Planet Aid and the Teachers Group - Humana People-to-People Alert

  Our dossier on Planet Aid in the US and Canada  

  Our dossier on Planet Aid in Britain  

  Planet Aid and the Teachers Group financial web  

  Planet Aid in Canada  

  Planet Aid and Tvind  

Planet Aid is a Tvind enterprise.

The object is apparently to collect old clothes for charity and train volunteers to Africa. But Planet Aid is not just a simple charity - it is an important source of income for the Tvind cult and part of a large multinational business.

Planet Aid 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, whose leaders are currently facing prosecution for alleged fraud in Europe and are in hiding from the police. Claims that there is no connection between Planet Aid and the Teachers Group are entirely false.

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

  What happens to the clothes?  

They are not given away to Africa. They are sold for a profit.

Most charities do this, but the Teachers Group has a unique financial system. It sells many of the clothes to its own offshore companies, we believe evading tax and creaming off most of the profit along the way to offshore accounts.

In Europe, journalists have discovered that the Teachers Group has been operating a financial scam 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 from Gaia goes to the Third World? Some, but probably not much..

  Planet Aid in the USA  

In the US since 1997. Around 6,000 collection bins in the US. Partnered with the Teachers Group's three north American colleges, IICD Massachsetts, IICD Michigan and Campus California TG. Volunteer students often spend time collecting or sorting clothes.

The US company is a not-for-profit registered as Planet Aid Inc. It has a Wall Street office run by a veteran Tvind Teacher, Mikael Norling, notorious in Denmark for his 1970s support of the Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. There are various local companies.

Last year (2005) Planet Aid turned over about $9 million. We believe most of the clothes collected by Planet Aid are sold on to Tvind commercial companies such as U'SAgain, Garson & Shaw, Holland House or ConMore BV, ending up in second hand clothes markets in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Read our dossier on the Tvind-controlled used clothes trade.

Until recently, many of the clothes collected by Planet Aid in the US were sold to a Dutch company, EC Tradng, also a Teachers Group-controlled enterprise. EC Trading suddenly went bankrupt in 2000 owing millions of dollars. Large amounts of money 'owed' to Planet Aid Inc has never been accounted for. Dutch financial experts have been examining the case. EC Trading has since been replaced by the Teachers group-controlled ConMore bv. Read our dossier on EC Trading. (to come)

  Planet Aid in Britain  

Registered as a company Planet Aid UK (not a charity) no 3655609 in October 1998, with addresses in Sheffield UK and London. Birgit Soe (Secretary & Director) Tamworth, Staffs.

Planet Aid UK is closely linked with the Teachers Group-controlled CICD College at Winestead Hall, Patrington, near Hull. Volunteer students often spend time collecting or sorting clothes.

Like the US operation, we believe many of the clothes collected by Planet Aid UK are sold on to Tvind commercial and offshore companies such as Garson & Shaw, Holland House or ConMore BV, ending up in second hand clothes markets in Russia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Read our dossier on the Tvind-controlled used clothes trade.

Similarly, Planet Aid UK also sold clothes to the Teachers Group-controlled Dutch company EC Trading, which suddenly went bankrupt in 2000 owing millions of dollars. Read our dossier on EC Trading.

  Who runs Planet Aid UK?  

The founding directors were Birgit Soe and her husband Torben Soe (both veteran TG Teachers and associates of Amdi Peteresen - Torben Soe runs sister TG company Green World Recycling), Jesper Wohlert, a TG member who now runs Humana in Spain and Portugal, and TG member Merete Utke Schioler, who also ran the Humana clothes plant at Bunnik in Holland.

Birgit Soe is the TG managing director of Planet Aid. Torben Soe and Birgit Soe were both educated and indoctrinated within the Tvind system. They both worked for years at Tvind colleges and clothes companies in Scandinavia for many years, and are regarded as trusted members of the Teachers Group.

INSIDE PLANET AID UK  -    BY AN ANONYMOUS WORKER

A trade body, the Textile Recycling Association, and a sub-group that represents charity clothes recyclers, Recyclatex have both expressed serious concerns about  Planet Aid and the other Tvind companies.

In Britain, the Times reports that giant supermarket chain Asda has evicted Planet Aid bins from its store car parks (4th Sept 2006) Full report

  Is that Planet Aid container legal?  

Planet Aid's cynical, uncooperative management style and sometimes fly-by-night tactics are a source of real concern to official charities such as Scope, the Salvation Army and Oxfam, who have to put up with this unlicensed competitor.

