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.
I discovered this back in 1984 with Christian Children's Fund. I had joined and supported a child in the Philippines. $15 a month. I was traveling there to bring my fiancee back to the USA and thought it would be great to visit this child I had been supporting through the program. I met the staff in Manila at their office and noticed about a dozen staff members busily sorting envelopes from around the world, most likely sent from sponsors like myself to the kids. They drove us by car to this desolate "squatter" slum located under a large highway bridge adjacent to a smelly waterway. Probably a few hundred shacks of all sorts, each one a very sad sight, indeed. So I met the child and in talking privately with her parents, they told me CCF did not provide them with anything. They never really saw anybody from the organization. No food, clothing... nothing like I was led to believe was happening, as shown in the CCF brochures. I gave the girl a watch, a gift I had brought. I left in a daze and frustrated by what I had experienced. I felt hoodwinked by the CCF scam. When I arrived back home, I wrote CCF headquarters and told them in detail about what I saw and how I felt cheated by the program. I received a reply stating they would check further and get back to me. The result? ---> I never heard back again.
Pretty sad! It's like the scam artists who prey on people's compassion after disasters. The same psychology is used by panhandlers, at least the professional panhandlers, which there are many. I guess it's human nature to feel sorry for people less fortunate than you, and not question those who say they are collecting the money either for themselves or some organization.
While it’s pretty likely CCF was skimming money, there are also plenty of documented cases of parents/guardians of these children lying to gullible donors to convince them to give more money/valuable items. That money is often used for alcohol and drugs.