San Juan de las Pulgas, Mexico

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exclusive to tvindalert.com by Frede Jakobsen and Michael Durham

Pictures © copyright www.tvindalert.com. All rights reserved.

Danish police and the Danish Public Prosecutor can't find him. He constantly evades an international arrest warrant. But here he is (above) - photographed a few weeks ago in a remote area of Mexico. This is the moment a photographer captured the fugitive Teachers Group leader, Mogens Amdi Petersen, looking over his new $10 million 'retirement mansion', at San Juan de las Pulgas in the Baja California region.

Petersen (pictured left in Denmark, August 2006) is the inspiration and leader of Humana People-to-People and the Tvind movement - and undisputed leader of the Teachers Group. And he is on the run - for the second time in his long 'career' as a cult leader and bogus 'philanthropist'. This time he went underground in September 2006 - covertly leaving Denmark to avoid a re-trial on charges of tax fraud for millions of dollars. The picture on the left is one of the last taken of him in Denmark before he fled, outside the courtroom.

With other fugitives from the law, Petersen was initially believed to be hiding at the Humana People-to-People HQ at Shamwa, Zimbabwe, protected by his old friend, the Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe.

But on this particular day he was in San Juan de las Pulgas looking over the new temple-like beachside property complex, TG Pacifico, which comes complete with cathedral-like assembly area, exhibition space, gymnasium, squash courts, swimming pool and helipad, which has just been completed on a 740-hectare estate south of Ensanada.

According to reliable sources who have contacted Tvind Alert, Petersen and his girlfriend Kirsten Larsen (number two in the TG hierarchy) fly regularly between Johannesburg in South Africa and Mexico.

However there is reason to believe that Petersen may be living permanently at the complex in Mexico. Petersen has now evaded the law for a year and a half. But that is nothing to him - last time around, he was missing for 22 years, until police arrested him at Los Angeles International Airport on 17th February 2002 and charged him with fraud.

In our photo (top), taken in November 2007, the all-powerful Teachers Group leader cuts a humble figure, standing outside the group on the far right listening while the Teachers Group manager at Las Pulgas, Birgitte Krohn (yellow trousers), explains the building to some important visitors. Petersen looks old and tired - he was 68 years old when this photograph was taken, and reached 69 on January 9th - and is stooped with age. His white hair appears to have been dyed a dark colour.

He must be looking forward to retirement in his new luxury retreat.

Slideshow: more pictures of San Juan de las Pulgas

Read our dossier on TG Pacifico in Mexico

EXCLUSIVE - WE FIND FUGITIVE CULT LEADER AMDI PETERSEN
IN MEXICO

 

 San Juan de las Pulgas - the next Tvind HQ?  

 

A montage of the San Juan de las Pulgas complex

17th September 2006: The Teachers Group is secretly developing a massive $10m beachside property complex in northern Mexico - big enough to be its new world headquarters. More than 200 workers are putting the finishing touches to an impressive new building, complete with boardroom, exhibition space, gymnasium, squash courts and helipad, on a 740-hectare estate on the Pacific coast in Baja California.

The complex, big enough to house 300 staff, will be known as the Centro Autónomo de Desarrollo Global (CADG) - Independent Centre for Global Development) - or 'TG Pacifico'. It is located at San Juan de las Pulgas ranch in remote countryside 50km south of the city of Ensenada, on the Pacific coast south of Tijuana (Click maps to enlarge) .

The massive new administrative centre is at the heart of a large agricultural ranch bordering the Pacific Ocean, bought from Mexican landholders between 1999 and 2003 by a Mexican-Danish company called TG Pacifico. However the development is already controversial, amid claims of cheating, malpractice and corruption.

The TG members behind TG Pacifico are Bolette Gunst and Birgitte Khron - both known to be very senior members of Tvind's financial directorate.

