{"id":3221,"date":"2021-07-20T11:07:29","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T05:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedisinfolab.org\/wps\/?p=3221"},"modified":"2022-01-27T14:27:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T14:27:39","slug":"covid-aid-scam-2021-iii-the-charity-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedisinfolab.org\/wps\/covid-aid-scam-2021-iii-the-charity-theatre\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid Aid Scam 2021- III: The Charity Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/u><\/a>The fraudster’s greatest liability is the certainty that the fraud is too clever to be detected.<\/u><\/a><\/u><\/p>Louis J. Freeh<\/strong><\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/u><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Preface<\/strong> <\/h3> <\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Covid Aid Scam 2021 & the Charity Industry has managed to create a sense of awareness amongst a significant section of social media users. While the activities of these organizations smelled of fraud to begin with, the sheer scale of operation and the audacity and impunity with which they manage to operate was an eye opener. It was a lesson, a lesson that one must ask questions and one must look deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, what these reports have failed to produce is an outcry in mainstream media. It appears that the mainstream media\u2019s capability to absorb any report that is not partisan or linear and reducible to a decibel war has gone down significantly. A story of significant human concern and a colossal loot of innocent people\u2019s money has not been able to stir the mega media houses with plenty of resources at their disposal to devote some of it to this aspect as well. We were hoping against it, but probably dreading it as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the biggest shocker came from these so called \u2018charity organizations\u2019. One would have imagined that organizations, which claim presence in multiple countries and have big-ticket names associated would be concerned about their reputation, and would carry out corrective measures. Our hunch was that there were bad apples in these organizations who were probably exploiting the crisis to gobble up the funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, we were wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having seen several such groups, it is becoming increasingly clear that these organizations exist only for the sake of projection, are likely run\/ coordinated from one place and by the same set of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The similarities amongst these charities are glaring \u2013 almost all were opened by or run by individuals of Pakistani origin. However, none of them have any ground presence in India nor any local partners associated with them. All of them follow identical patterns in terms of raising funds; their social media admins are also from Pakistan. The commonalities are so much that it is obvious that these different charities ostensibly collect funds from several countries but are run\/coordinated from one place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most importantly, these \u2018charity\u2019 organizations were not particularly cruel to India. They do not carry out any charity anywhere. Moreover, all the money that they collect in the name of various activities from all around the world is divided among the ‘families’ that run these ‘charities’. The masterminds operate from somewhere in Pakistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong> <\/h3> <\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolution has taught us that selfishness is inherent to existence and that survival reigns supreme in all our actions and intentions. And therefore, altruism is one of the highest manifestations of human existence that, in a way, liberates an individual in a true sense. An act of charity, an act of giving, transcends the natura\u2019s limitation imposed upon the mortal animal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would you then call the individuals and organizations who exist only to exploit the most pious of human emotions? And what would you call the individuals and organizations who exploit the religious sentiments of people, stealing the money that an innocent believer has saved to serve humanity as his moral and religious duty?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story is not just of one fraud organization, but of an eco-system that has been designed to exploit all that is good in human existence \u2013 the sense of belonging, the sense of religious duty, the sense of altruism. The eco-system, which pounces upon every crisis, every calamity to rob innocent do-gooders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following in the \u2018glorious\u2019 footsteps of Islamic Medical Council of North America (IMANA) and Muslim Aid, another charity \u2018Penny Appeal\u2019 also collected funds in the name of Covid Crisis in India! And just like the brethren, it also didn\u2019t consider it necessary to deliver something, anything, for the people in whose name they collected the funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, where it was different from Muslim Aid and IMANA was that it had more elaborate efforts on deception. Penny Appeal went on to show actual \u2018ground workers\u2019 in their different \u2018help-shows\u2019 from Kashmir to Delhi to Lucknow, without having any ground presence whatsoever in India. Their theatre of \u2018charity\u2019 appeared more convincing than others, at least in the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Part I<\/strong> <\/h3>\n

PennyAppeal<\/strong><\/h3>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Chapter 1<\/strong> <\/h3>\n

