Hundreds of green donation boxes started appearing all over the Chicago area

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-tvind-gaia-update-20110514,0,2640974.story

Clothing operations linked to controversial Danish group continue to thrive

Organizations linked to Tvind come under scrutiny

By Monica Eng, Tribune reporter

3:19 p.m. CDT, May 14, 2011

Some of the most ubiquitous clothing donation boxes in the nation are also the most controversial.

In 2004 the Tribune published an investigation on the hundreds of green donation boxes that had started appearing all over the Chicago area. It found they are connected to a Danish group called Tvind, and financial records showed that Gaia, the main Tvind-related organization in Chicago, was spending a very small percentage of its revenue on environmental projects.

Tvind's leader, Amdi Petersen, had been taken into custody in Los Angeles at the time and was extradited to Denmark to stand trial on embezzlement and tax evasion charges. A judge eventually found Petersen not guilty, but he left the country in 2006 before the government could file an appeal.

Since then, numerous other journalists have published or aired investigations into Tvind-related clothing boxes, which are labeled Gaia, USAgain, Planet Aid, IICD and Humana. British journalist Michael Durham operates a website, tvindalert.com, that tracks the organization's many interconnected businesses, properties and charitable operations around the world. And philanthropy watchdogs have given failing ratings to most of Tvind's clothing operations.

[mopinko]

1. they always struck me as strange

maybe just my aversion to new age spiritualism, but i always suspected there was a rip off in there somewhere.