Mogens Amdi Petersen

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

File:1978-09-03 Tvindkraft.jpg

Mogens Amdi Petersen, (Born January 9, 1939 in Tønder ), is the supreme leader of the Tvind Teachers Group, a body that describes itself as ‘humanitarian’ initiative to aid poverty in the Third World. He and colleagues stand accused of cheating on charitable commitments, defrauding hundreds of their own supporters, and evading tax through money laundering.

Background

Mogens Amdi Petersen graduated from a teachers college in Haderslev in 1961. (Amdi Petersen is his family name, but since Amdi is as uncommon as Mogens and Petersen (sometimes referred to as Pedersen) are common, he is known to the public as just "Amdi".)

He served as a soldier 1961-62 (artillery) and the moved to Odense where he got a job teaching in a school called Kroggårdsskolen. He attracted some attention from the media because he was one of the driving forces behind a collectively owned villa with lots of left winged activities, art exhibitions etc. This experimental left-wing commune supported the anti-apartheid movement, the anti nuclear bomb movement etc.

After two years of teaching in 1965 his position was up for debate by the board of education in northern Odense like any other young teacher. It should have been a routine case since he was very well liked by his pupils, his colleagues and his headmaster, but the board of education didn't like his looks so they denied further employment of Amdi Petersen. The chairman specifically stated: "We don't like his long hair!" It was on the outside a question of hygiene, on the inside of politics. This version of the story has later been revised. It seems as if Amdi Petersen was dismissed because of improper behaviour towards female students.

In 1967/1968 Amdi and his experimental left-wing commune had their first world tour by bus to India, Hong Kong, Australia and Tahiti. Returning to Denmark, Petersen and his friends painted the words, “Traveling folk high school,” on the door of another old bus and drove it from Europe through Africa.

in 1970 Amdi Petersen's starts the The Teacher's Group. It's his brilliant idea that distinguishes Tvind and Humana People-to-People from every other volunteering organisation.

In essence it's a club - a collective of like-minded people, who have agreed between themselves to further the revolution (or save the world, or whatever) by pooling their energy and resources. This entails a huge financial, emotional and psychological commitment. TG members follow three precepts: Common Economy, Common Time and Common Distribution. It is now a worldwide phenomenon: at any one time there are a few hundred adherents. Some people have spent all their adult lives living the TG way.

In 1972 Amdi and his Teacher's group bought a small farm in western Jutland called Tvind. There they built several schools including a teachers college. All the schools received public subsidies according to the very liberal danish law of education. The teachers college is called Det Nødvendige Seminarium (DNS) (English: The Necessary Teacher Training College) and is still educating europeans students who want to become a teacher.

The alternative schools are a huge success with European youth. Over the next ten years, more than a dozen are built on the same model in Denmark and abroad. The schools become the focus for a movement is known as 'Tvind', and Amdi Petersen is its leader.....

1979 he left all official positions within the Tvind organisation. He hasn't been seen publically since. In 2002 some pictures of him have been printed. There is no doubt though that he still plays a crucial role in controlling the vast empire. He is a charimatic leader. He travels around the world, mainly in the Caribbean, Denmark and southern Africa. His official adress until 2001 was Skorkærvej 8, Ulfborg.

The creation of Tvind

See article about Tvind for more information

Tvind was founded c. 1970 by Mogens Amdi Petersen, then a young, radical idealist. Petersen is said to have collected about 40 followers and established a government-funded alternative school system for troubled youth in Denmark.

In 1972 the Tvind base was founded in West Jutland on a plot of farming land called Tvind, where several schools were built as well as a teachers training college. At that time, all of Tvind's schools received public subsidies in accordance with the very liberal education laws in Denmark.^[19]

It is located in the countryside near Ulfborg in Western Jutland, Denmark - 12 km from the North Sea.

The Teachers group

The Tvind Teachers group is an extreme political movement, which is covertly and unknowingly being financed by public donations and by charity collections on the streets of European and American cities. It looks like a regular humanitarian body. but it is accused of siphonning off millions of dollars of public money from governments, charities and foreign aid budgets, and passing the cash into its own secret offshore accounts.

