Old clothes

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AUGUST 2002:   DANISH COOP SUPERMARKETS BAN UFF/HUMANA CONTAINERS

But who profits from this trade in western cast-offs?  Is it really the poor farmers and children of the Third World?   Or is there a money-go-round that ultimately benefits the Teachers Group and its top leaders most? (see panel, right)

Stories and evidence coming in to Tvind Alert suggest there is far more to Tvind's recycling business than simply aid.    Clothes are passed from one Tvind company to another, money transfers are made between companies and offshore tax havens, and charity projects prove impossible to trace.

Disillusioned Tvind insiders and embittered employees have now started coming forward with information about Tvind's web of offshore companies.

Tvind has often refused to comply with requests for information about its trade and there must be serious doubt about  the accuracy of statements it makes about the quantities of clothes it handles.  It frequently ignores local regulations and has been accused of flouting EC export rules.   In Denmark, France and Britain, and now Sweden, it has been in serious trouble with authorities over tax evasion and irregular book-keeping.

In Britain, the Charity Commission removed charity status from Humana after inspectors found cause for concern  -  little of the money from selling clothes was going to charity and it was impossible to prove any of it was actually going to Africa.  Read about the closure of Humana UK here.    (Two years later, Tvind is back  under the names 'Planet Aid UK' and 'Green World Recycling'  -   and money is going into private bank accounts, not to charity.    Read about Green World Recycling here.)

In 1990, the Swedish development agency SIDA investigated UFF and found only 2% of its profits left the Tvind organisation.   The Valdelin Report.  Today, according to insiders, much of the clothing is profitably sold in Eastern Europe, especially Romania, the Ukraine and Russia.   In Sweden, UFF has again come under investigation by a newspaper for alleged fraud (December 2001 - see below)

Using distinctive wooden collection boxes in car parks, supermarkets and  gas stations, Tvind collects thousands of tons of used clothes every year under a variety of names   -      in Europe, North America and southern Africa.   The clothes are taken to regional depots for sorting.    In some countries good quality clothes are sold locally, otherwise they are traded on the old-clothes market, or shipped to dealers in the third world.

Volunteers, students and low-paid staff are used to collect and sort the clothes and man the shops.      The clothes companies are almost exclusively run by members of the Teachers Group, who are often directors of several different Tvind companies.

 

See:  newspaper archive

 

    Report links Amdi Petersen directly to old-clothes scam

    UFF Sweden accused of fraud   Dagens Nyheter, December 29th 2001 by Juian Flores and Nuri Kino.   Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's biggest daily paper, reported that the Tvind used clothes charity UFF in Sweden is falsifying its accounts and making misleading claims about its turnover and profits.    Huge amounts of money are unaccounted for by proper charity standards.   The paper reported that UFF was 'supporting Mogens Amdi Petersen's Tvind cult'.   Special investigation, 

    Humana accused of exporting waste    from Eindhoven Dagblad, Holland, December 2001  by Han Gommeren       European Union regulations outlaw the export from EU countries to Eastern Europe of 'waste' including waste or unsorted clothes.    Since Eindhoven Dagblad began enquiries, Garson and Shaw Inc removed information about trading in Europe from its website.   Tvind Alert has a copy.

    Charity's recycling claims mislead public  from the Independent on Sunday, London, 17th December 2000.   By Michael Durham

Investigative article discovers links between Green World Recycling and the discredited Humana UK, a Tvind charity closed down in 1998.    Although it claims to support 18 different environmental aims, the investigation did not find any evidence for environmental work or charity of any kind.    The company is not a charity and money appeared to be passing between the UK and the Holland House company in Jersey, and to a mailbox in Switzerland that proved to be linked to Tvind in Amsterdam.

    Humana makes big money with collected clothes   from Rotterdam Dagblad, Holland, 18th February 1995   by Jolande van der Graaf.       Ace investigative reporter Jolande van der Graaf persisted in her questions and came up with this report on Humana Holland's international business links.

 

Bankruptcy of Textile Transformation EC Trading BV   (Holland).

This important Tvind used-clothes company went bankrupt owing 1.4 million in May 2000 - mostly to other Tvind companies.   Directors and shareholders (who were members of the Teachers Group) benefited by millions of Guilders in the years before the sudden bankruptcy.

How does Tvind's used clothes money-go-round-work?