The Organization<\/strong><\/h3>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penny Appeal (PA), yet another \u2018international NGO\u2019 was founded in 2009 by Adeem Younis<\/strong>, a British national of Pakistani origin. The organization was initially set up in the United Kingdom with registered charity 1128341 and UK registered company 06578382. Over time, Penny Appeal started expanding in countries such as South Africa, USA, Canada, Australia, Middle East (Dubai) and Malaysia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list of various Penny Appeal branches with their registration details is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Penny Appeal South Africa –<\/strong> Non-Profit Organization: 200-208NPO and the South African Revenue Services as a public benefit organization: PBO 930061337. Facebook Page created on November 29, 2017. [1<\/span>]<\/a><\/sup><\/li>
  2. Penny Appeal USA –<\/strong> Tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit with Tax ID\/EIN #:47-5165837. Facebook Page created in 2016. [2<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup><\/li>
  3. Penny Appeal Canada – <\/strong>Canada Revenue Agency. CRA no. 827502741 RR0001. And Facebook Page created on March 6, 2019. [3<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup><\/li>
  4. Penny Appeal Australia- <\/strong>Registered charity with ABN: 22 612 054 494 and CFN: 24310. Facebook page created on October 14, 2011 with the name \u201cMuslims Without Borders (Australia)\u201d and changed it to Penny Appeal Australia on April 19, 2016. [4<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> <\/li>
  5. Penny Appeal Middle East- <\/strong>Facebook page created on December 11, 2018 as \u201cPenny Appel Dubai\u201d and changed it to \u201cPenny Appeal Middle East\u201d on January 13, 2019. [5<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup><\/li>
  6. Penny Appeal Malaysia- <\/strong>Not much detail except the Facebook page is available which was created on September 20, 2018. [6<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> The Twitter account is also protected with just 8 followers. Username- @pennyappealIMY<\/em><\/li>
  7. Penny Appeal Israel- <\/strong>Relatively new branch of Penny Appeal opened in Israel in the year 2017. The social media presence of Israel chapter is not available but the corporate details are available. [7<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Penny Appeal \u2013 Israel office’s claim is rather peculiar. Penny Appeal claims to have an office in Israel as per the below-mentioned official document (machine translation from Hebrew).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    Penny Appeal Israel desk is located at 12 Ben Hill, Jerusalem, 9423114. The address belongs to Adv. Michael Decker, who, along with Joshua Fax are mentioned in the registration doc of Penny Appeal-Israel. Both Joshua and Decker work in Jerusalem based law firm \u2013 Cohen, Decker, Pex & Brosh<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    It gets a bit fishy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We could not find Penny Appeal Israel in the list of Israel\u2019s NGOs. A search with \u2018Penny Appeal Israel\u2019 also didn\u2019t produce any details of their work. Penny Appeal-Israel seeks donation in the name of Palestine, and claims to work in Gaza and Palestine from its Israeli office. However, all the \u2018help\u2019 it has claimed to have provided to Gaza (if indeed) is through other chapters of Penny Appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Besides, Penny Appeal also claims to have offices in Bangladesh and Pakistan [8<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> Address of the Pakistan office is House No. 334, Street No. 1, Block A, Sector O-9 Block A Police Foundation, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Punjab 44000, Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Although Bangladesh’s desk address could not be confirmed, a job circular [9<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> was posted on May 10th, 2020, by Penny Appeal in chakrirkhobor.net<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong> (employment news). The application was prepared to be sent to abdullah.alhasan@pennyappeal.org. One of the job descriptions was to prepare reports for UK Headquarters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Penny Appeal also claims to work with Sajida foundation in Bangladesh that seem to be their local partner [10<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup>. Sajida Foundation was formed in 2013 in Bangladesh and its Facebook page is handled from Bangladesh and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The People<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    While all the branches are organically connected, they do not follow the same standards of transparency, and not all Penny Appeal chapters have provided details about their key persons. To get the picture, apart from gleaning from their branch details, we also corroborated through the open corporate\u2019s website from different countries where they operate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As noted above, Penny Appeal was founded by a British Pakistani businessman Adeem Younis <\/strong>in 2009. Younis is the Director on the Board Members\u2019 list of all the major chapters of the NGO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    The corporate documents of other branches \u2013 Penny Appeal-South Africa and Penny Appeal – Middle East are not available, nor are any details of their Board Members\u2019 list is available. However, as with case of PA-Israel, the Penny Appeal \u2013 Australia [11<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> claims to provide poverty relief across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, despite having dedicated branches in South Africa and Middle East!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Penny Appeal Australia<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    1. Muhammad Khan (Director)<\/li>
    2. Saifuddin Ahmad (Director)<\/li>
    3. Soaad Mehana (Director)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Interesting to note that the Facebook page of Penny Appeal Australia was earlier operating as \u201cMuslims without Borders\u201d <\/em>until 2016 and that \u201cMuslims Without Borders\u201d<\/em> was also the former name of United Muslim Relief (UMR). [12<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> It is also related to IMANA as instanced in the previous report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"
      Facebook Page of Penny Appeal Australia<\/span><\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      \n
      \n

