Humana People-to-People Alert

  Our investigations  

  The financial web  

Green World Recycling is hardly a straight forward charity. It belongs to an $860m network of enterprises controlled by the Tvind Teachers Group.

The Teachers Group controls a multitude of 'charity' used clothes collectors all over the world - Humana, Gaia, Planet Aid, and DAPP and other names.

It also controls many commercial clothes trading concerns, which trade with the charities. . And it controls many schools and colleges which sometimes provide cheap labour for sorting and packing the clothes.

Ultimately, all these charities, companies and colleges are connected to a network of Tvind-controlled, tax-efficient offshore companies.

  The fraud trial  

This is the very same network of offshore companies that is at the heart of the current European fraud trial against Amdi Petersen (left) and five other leaders of the Teachers Group organisation - an alleged cult.

Petersen, the founder of Tvind and the Teachers Group, and the man alleged to have benefited by millions of dollars over the years, is currently charged with fraud and on the run from Danish police.

One of the allegations is that money given to charity in good faith by Tvind supporters has been used to buy land, property and businesses

See our report on the fraud trial, and the 2001 Danish police report.

  Who gets the clothes?  

They are sold - not given away.

Most charities sell donated clothes, but the Teachers Group has a unique system. It sells many of the clothes to its own brokers and offshore companies. We believe that by doing this its members are in a position to evade tax and cream off large profits, often as 'operating costs'.

In Europe, journalists have reported on a Teachers Group financial scam which has operated for years. For a clear explanation, read Michael Bjerre's article on Humana Holland in the Danish newspaper, Berlingske Tidende (24th Aug 2002).

How much money goes to the Third World? Some, but probably not much. Read our dossier on the Tvind used clothes trade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The story of Green World  

Green World Recycling is one of five known Teachers Group enterprises in the UK - three clothes collection operations, a school and a company linked to landholdings in St Lucia, in the Caribbean.

It was founded in April, 1998. The date is significant because around this time, the original Teachers Group clothes enterprise in Britain, Humana UK, was in the process of being closed down for fraud by the Charity Commission.

 

 

When Humana's clothes bins and shops were no longer available to the Teachers Group, it needed a new clothes operation in the UK. Green World Recycling was created to fill the gap and new Teachers were drafted in to run it.

Green World Recycling does everything Humana did - collects and sell used clothes to eastern Europe and maintains links with other Teachers Group enterprises (such as the CICD college near Hull) and the DAPP projects in Africa. Except that Green World is a business, not a charity.

And, like the other scores of Teachers Group clothes recycling enterprises, we believe that Green World maintains a close and disturbing financial link with the Teachers Group offshore companies. 

Investigation has shown a complex relationship with at least one Teachers Group offshore business, Holland House, based in Gibraltar. Green World sells many of its clothes to the US-based commercial enterprise Garson and Shaw - another company the Teachers Group itself runs, and staffed by one of Green World's founders, Ann Jonsson (see right)

Please help us keep this page up to date. Email new information to: contact@humana-alert.com

  The Offshore Companies  

  A paper chase 

The mystery of Holland House

In 2000, Tvind Alert was covertly approached by one of Green World's employees - its then general manager, Edward Dyson.

Mr Dyson had suspicions about the company he worked for and its Danish directors. He found it hard to believe as much money was going to charity as Green World claimed.

We were unaware of Green World at this stage but soon established it was controlled by the Teachers Group.

It turned out to have a complex relationship with a company in Gibraltar, Holland House Ltd. Holland House seemed to be buying many of the clothes, or at least remitting large and regular sums to Green World.

Holland House is a Teachers Group offshore company and is probably one of a large and complex family of Teachers Group clothes businesses registered either in the Netherlands, Jersey, or Gibraltar.

The trail became tortuous. Dyson also gave us a book - about game parks in Africa. By studying this, we were able to establish a link with the even more mysterious Gaia -Movement Trust Living Earth Green World Action - in Zimbabwe (see right)

Edward Dyson has since left Green World recycling and started his own used-clothes collection not-for-profit company which, it goes without saying, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Teachers Group - and makes significant donations to charity..