The first principle is that Tvind almost always buys and sells to itself.   Some money goes to Africa.  But there is also huge potential to massage the figures.  This  'insider trading' allows real profits to become 'losses', money to be diverted to different ends and creates an impenetrable paper-chase.

Humana collects donated clothes free and sells them to used-clothes companies.   But the used-clothes companies also belong to Tvind.    These companies sell to other Tvind companies and so on.   At the end of the line the clothes are sold to shops which may be paying over the odds, or perhaps they are Tvind-owned.

One person who has investigated Tvind for many years believes the Tvind system works like this:

1. Clothes are donated to the Humana, UFF, Green World or Planet Aid Charity (owner of the collection bins)

2. Bins are emptied by the local Humana Collection Center.

3. Humana sorts clothing or sells it directly to eastern Europe.   Sorted clothes that cannot be used in Africa are sold to eastern Europe, except best part of clothes, which go to Humana shops.

4. The sales agent, Garson & Shaw, tells the expedient whom to sell the clothes to.

5. Truck is loaded. Transport papers are filled out with a statistical value which is far less than real value of clothes.  (This is borne out by the fact that in the UK, Tvind has been reluctant to provide figures for its tonnage.)

6. Buyer receives clothes, but no invoice from Humana Collection Centre.

7. Humana sends invoice to G&S, price per kg about x.

8. G&S sends different invoice to local agent in the country the clothes have been sold to. Price per kg about double the amount on the first invoice

9. Recipient of clothes pays agent in local country.  Remember the price is, say,  twice what G&S quoted.    The local agent may be a Tvind operative.   

11. Local Agent pays G&S the bigger figure

12. G&S pays Collection Centre the smaller figure minus a charge for the agent's service.

The recipient seems to be ripped of, but will not know it, as there is no direct contact between seller and buyer.    Also, the companies buying clothes are supposed to be Tvind-Companies, then selling the clothes to the local market in Poland, Ukraine, Romania and so on.

As those clothes are sold unsorted and nothing goes to Africa, the orders from Humana HQ are, that the seller has to transfer a big percentage of the money earned as a donation to the Charity. They say they will buy Clothes in Greece or Portugal, Europe's largest sorting centres with a high output in Summer-Clothing suitable for Africa. Of course, the Collection Centre will never know if any clothes at all are bought from that money. 

It is significant that Tvind used-clothes trading companies often change their names, go in and out of receivership and liquidation, or go bankrupt.   They are often in offshore tax havens like Jersey.

Tvind companies are often under investigation or in trouble for breaking some regulation or other.     In some cases they have been closed down.   Many Tvind companies deny any connection with Tvind, but the secret lies in the of the names of the directors - all members of Amdi Petersen's Teachers Group.

Among the most important Tvind clothes trading companies at the present time are Holland House (Jersey), Garson and Shaw (USA) and ConMore bv (Holland), along with a dozen or more in different countries.

 

What are the proceeds of Tvind clothes sales really used for?

According to former Teachers Group member Britta Junge, a lot of the projects in Africa and South America were deliberately started as a source of income for the TG after 1992, when the Danish state stopped funding Tvind.

Money raised from old clothes sales in Europe was 'recycled' through the foreign aid projects and returned to the Humanitarian Fund, a new Tvind foundation.     It worked like this:  money raised by the clothes was used  to 'pay' high salaries to project leaders in Africa.   But because of the 'common time, common money' agreement, the TG project leaders never actually saw  the money.    Speaking to Danish Television, she described how she had to carry a suitcase filled with dollars,  from Africa to Vejle in Denmark,  where the Humanitarian Foundation was located.   She delivered the money to a man called Niels Holst.

Following a documentary on Danish Television this year, Danish police raided Tvind, and are now prosecuting four top leaders for fraud and tax evasion.

Britta Junge's story

Danish Police charges

 

Tvind used-clothes companies

Tvind has scores of companies in the clothes and textile trade:    companies that collect used clothes given by the public; companies that trade in used clothes; companies that transport them; companies that sell them; companies that make the collection boxes and even companies that make new clothes.   Many of these companies are in offshore tax havens and trade with each other, so ensuring that money stays within the Tvind system to be spent as the Teachers Group wishes.

 

 

See also: Tvind companies

Click here for a maps of Tvind used clothes companies in Europe and North America

These companies are all run by members of the Teachers Group

     Humana      (Europe)

 

 

Humana France ceased operating c1995 after Humana-Tvind was declared a cult ('une secte') by the French parliament and tax authorities declared it was liable to tax as a commercial operation, not a charity.

