Narrative by GODFREY MAOCHA & GOLDEN MATONGA
The Christian charity 2nd Milk, which purports to feed impoverished children in Malawi, has been revealed to be a scam meant to provide the founders with substantial donor funds, which they then utilize to support an opulent lifestyle. Financial papers show how the founders of the charity kept the majority of the donations made to them, increasing their personal payments when authorities began to scrutinize their philanthropic ventures more thoroughly.
Through their nonprofit 2nd Milk, American couple Ason and Lacy Carney share a touching, Christian tale about rescuing starving and abandoned infants in Malawi. The compelling narrative prompts American benefactors to part up their cash. Financial statements, however, present a different picture. In actuality, the Carneys primarily utilized the funds to support their opulent way of living.
A Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ) investigation reveals the couple, through the organization, raised a total of $2,371,314 (roughly MK4.1 billion) in donations between 2016 and 2023. The investigation is based on documents obtained by US police and from Malawi’s NGO Authority (NGORA) through an Access to Information (ATI) request, interviews with former employees, and open sources.
The inquiry also reveals that the Carneys appear to have mismanaged the majority of the funds, as money from the official accounts was either transferred into personal accounts to pay for pricey vacations like helicopter charters, house or car loans, movies, and even groceries, or it was used directly to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Despite all of this, the organization seems to overestimate the extent of its activity in Malawi, saying, for example, that it feeds more than 1000 children there every day.
Being Monitored
In 2023, the PIJ began looking into the Carney couple after inquiries concerning their adoption agency in Malawi were made.
The Carneys ran a very immoral adoption service named Channel for All Nations (CHAN), as revealed by the PIJ inquiry.
This organization advertised and publicized the images of underprivileged African children up for adoption along with heartbreaking details about their situation, treating them like interchangeable parts.
Not all children were abandoned; CHAN also flouted the law by giving money and gifts to low-income families in return for their consent to place their kids for adoption. The Carneys also manage Pure Mission, a different organization, and Esther’s House, an orphanage.
According to its since-deleted website, 2nd Milk also manages a few small-scale projects in Uganda and Ghana. (PIJ did not look into Second Milk initiatives in the two nations.)
When Carney was ready to take a flight at Atlanta International Airport on March 21, 2023, it raised red flags for US authorities and made them begin a closer examination of Carney. Agents from Customs and Border Patrol discovered something shocking. He had $68,000 in cash on him (that’s over 117 million Malawi Kwacha). After asking him a few questions, they released him.
A couple leading two separate lives is evident to anyone who follows the Carneys on social media. The couple provides a peek of a posh lifestyle, complete with family get-togethers and holidays, when they are not posting gruesome photos of underprivileged African youngsters to go along with appeals for donations.
A peek inside the 2nd Milk books shows how the Carneys conned the feeding system by inflating the amount of work being done to feed malnourished children in Malawi and manipulating the numbers. The 2nd Milk fundraising approach asks each sponsor to provide a monthly donation of $40 US for each kid they wish to support. According to the charity’s records, a child may have up to two sponsors.
The nonprofit organization, with its main offices in Lilongwe and Arkansas, submitted tax reports to both nations. The US returns and the Malawian returns were entirely different, as the PIJ can attest to. For instance, US tax returns from 2016 to 2021 state that 2nd Milk collected $2,371,314 (about MK4.1 billion) in total throughout that time. 2nd Milk reported spending $1,941, 297 (about MK3.4 billion) on “Formula and Supplies” out of the total amount raised.
In the US, 2nd Milk did not disclose labor costs, and the only individuals who received compensation were the company’s president, Jason Carney, who would receive $64,000 annually in 2020, and his wife Lacy, who will receive $60,000 as chief financial officer.
2020 is one year where the story provided by the Second Milk tax returns, which were required to be filed in Malawi and the US, differed greatly. The PIJ located the original 2020 2nd Milk tax filing through the use of open-source intelligence and requests under the Access to Information Act.
By making transfers from the charity accounts into his own, the PIJ can demonstrate that Carney utilized 2nd Milk as his personal ATM. Additionally, he deposited 2nd Milk checks into his own account and utilized the credit cards for personal spending.
Between 2015 and 2019, 2nd Milk moved at least $271,988.01 from its Bank of the Ozarks business account to Jason Carney’s Chase Bank personal credit. An further $171,883.91 was transferred from 2nd Milk’s Arvest Bank account to Carney’s American Express credit account, which he and his wife jointly owned, between December 2, 2022 and June 14, 2023.
Analysis of 2nd Milk credit accounts reveals that they are not for authorized 2nd Milk activity, but rather are for personal expenses such as home utility payments and personal travel.
Evidence reveals that at least $100,000 was transferred further between 2017 and 2022 to finance the Carneys’ house and a 2020 Toyota Tundra loan from Ally Bank.