 

Read our dossier on Gaia and
the Swiss mail drop

The Independent on Sunday, Charity's Recycling Claims Mislead Public, 17/12/2000

  The Swiss mail-drop  

The 'environmental projects' that never were, the Swiss mailbox, and the wildlife reserve that isn't

In 2000, Green World Recycling boxes had large posters pasted on the side. These were produced by Gaia and carried an extravagently-worded manifesto (left) promising that clothes donations would fund projects ranging from eco-tourism to wildlife reserves. Click to enlarge.

Gaia is a name used by the Teachers Group in the United States.

We checked out Gaia''s claims for charity work. There was no evidence of any 'environmental projects' at all.

The posters mentioned the Gaia-Movement Trust, with a Swiss flag. We were given a privately-printed book purporting to be by Gaia, describing work at a game park in Africa. But calls to southern Africa failed to verify the existence of any supposed 'game parks' or environmental schemes at all.

Eventually the trail led to a Swiss mailbox company that had been set up by several members of the Teachers Group in 1998, using an accommodation address near Geneva Airport.

One of the trustees - not a Teachers Group member, as far as we know - was a British-born lawyer, Michael Rogers. He told Tvind Alert he knew nothing of an environmental charity and merely forwarded mail. The address he sent letters on to turned out to be a much-used TG address in Amsterdam.

 

 

 

 

  A story about Torben Soe  

The best story we know about Soe comes from whistleblower Steen Thomsen, the ex-headteacher of Tvind's now-closed Winestead Hall School.

Thomsen tells the story to illustrate that Amdi Petersen, the Teachers Group leader, has over his disciples. As Thomsen tells it, he and Soe were both present at Teachers Group meeting in Denmark in the 1980s. Petersen was making a speech.

Petersen's address went on a bit. Soe fell asleep.

Petersen spotted Soe, and flew into a rage. He called on Soe to stand up and, Maoist-style, publicly confess and explain his lack of commitment. And there was more. 'To make sure you don't go back to sleep, you will stand up for the rest of the meeting,' Petersen declared. And, like a naughty child, Soe did.

  here  

  Green World Recycling and the Teachers Group  

Green World Recycling Ltd is a Teachers Group enterprise.

This UK-registered company is based in Corby and Sheffield. It collects old clothes, apparently for charity. But Green World Recycling is a business, not a registered charity - and it is far from being a straight forward business. It must be seen as part of the $860 million Teachers Group international commercial empire.

Green World Recycling is controlled by the Teachers Group, a body tainted by allegations of criminal financial misconduct. The Teachers Group is an international organisation based in Zimbabwe and Mexico, whose leaders are currently facing prosecution for alleged fraud in Europe and are in hiding from the police. You have been told there is no connection between Green World Recycling and Tvind or the Teachers Group? That not just misleading - it's false..

  Who runs Green World?  

Torben Soe (director and company secretary). Dane resident on England, and married to Birgit Soe, who runs one of the other two Teachers Group clothes enterprises in the UK, Planet Aid UK. Both are Teachers group members.

Rolf Jakobsson (director). His address is given as Winestead, Hull - we believe he is a teacher at the Teachers Group college, CICD, there.

Ulla Praestgaard (director) Address given as Skoerboerk, Denmark, strongly suggesting she is a Teachers Group director.

Ann Margaret Jonsson (former director). Jonsson was a founder in 1998 but is no longer listed as a director. At that time Jonsson was resident in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, where we believe she was selling clothes, possibly through a Jersey or Amsterdam-registered Teachers Group company, Holland Trading (now dissolved). She has since moved to the United States and is now a manager of the Teachers Group clothes enterprise Garson and Shaw.

Marianne Korbmann (former director). Korbmann's address was given in 1998 as St Petersburg, Russia, where we believe she was running a Teachers Group clothes sales operation. We are not aware of Korbmann's present whereabouts.