I moved to St Petersburg, Russia in 1989. The place was a mess. It was a few years removed from the break up of the Soviet Union and their cancer wards were filled with people dying of leukemia, etc after Chernobyl. I went there to bring in medical aid, including medication that was tremendously effective in treating leukemia. We also brought in food and clothing aid.
What I witnessed completely broke my heart. Almost none of the food and clothing aid went to its purpose. Not even 10% of it. There was a pecking order for the vultures who would take their bounty from the containers - customs, city officials, Orthodox Church, market sellers. At the end, you had a few torn shirts and unmatched shoes. That went to the needy. The food was the same.
We had to pay tremendous fees to "Consultants" and brand all the distribution boxes for the Orthodox Church to get the medication off the dock. then, the Church SOLD it to the hospitals.
I have lived in Russia, Ukraine, Kenya and Ghana. It's the same everywhere. Foreign aid, whether sovereign or private, is a massive money laundering scam. It actually makes the lives of the actual people much worse. Those profiting from our conscience-salving donations are financially motivated to make human suffering as bad as possible to perpetuate their racket.
Red Cross, US Aid, all the pathetic billionaire foundations, 100% of all of it - scam. You can tell they are a scam, because they are still in operation. There are millions of wonderful small scale operations. 100% of large scale operations are money laundering, life destroying, human trafficking scams.
Even "Goodwill" here in the States is a scam for a few elite to get richer.
Isnt goodwill a private for-profit business that pretends to be a charity?
I knew someone who once worked for Salvation Army, and in their location, the upper level people would look through the donations and keep things they thought were worth keeping, and the rest would go on to be processed for the stores. In wealthy areas, some very expensive furniture and other things will get donated to Salvation Army and Goodwill. I haven't ever seen any truly nice things in those stores.
The best stuff goes to their online auction site.
I have been monitoring the auction site since it went online in 2003 and the early days were wide open and I won items at a reasonable price. Nowadays, the auctions for good watches are through the roof and the same handful of bidders tend to win which tells me they are trust babies with more money than brains or there are kickbacks; the same thing applies to paintings and jewelry and the better categories. Take a look at their 10Ks to see the many millions garnered from the auctions AND the subscriptions paid by every store in the North American continent-The Indiana based CEO is paid millions along with the other top execs.
Yep. I bet these places like Goodwill and Salvation Army are nothing more than ANTIQUE SALVAGING operations. They probably have people looking out for rare items and antiques and snatch them up first before anyone gets a chance to find them. Also, These places prices are ridiculously high. Seriously, I can find lower prices at Walmart or Ikea for cheaper than what these scammers are charging customers in their stores for 2nd hand items. Shameful.