Donations to genuine charities have dropped in areas where Planet Aid bins are placed. The company is also a headache for supermarkets and local councils.

Planet Aid clothes banks are frequently illegally sited on public land or outside supermarkets without official permission and in defiance of local agreements. Sometimes Planet Aid banks arrive at night but attempts to remove them have been met with threats of legal action.

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In Kettering, Planet Aid has upset bona fide charities and the local authority by placing large numbers of containers in the town. It was referred to Northamptonshire Trading Standards department after claiming to be a charity - so far the council has been unable to act.

  The offshore companies  

Planet Aid is hardly a straight forward charity. It belongs to an $860m family of enterprises controlled by the Tvind Teachers Group.

The Teachers Group controls three 'charity' used clothes collectors in the United States and Britain. It also controls several commercial clothes trading concerns, and several colleges which provide it with cheap labour.

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 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.

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

  Who gets the clothes?  

They are not given away - they are sold.

Most charities sell donated clothes, but the Teachers Group has a unique system. It sells many of the clothes to its own offshore companies, we believe evading tax and creaming off most of the profit for itself, often as 'operating costs'.

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

The General Manager, Fred Olsson, is fond of telling journalists that Planet Aid is an independent charity and has nothing to do with Tvind or its leader, Amdi Petersen.

In fact, Fred Olsson has worked within Tvind and been a Teachers Group member for many years. In 1980 he helped set up UFF, the Teachers Group recycling enterprise in Sweden. See newspaper articles about UFF in Sweden. Fred Olsson is surely a caring individual but he is misleading people when he says Planet Aid is unconnected with Tvind!

Most other senior managers at Planet Aid are equally clearly Tvind members. The directors and officers listed in the Planet Aid 2003 Annual Report are almost all members of the Tvind Teachers Group, and are in fact often employed in running other Tvind enterprises in the USA. The key TG members are:

Mikael Norling (chairman) - Planet Aid founder. A TG member and close associate of Amdi Petersen, notorious for his support of Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot in the 1970s. He now fundraises for Planet Aid on Wall Street.

Ester Neltrup (president) - co-founder, and a former principal of IICD Massachusetts.

Jytte Martinussen (treasurer) - also educational director of IICD Massachusetts

Eva Nielsen (director) - also runs Gaia

Bob Dzere - (director) program director at IICD Michigan

www.planetaid.org

A Better Business Bureau assessment of Planet aid Inc

Ayuda el Planeta: Planet Aid in central America.

  US and Canada media reports  

Toronto Star:(26th April 2002) 'Charity collected gave $1.7m, gave $0.'

The Commons, Windham County, Connecticut (1st June 2006): Planet Raid? by Les Kozaczek. (PDF) " According to Planet Aid’s 2004 tax return, the corporation listed gross sales of $9,968,728 and expenses of $9,689,682, even though all of the merchandise Planet Aid sold was acquired for free." The report also notes that "the hairsbreadth profit margin that Planet Aid recorded on this tax return, and the typically small margins it has filed over the years" have concerned local people.

Lawrence Journal-World, Kansas (2nd April 2006): Investigation into Planet Aid.

The Pitch, Kansas (12th May 2005): Boxed In? Used-clothing collectors Planet Aid say they’re not in a cult. By Bryan Noonan.

Baltimore City Paper (20th October 2004): Adventures in the Rag Trade - Do Clothes Dropped Into Planet Aid Boxes Support International Aid or an International For-Profit Scheme? By Erin Sullivan.

Chicago Tribune (12th Feb 2004): The Green Bins of Gaia. Major two part investigation into Gaia recycling. Makes the link between Gaia and Planet Aid. By David Jackson and Monica Eng.

Boston Globe (April 7th 2002): 'Planet Aid's Work Draws Worldwide Scrutiny'. By Farah Stockman.

Boston Magazine (Oct 2000): 'Mission Control' - in-depth feature on the Teachers group. "In the USA In 1970, a group of Danish hippies set out on a mission to save the world. Thirty years later, some of the young acolytes they recruited claim the group has become a cult, amassing riches in the hundreds of millions of dollars under the direction of an elusive and mysterious founder. Now, with recruiting efforts reaching into the United States, ex-members say the mission is no longer to save the world but to conquer it. North American headquarters? Massachusetts." By Jay Cheshes