Humana UK was closed down by the Charity Commission in 1997-8 after an investigation into serious financial irregularities

    UFF    (Ulandshjaelp fra Folk til Folk)    (Scandinavia)

UFF Denmark
UFF Finland
UFF Norway
UFF Sweden

Started in 1977 to collect old clothes in solidarity with liberation movements in southern Africa.

 

   Planet Aid Inc       (USA)

Large company started in 1997 by members of the Teachers Group trained in Europe over previous 10-20 years.   Planet Aid is believed to have a number of subsidiary local, state-registered companies and not-for-profits.    Many locations mainly on eastern seaboard.      Sells to Garson & Shaw.

   U'SAgain         (USA)

 

Commercial clothes collection company with environmental recycling slant, collecting in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Minneapolis, St Louis, Chicago and Seattle.    Run by the Teachers' Group; clothes are sold to Garson & Shaw, another TG company.

     Planet Aid UK     (UK) and         Green World Recycling     (UK)

Twin companies, successors to disbanded Humana UK, run by husband-and-wife team from Denmark, bioth members of the Teachers Group.     Companies under investigation by Department of Trade and Industry over charitable nature of work.    Also subjects of complaints to Charity Commission.

    Gaia Living Earth Movement Green World Action (USA)      (Chicago, USA)

 

Charity clothes collection 'for the environment' along similar lines to Green World Recycling in the UK, and likewise linked to the same 'Gaia' Trust in Switzerland  -  no known environmental projects and as of December 2000, nothing given to charity outside the Teachers Group.

   Garson & Shaw, Inc    (Atlanta, USA)

Runs a network of Tvind clothes trading companies, with sales agents in eastern Europe, Africa and India.     This company is the link between Tvind's ''charity' clothes collections and ultimate clothes sales.    The Garson and Shaw companies buy from one set of Tvind companies (Humana and UFF in Europe, Planet Aid, U'SAgain and Gaia in the United States) and re-sell the clothes to another set of Tvind companies, and Tvind agents in eastern Europe, Africa and India.

A correspondent writes:  The thing you don't write about Garson and Shaw is the most upsetting bit.   They get the clothes cheap from Humana, then they go to the clients of Humana and sell them at the normal price.   Even though for example Planet Aid in the states could sell its clothes directly it chooses to make less money for the charity and instead take this money which they would have to account for being a registered charity and give it to Garson and Shaw which is a private company.   In this way they can take 100 % of the profit they could have made to help people and put it directly into teachers group coffers.  They actually run in direct competition undercutting the charities sales network

 

   Garson & Shaw Ltd      (London)

 

Rumoured to be little more than a fax machine in a rented office in Canary Wharf Tower

    ConMore bv          (Holland)

 

Company with extensive links abroad, run by Fleming Gustaffson

 

  Holland House   (Gibraltar and Jersey, Channel Isles)

 

Key offshore used-clothes trading company, with associated companies in eastern Europe including the Ukraine and Romania.

 

Dissolved and bankrupt companies

Many other companies have gone out of business, some owing large sums of money.  In some cases the principal creditors are other Tvind companies, suggesting that the bankruptcy of Tvind clothes companies is a way of creaming off 'charitable' donations to support the Teachers Group, while avoiding tax.     (Under detailed construction - further information would be appreciated).  See the full (under construction) list of Tvind companies.

 

 

Why you should think twice before donating old clothes to Planet Aid

1.   You may believe the clothes are given away  -   in fact, most are sold in Europe, America and Eastern Europe, even in Africa

2.   There is little transparency or proper accountability for the money

3.   Donating clothes does not always directly benefit  projects abroad, the proceeds may go 'into the pot'.   Tvind maintains a network of offshore companies.

4.   Tvind has secretly invested in businesses, land and property abroad.  Where did the money come from for these investments?

5.   The British Charity Commission found evidence that Tvind aid projects in Africa  were 'double funded'   -  they may have been paid for by someone else, not from the sale of clothes.

6.   Humana Charity shops in the UK were shut down because so little of the profits were going to charity and there were fears that money was being misappropriated.

7.   SIDA stopped making grants to UFF in Sweden because only 2 per cent of the money it raised actually left the Tvind organisation