The Tvind Teachers Group appears to be a humanitarian movement. Its is the owner and beneficiary of a number of well-known international charities – which could be down your street – including Humana People-to-People, Planet Aid, the Gaia Movement Trust, UFF and DAPP.

Further afield, it owns and organises private schools, educational institutes, volunteering schemes andrecycling enterprises in the Third World, has subsidiaries in more than 50 countries and bases in Mexico,Switzerland, Zimbabwe and Denmark.

Arrest and controversies

A host of Danish journalists have been on Petersen’s trail since his disappearance. In Autumn 2001 journalists linked him to a luxury penthouse in Miami – just one example of the luxurious lifestyle he is believed to have enjoyed. But Petersen remained elusive.

News of Petersen’s allies made his story even more tantalising to the Danish media. For many years he’s been friend and ally to Robert Mugabe, who has helped him establish numerous money-making enterprises in Zimbabwe. Tvind has supported many “interesting” regimes over the years – from Pol Pot to Gaddafi.

A long investigation by Danish police into alleged tax evasion and fraud in one of Tvind’s charitable organisations culminated in an international arrest warrant being issued for Petersen.

The arrest of Mogens Amdi Petersen in Los Angeles at 1:30 AM on Sunday comes almost exactly two months to the date after Holstebro Police secretly had international arrest warrant issued on him.

Mogens Amdi Petersen’s arrest comes after police has been investigating a number of Tvind people including Mogens Amdi Petersen and Tvind CEO, Poul Jørgensen.

The two are, along with five other Tvind members charged with gross abuse of trust and tax abuse amounting to 75 million DKK.

In April 2002 the investigation reached a climax when police raided eight central Tvind locations nation-wide. During the subsequent search police confiscated a number of computers, including one belonging to Mogens Amdi Petersen. Several hundreds of thousands of documents have been found on the computers, including some that according to police prove the alleged misuse of the funds taken from Tvind’s humanitarian trust.

Mogens Amdi Petersen and his five co-defendants are under suspicion for having deceived the taxation authorities by using the trust money unlawfully. The contributions to the trust were tax-exempt because they were to be spent on not-for-profit schemes, but the police suspects Amdi Petersen and his people instead used the tax-free millions on Brazilian plantations and a TV project in Oceania.

Amdi Petersen was extradited to Denmark on Sep. 19, 2002.

Petersen is said to have pleaded guilty to a number of charges, but on Sep. 1, 2006, a court convicted Sten Bryner, the financial controller of several Tvind-related companies, of both embezzlement and tax fraud. Mogens Amdi Peterson and six others were acquited.

Prosecutors immediately said it was likely that they would appeal. They now are said to have additional evidence against Petersen and the other men who were acquitted. At the time of this writing two have been served writs but the other five, Petersen included, are believed to have left Denmark.

In May 2016, the world news media looks set to tell the full story of the Tvind Teachers Group.

A major US broadcaster and a team of top investigative journaliststoday published serious, detailed stories exposing the Tvind Teachers Group’s financial dealings and activities of its top leadership in the USA.

The emergence of the story likely means the public will now become much more widely aware of the controversy attached to Tvind Teachers Group affiliates Planet Aid, Humana People-to-People, Gaia Movement and USAgain, and serious allegations of fraud, theft and money laundering.

Petersen is now on the run—wanted by Interpol—after the Danish government charged him with charities fraud and tax evasion.

Danish authorities seized more than 80 computers from Petersen and the Teachers Group and, according to the Danish court records, found a document where Petersen instructed his closest followers to ensure funds collected by their charities “are placed so that at any time they are available to us, that they are never available to others, that they are protected from theft, taxation and prying by unauthorized persons” and to “lay down a twisted access path with only ourselves as compass holders.”

In those court documents, Danish prosecutors allege Teachers Group members were instructed to sign documents pledging to “transfer all their available income to joint savings” while also promising to let the Teachers Group decided where they work and to “forgo their personal rights, such as the right to start a family to their own wish.”