      Fun Fact: <\/strong> <\/h3>\n

      Penny Appeal ostensible runs different branches which are independent of each other, but only few of them have any evident existence. The remaining are only on paper, and in some cases fake document seems to have been used to show the organization. Moreover, despite flaunting several branches, they only claim to provide help through three of them \u2013 Australia, US, and UK \u2013 and Adeem Yunis is Director in all three Branches.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

      \n

      Chapter 2<\/strong> <\/h3>\n

      Penny Appeal\u2019s Fund Collection for COVID-19 Help in India<\/strong><\/h3>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

      While a charity\/ NGO would have local branches in different countries for delivering help on the ground, these Pak-linked Islamist \u2018charity\u2019 organizations have various \u2018online\u2019 Chapters for fund collection. Despite working under the umbrella of Penny Appeal \u2013 various Penny Appeal Chapters set up COVID-19 help fundraisers from different fronts (UK, Australia, Canada & South Africa) for India. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal Canada<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal Canada launched two COVID-19 fundraising campaigns for India on Launch Good and managed to raise 65,697 CAD [14<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> & 227CAD,[15<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup>  respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal UK<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      For COVID-19 aid, Penny Appeal UK also ran a paid advertising campaign on its Facebook page. [16<\/span><\/a>] <\/sup>The campaign began on April 27, 2021, and managed to raise Rs. 76,834 INR. (approx. $1000USD)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"
      Penny Appeal’s fundraiser on Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal Australia<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal Australia also started a fundraising campaign for helping India and took the donation only on their website [17<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> (implying zero transparency). They also used Facebook fundraiser for collecting funds and managed $300 USD. [18<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup> the starting details of which are not available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal South Africa <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal South Africa, which was formed in 2017, was also collecting funds in the name of the COVID-19 crisis in India. The South Africa chapter, which had barely done any work in India in the past, also jumped into the fundraising drive like its other chapters. Likewise, they did not provide details of the total amount collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal Middle East<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

      Penny Appeal Middle East also ran social media posts with an appeal for fund collection to help India in Covid [19<\/span><\/a>]<\/sup>, with their global emergency fund link for donation. And their appeal used all possible emotive issues \u2013 from labour migration of last year to Covid crisis of this year to Ramadan \u2013 whatever one may feel obliged. Moreover, who would actually get any aid, is another story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

      How Concerned Penny Appeal have been about India?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      It appears that the Charity business in India started about 4-5 years ago. The first \u2018concerns\u2019 these organizations, including Penny Appeal, found about India was with Kerala Flood in 2019. And once again, all chapters got active to collect funds in the name of the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      A tweet activity timeline plot of all the Penny Appeal chapters between 2018 to 2021 is provided below. There was a total of 84 tweets from these accounts, which included the tweets from Penny Appeal UK, Penny Appeal USA, Penny Appeal South Africa, and Penny Appeal Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n