Floryl Plantation, Brazil - Humana People-to-People Alert

  Who runs Floryl?  

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The Floryl plantation in Brazil

 

Floryl - Fazenda Jatobà - Correntina - Bahia

  Who owns Floryl today?  

The Floryl plantation is today ultimately owned by a Jersey-registered Tvind company, Fairbank, Cooper, Lyle (FCL). This is a major Tvind offshore company and agribusiness that owns most of the Teachers Groups's plantations. The company structure:

Fairbank, Cooper Lyle
(Registered in Jersey)
I
Bahia Farming Ltd
(Registered in Guernsey)
I
Floresta Jatoba (Brasil) Ltda
(Brazilian operator)
I
Floresta Rio Veredao Ltda
Floryl Florestadora Ype SA
(Local operating companies)

(Source: Floryl)

  Where is it?  

Floryl is in Bahia province, near Correntina, about 500 km north of Brasilia. It is not in the Amazon rainforest.

Floryl is also known as Fazenda Jatobà and sometimes referred to as 'Fazenda Floryl'.

  How Floryl was bought 

  What is Floryl?  

Floryl, or Fazenda Jatobà, is a 92,000-hectare agricultural estate in Brazil. It is owned by the Teachers Group.

It was secretly bought from the Shell oil company in 1994 for $12m.

The big question is - where did the Teachers Group get this kind of money? Danish police allege Floryl was bought using money from Humana and the Humanitarian Fund, laundered through fake charities and front companies.

Since 2001, the Floryl plantation has been at the heart of the ongoing fraud case against Amdi Petersen and the Teachers Group. Tvind denies any wrongdoing.

There is a second question. Is Floryl a business or a nature reserve? Tvind says Floryl is 'a unique nature protection project'. The Danish police say it is nothing more than a commercial farm. Many critics go further and claim it exploits migrant workers, the local population and the environment.

And there is one more question to ask. Floryl makes money - for someone. Where do the profits go?

  Inside Floryl

Bahia Farming Ltd

Guernsey offshore company

La Societé Verte and L'Energie Eternelle

Paris 'charity'

The Tvind 'Humanitarian Fund'

Humana/UFF

Floryl

$12 million

TG

The Teachers Group 'treasury'

  The Danish police version  

Danish police allege the Teachers Group used "front men and companies" to secretly move money, including cash given for aid work to the charities UFF/Humana and donations to the Humanitarian Fund.

First, offshore company Tropical Farming Ltd (registered in Grand Cayman) opened negotiations with Shell. Other Tvind offshore companies (The Farmers Trust, Hobhouse Ltd, Fairbank, Cooper Lyle...) then bought the Brazilian operating company Floryl Florestadora Ype SA.

Finally, money to complete the sale was transferred from other parts of the cash-rich Tvind economy and 'the Teachers Group treasury'. From Humana/UFF and elsewhere in Tvind, millions of dollars were passed to Guernsey-registered Tvind company Bahia Farming Ltd, which still owns Floryl today.

Millions more dollars were allegedly moved from the Tvind Humanitarian Fund as 'charitable' grants to a French-registered 'green charity', La Societe Verte (also called L'Energie Eternelle), with an address in the Champs Elysee. Police say La Societe Verte was not a genuine charity, but a Tvind-controlled front company. The police allegations in full.

  The story of Rima Industrial S/A  

Rima Industrial S/A, a Brazilian manufacturing company, has taken the Teachers Group to the Brazilian High Court in a dispute over $6 million of timber bought from Floryl which they say they never received.

Rima executives met Birgitte Krohn and Bolette Gunst (left) to discuss the wood deal. However in late 2005, a company spokesman contacted us. He wrote: 'We would like to receive as much as possible information about the dirty business of Tvind , because we paid them US $ 6 million for wood from the Floryl project and they simply decided not to deliver the wood."

Rima executives travelled to Europe to meet Danish police and also contacted Interpol. The company made a complaint in the Brazilian courts and took the case to the Brazilian High Court. We do not know the outcome of the case.

One Rima official told us they had heard the money was transferred out of Brazil to Belize where it was 'needed'. Krohn and Gunst also showed them pictures of the 'resort' under construction in Mexico. Both Krohn and Gunst are involved with the Teacher Group's $10 million new development, TG Pacifico, at San Juan de las Pulgas.

  here  

Links

Floryl web site

  Commercial farm, or 'nature protection project'?

  Press reports  

Ekstra Bladet, Denmark (22nd September 1996): Tvind shops for new plantations. By Kurt Simonsen. A detailed account of Tvind's 'buying spree' of land in Ecuador, Belize and Brazil and the conditions for workers it employs.

Dagens Nyheter, Sweden (10th June 2000): What is UFF hiding on its plantation in Brazil? By Bengt Lindström. "Profit seems to have replaced humanity as the aid organisation's driving force."

Berlingske Tidende, Denmark (June 29th, 2001) Stolen document reveals Tvind-fund. A document indicating Tvind's ownership of the Jatoba plantation and revealing its true purpose - logging - was stolen from court files by one of the defendants in the Danish fraud court case against Tvind.

VEJA, Brazil (11 de julho de 2001) Uma fazenda misteriosa. Madeireira bancada por entidade filantrópica dinamarquesa agride leis brasileiras na Bahia Flávia Varella (in Portuguese)

In the 1990s, Krohn was a board member of IFAS, the so-called 'Institute for Reasearch and Applied Science'. According to Danish police, this was not a research body at all, but a Tvind financial front created to launder money into the 'Teachers Group Treasury'. She was also a director of Kirchheiner Bros, one of the main Teachers Group 'money pots', based in the Channel Isles.

