is ordered from a ship brokers. The price tage is a reputed $7 million. The 39-metre yacht is built to the highest specifications, with accommodation for 12 guests and seven crew, cabins fitted out with cherry wood and Italian marble, and a master stateroom with a king size four poster bed and en-suite bath. The vessel is moored in Miami, but travels round the world at least once and is currently docked in Fiji.

More on the Butterfly McQueen

  1970-79: a schools movement is born  

The alternative schools are a huge success with European youth. Over the next ten years, more than a dozen are built on the same model in Denmark and abroad.

The schools become the focus for a movement is known as 'Tvind', and Amdi Petersen is its leader.....

  1994: Tvind buys Floryl in the Brazilian rainforest  

Allegedly through various front companies, the Teachers group buys Floryl or Fazenda Jatoba, a 92,000-plus hectare estate, from Shell for $9 million. Some 36,000 acres are said to be planted with pine and eucalyptus and it also produces bananas, sugarcane, eucalyptus, rice and citrus fruit for export. It is the jewel in the TG landholding crown. Tvind, however, says it is a 'unique nature protection project'. This massive ranch is at the heart of the 2001-2006 fraud case - police say it was bought with money that should have been spent on environmental projects.

The 2001 Danish police case

  2003-2006: The Teachers Group on trial  

Petersen and seven senior members of the Teachers group go on trial..The verdict is expected on August 31st. Humana, the Teachers group and tvind carry on regardless.

  2002: Amdi arrested in Los Angeles  

Identified by an alert FBI officer at Los Angeles international Airport, Amdi Petersen is arrested while changing planes between London and Mexico. The Danish government requests his extradition - Petersen hires Robert Shapiro, one of America's highest-paid attorneys, to fight the case. He loses. In late 2002, Petersen is flown back to Denmark, whjere he is charged (with seven others) with fraud in connection with the humanitarian Fund.

The 2001 Danish Police extradition report

  2001: Danish police raid Tvind  

Danish television broadcasts a documentary on Tvind containing interviews with several former volunteers and Teachers who allege financial malpractice. Police act - in an early morning raid, seven Tvind properties are raided, and computers and files taken away for analysis. It takes them severalmonths to break the encryption on the computers, but eventually they access thousands of files of fiancial documents. An international warrant is issued for Amdi Petersen's arrest.

  1998: Humana UK closed down  

In 1996, following newspaper reports, the British Charity Commission begins an investigation into Humana UK, sending officers to check out 'projects' in Zambia. They certainly exist, but Humana's financial affairs are far from transparent and the officers conclude that money raised from clothes sales in Britain may not be funding work in Africa. Instead, it is likely the African projects are 'double funded' - paid for by someone else. Humana is put into receivership. Two British schools, Winestead Hall and Red House, are also closed down. The same year, Tvind starts up Planet Aid UK and Green World Recycling to continue the clothes sales.

The closure of Humana UK
Winestead and Red House Schools

  1996: 'Lex Tvind'  

In Denmark, the Government is so concerned by reports of financial abuse by the Tvind schools that it puts through an amendment to the constitution, changing Denmark's liberal education laws so that Tvind can no longer receive large state subsidies. Humana People-to_people moves its headquarters to Zimbabwe.

More on Zimbabwe

  1993: The Teachers Group goes global  

At a summit meeting in Miami about this time, Amdi Petersen gathers his most trusted lieutenants about him and divides up the world between them. Following this, farms, businesses and properties are established in many continents - ome Teachers Group leaders go to China, others to India, eastern Europe, South America and the United States. At about this time, Britta Junge receives instructions to bring back to the Teachers Group as much hard currency as possible from the sale of clothes in Africa.

Britta Junge's story

  1990: Tvind buys Amdi a luxury apartment in Miami  

5302 Fisher Island Drive near Miami is a luxury apartment in the best tradition of celebrity hideaways, set on a private island with a sea view, first class security, a private golf club and its own moorings. It was bought for around $6 million by a property company, John F Parsons, which happened to have connections to the Teachers Group. Amdi Petersen and Kirsten Larsen secretly moved in here in 1991, but only after ordering a $600,000 redecoration by a top interior designer.

The Man in Miami: Jyllands Posten report on the secret apartment

  1986: TG starts buying up tropical plantations 

The first Teachers Group land investments were large estates in Caribbean boltholes such as the Cayman Islands and St Vincent. Large fruit farms were bought through various offshore accounts, companies were set up to run them and Teachers despatched to manage them. In 1986, Roy Lawaetz fought a long and unsuccessful battle to prevent Tvind from taking over his family farm on St Vincent. The buying spree continued, and by the mid-1990s, the Teachers group owns hundreds of thousands of hectares.

The Teachers Group 'slave' plantations

  1987: The Humanitarian Fund is launched  

Humana used-clothes charities, shops and clothes bins start appearing all over European countries, collecting old clothes to support the DAPP projects in Africa. At the same time, hundreds of Teachers are persuaded to donate to the 'Humanitarian Fund' a tax-free charitable trust to be used to promote 'research, humanitarian work and the environment'. At the same time

2001 Danish police report on The Humanitarian Fund

  1983: The 'Activ' disaster  

In February, 1983, the Tvind 'training ship' Activ is lost in a storm off Dover  - eight young Tvind Teachers died. Teachers' Group sources say the eight had been called to a meeting with Mogens Amdi Petersen - using the ramshackle old boat was the only way to reach Denmark, but the young people did not dare disobey the call. Only one knew how to handle a boat. Tvind does not issue an apology. A senior member of the Teachers group, Carsten Ringsmose, resigns accusing Tvind of recklessness.

The 'Activ' disaster

  1979: Amdi disappears  

One day after the publication of a critical article in a Danish trade union journal, Amdi Petersen announces his 'retirement' and disappears. For the next 22 years he goes underground. The world is told that he has retired abroad as a private citizen, but in fact Amdi continues to control the reins and purse strings and secretly issues instructions to close colleagues in the Teachers Group.

More on Amdi Petersen

  1977: An old-clothes empire is born  

The first UFF used clothes bins appear on the roadsides in Scandinavia - and a used-clothes empire is born. The same year, Faelleseje, the main Tvind common-ownership trust, is founded in Denmark, marking the inauguration of the Teachers Group. 'Tvind' now has many schools and ideologically-correct enterprises. Amdi Petersen rules his empire with a rod of iron.

More on the clothes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tvind story 1969-2006

  1969: The beginning  

Amdi Petersen, a 30-year old schoolteacher in the Danish city of Odense, quits his job and decides to see the world.

With a group of friends, he buys an old bus and the party sets off on the hippie trail. After many adventures, they return to Denmark and decide to open a school, which they call the Travelling Folk High School. It is a co-operative, run jointly by the staff and students who pool their money and expertise.

The school, on the Danish island of Fyn, is a success. A year later, they move to Tvind, a farm in the West of Denmark just outside the town of Ulfborg. The students and staff dig the foundations and build the school themselves.