Bolette Gunst, a Tvind 'Teacher' and graduate of the Necessary Teacher Training College, was a board member of the notorious Humanitarian Fund before its dissolution by Danish financial authorities in 2001. (She is the sister of Marlene Gunst, one of the Teachers Group leaders accused of fraud in the 2003-6 Humanitarian Fund fraud case.)

Birgitte Krohn is also a TG member regarded by Danish financial police as central to the Humanitarian Fund affair - she was a board member of IFAS, one of the alleged subsidiary 'environmental front companies' that police claimed was used to launder money. She was cited in the 2001 Danish police evidence, but never charged. In 2002 she was one of eight TG members seperately charged with money laundering in Belgium, but acquitted for lack of evidence.

The Humanitarian Fund fraud case, in which Amdi Petersen and several other TG leaders were accused of fraud by diverting charity money to buy property in Brazil, is the subject of an appeal to a higher court after a Danish local court delivered a not guilty verdict in August 2006.

The TG Pacifico project is one of the biggest ever started by the Teachers Group-Tvind-Humana, and shows that despite two court cases and massive adverse publicity - and its claims that it is an impoverished humanitarian movement that supports the poor - the organisation still has vast resources to deploy on big plantations and showcase developments.

In Mexico, the TG is already spending more on construction work at its new Mexican ranch than it spent buying the enormous Floryl plantation in Brazil - $10 million dollars, according to information passed to Humana Alert and confirmed by papers found on the Internet. The Mexican company behind the huge development is TG Pacifico SRL DE CV.

Under construction

Amdi Petersen was reported to be changing planes between Mexico and London when he was arrested by the FBI in Los Angeles in 2001, fuelling suspicion that the Teachers Group had a big project in the country. There have been suggestions that Humana People-to-People could move its HQ from Zimbabwe to Mexico when the dictator of the African country, Robert Mugabe, dies. Mugabe is a long-time friend and supporter of Petersen's Tvind movement.

The construction project in Mexico - a building of at least 8,000 sq metres and possibly as large as 25,000 sq metres - is so big that it has inspired reports and rumours among local people that Tvind is opening a mine - it appears the Teachers Group is building down as well as up, excavating huge amounts of soil from underground passages. While there is unlikely to be a mine, it suggests Tvind is excavating huge cellars under the property. Locals have said the ranch is guarded by 'men with arms'.

Like so many Tvind projects, the new development comes riddled through with controversy and allegations of fraud, malpractice and corruption. According to one account sent to Tvind Alert, the TG has been allowed to proceed with the development in spite of Mexican laws forbidding ownership of beachside properties by non-Mexicans, and ignored restrictions on drilling for water.

There are even allegations the TG does not have legal title for more than half the ranch. According to one informant, Gunst and Krohn acquired 557 hectares from an intermediary, who had recently left prison, who did not have legal title to the property - leaving the original owners dispossessed. "People call them 'The European Mafia'. There is no redress because they buy everybody - delegates, lawyers, authorities, more people than your mind can imagine," our informant alleged.

 Information on the web  

SkyscraperCity - web page in Spanish (skyscrapercity.com/archive/index.php/t-202884.html). The web page is now unavailable but a visit to the cache reveals many details of the 'megaproyecto' construction project (and photograph) in an exchange between officials.

Lores Rodríguez y Cía., S.C. - Mexican firm of Public Accountants and Business Consultants with offices throughout Mexico (http://www.lores.com.mx/ingles/index.html). The web page http://www.lores.com.mx/boletin/htmail/dinamarcaing.html indicates the company has one Danish client - TG Pacifico SRL DE CV. No further information.

Banamex - Mexican banking site (http://www.banamex.com/esp/noticias/20050418historico.html#). The news for 18th April 2005 has an intriguing item, Invertirá TG Pacífico 10 millones de dólares en Ensenada, but unfortunately the link does not work.

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Mexico

Revealed : The Teachers Group's latest
extravagant gesture to alleviate world
poverty - its $10m new headquarters

See our slideshow