She escaped prosecution in the 2003-2006 Danish trial, but was one of eight Teachers Group leaders separately charged with money laundering in Belgium in 2002, although charges were dropped.

Krohn is today a director of Jersey-registered Fairbank, Cooper, Lyle (FCL), the Tvind offshore company that owns the Teachers Groups's plantations. She is also one of the TG members behind TG Pacifico, the massive new $10 million Tvind 'headquarters building' at San Juan de las Pulgas, in Mexico.

The manager at Floresta Jatoba (Brasil) Ltda is Danish Teachers Group member Lars Jensen, also mentioned in the 2001 Danish Police Report. His signature is on paperwork relating to a massive loan in 1992.

  The Birgitte Krohn story  

The key director of Floresta Jatoba (Brasil) Ltda is Birgitte Krohn.

Krohn is a hard-core member of the Tvind Teachers Group, and has played a part in many Tvind offshore companies, secret trusts and financial enterprises. She frequently earns a mention in the 2001 Danish Police report.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The people behind the     purchase  

Eleven Teachers group members named in the Danish police report:

Amdi Petersen, Kirsten Larsen, Ruth Sejerøe-Olsen and Marlene Gunst. The four key members of Tvind's economic directorate who, police said in 2001, were 'in reality behind the purchase.' They authorised the spending and told others how to move money to achieve it.

Petersen, Larsen and Gunst are charged with fraud and currently on the run from police. Sejerøe-Olsen was cleared of fraud on in the first trial 2006.

Kim Bonde Andersen. In 1992 he ran the Tvind offshore company Tropical Farming, which initiated negotiations with Shell to buy the Floryl ranch. Today he runs a logging company in Siberia, Taiga Timber.

Sten Byrner. Member of Tvind's economic directorate. In 1992 he was said to be jointly responsible for arranging the purchase of Floryl Florestadora YPE S.A. with Kim Bonde Andersen. Charged with fraud and currently on the run from police.

Lars Jensen. The current Floryl manager. In 1992, he was simultaneously a founder of The Humanitarian Fund and an executive committee member of La Societe Verte. He signed a request from La Societe Verte for a grant of $2.5 m from the Fund.

Poul Jørgensen. Senior Teachers Group member and adviser. In 1992, he was a lawyer acting for the Humanitarian Fund. Police say he 'wrote letters to himself' applying for grants for Floryl. Charged with fraud by police.

Bodil Ross Sørensen. Member of Tvind's economic directorate. The chairperson of the Humanitarian Fund in 1992. She approved the $2.5m grant to La Societe Verte. She was cleared of fraud in 2003-6 trial.

Kirsten Fuglsbjerg / Christie Pipps. Member of Tvind's economic directorate. On 8th August 1994, she was the main signatory of the deal to buy Floryl from Shell. Charged with fraud and currently on the run from Danish police.

Tove Birkøe. The Teachers Group manager of Floryl Florestadora YPE S.A

  Tvind says....  

"This is one of the few projects in Brazil, which to such a degree combines forestry of this magnitude, with preservation of natural areas and wildlife. and production of CO2 neutral energy...." More>>>

Floryl brochure

  Police say....  

"Floryl Florestadora YPE S.A. is a commercial enterprise, controlled by the defendants, where the profits accrue to the [Teachers Group's] treasury....." More >>>

2001 Danish Police report

  A farm the size of New York  

Making money for the Teachers Group

Floryl makes a lot of money for the Teachers Group. It is an enormous plantation of at least 92,000 hectares - around 350 square miles. This is around the same size as the City of New York, Berlin, or Dartmoor in the UK..

The land is planted with 36,000 hectares of eucalyptus and pine trees, and there are bananas, sugarcane, rice, citrus fruit and soya. There are 600 farm workers.

These products are sold in Europe, the United States, China and Brazil. The wood is exported through a Tvind-controlled company, McCorry and Co, and is used to make furniture and fence posts. You can read about the trade with Portugal here. Floryl also likely supplies wood to the Tvind enterprise in Shanghai, Trayton and Co.

  The 'biomass' power station....  

The Teachers Group's excuse for spending money intended for humanitarian causes on a commercial farm is that Floryl is, they say, a 'nature reserve' with a carbon-neutral, 'biomass' power station and 30,000 hectares of 'biological reserves. [Source: Floryl brochure]

It does not take long to show this to be a leap of the imagination. Its 'partner in environmental preservation and development' turns out to be none other than the Gaia-movement Trust Living Earth Green World Action - the Tvind-controlled enterprise, based in Chicago, which collects and sells old clothes for unspecified 'environmental projects'.

Danish police say the 'biomass' power station never existed as an environmental project and the farm is purely commercial. The Danish police report on Floryl is here.

 

  A workers' paradise?  

The Teachers Group is supposedly a humanitarian body dedicated to improving the lives of poor people around the world.

So what are conditions like for workers inside Floryl - and other Tvind plantations?

"No messing around with giving the land workers better housing, health care or education," comments Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet, reporting the Teachers Group's purchase of Floryl, in 1996.

"There is not a trace of humanity at Floryl," Father Moacir, a priest in the local town, Posse, tells the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in 2000.

"The Danes at Floryl suck their workers dry. They are a disgrace as employers. They don't deal in humanity, but in the worst kind of capitalism."

According to reports, agricultural workers at all Tvind plantations are routinely denied union representation, decent wages and adequate health care, and have sometimes been exposed to pesticides.