The Arvest Bank account of the Carneys received $4,000 from the Arvest account of 2nd Milk on March 22, 2023. PIJ’s investigation finds that on that same day, the Carneys paid $890 for a 2015 Jeep Wrangler, $840 for a 2022 Toyota 4Rammer, $614 for the note related to a personal watercraft and trailer, and $1,000 for a home equity line of credit.
In February and April of 2018, 2nd Milk transferred $3,513.00 to Omulu Safaris, a South African private game lodge owned by a family.
According to PIJ data analysis, Carneys may have been purposefully emptying the 2nd Milk accounts because of the expenses and cash withdrawals, which appear to be increasing significantly between 2021 and 2023. Our review of the transactions indicates that over $1 million between 2016 and 2023 is questionable; this amount accounts for one-third of the projected $3–3.5 million in grant income that 2nd Milk received that year.
A closer look at the accounting period used in the US police report and the Malawian annual report for 2020 and 2021, which is released in January and December, reveals that while grant receipts and spending have increased in the US accounts for 2nd Milk, there has been little change in the Malawian accounts. This indicates that as a percentage of costs reported as “Formula and Supplies” in the US, the ratio of revenue distributed in Malawi decreased from 26.43% to 11.48%.
According to a donor who spoke with authorities, Jason Carney urged him to transfer money to Carney’s account for 2nd Milk. The giver declined.
We now know that this lavish lifestyle, which included trips like a helicopter charter over the Grand Canyon, was directly paid for by donations made to Malawian children’s welfare organizations, as the PIJ is able to demonstrate.
It states that it has constructed pig farms and chicken coops in Malawi so that the country’s malnourished children could consume protein. It also says that it has employed teachers and nutritionists to continuously give five-year-old children “proper education,” sending some of them to private schools and giving 3 million bottles of formula to orphaned infants, feeding roughly 1000 of them every day at their locations in Lilongwe and Ntcheu.
Instead of going to the Ntcheu district operations for 2nd Milk, PIJ went to the little tobacco-growing town of Nsundwe, which is located outside of Lilongwe, the capital. Here, 2nd Milk obtained land from the neighborhood to build an office building, but according to former workers and locals, the plan was a failure.
As stated on its website, the charity built a blackboard on the wall of a small, dilapidated house belonging to one of the caregivers involved in its milk distribution, not a school.
Not a single chicken coop that 2nd Milk professed to have constructed exists.
According to Jolosi Tcholani, a local village coordinator whose house wall 2nd Milk erected its chalkboard and used as the center for education, no children in the area attend any private schools under the organization’s support, despite the organization’s claims to the contrary. Instead, there is just one teacher who is hired and paid a pitiful K10,000 ($5.7) a month to tutor some children.
“We gave them land in 2022 so that they could build some infrastructure since we had been using this old church, belonging to the Church of Christ. Nothing to date has materialised, and there’s no sign of progress,” Tcholani stated in a recent interview.
He claimed that the center was only feeding about 100 newborns a month, a far cry from the organization’s stated daily feeding of 1000 babies, which included this interview.
Based on evidence presented in a US court, an insider witness informed investigators that a little over seventy children were fed every day, with operations in Malawi funded by an annual project budget of approximately six thousand dollars.
“I’ve made two trips to the feeding centers. Additionally, on both visits, they only had 66 children, a different former senior staffer told PIJ.
According to 2nd Milk’s yearly financial report to the NGO Authority in Malawi, the organization assisted 67 children at its Nsundwe and Ntcheu centers. In the reporting year, about thirty babies graduated, and the only significant acquisition was a Ford Ranger.
Another former worker claimed that staff members were little paid and that just thirty kids received one bottle per day.
The Carneys are under pressure now, despite the fact that they were previously able to host delegations of 2nd Milk officials at farms to exchange expertise about agricultural and irrigation techniques (in June 2021, Malawi’s agricultural Minister Sam Kawale hosted a delegation of 2nd Milk officials at a farm). The Carneys have removed links to the organization on social media in addition to the 2nd Milk website.
Officials told PIJ that the Carneys are the subject of criminal investigations in Malawi and the US.
The Malawian NGO Authority informed PIJ that it was taking part in a fraud probe alongside the US government and the country’s Fiscal Police Department.
The results of the investigations could result in fines and deregistration from the Authority, among other consequences, and the police could even file a criminal complaint.
“Please take notice that NGORA is aware of the alleged fraud committed by the institution’s directors, and we have been closely collaborating with the US embassy and the Department of Fiscal Police to conduct an inquiry into this matter. As we are already collaborating with other pertinent authorities, NGORA will not launch a new case; instead, we will wait for the conclusion of the ongoing investigation, the Authority informed PIJ in a statement.
The authority stated that it was currently collaborating with the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) to gather information from the non-governmental organizations and create a report that would help minimize these abuses by establishing a risk-based strategy.
In a written response to a PIJ questionnaire, the US State Department acknowledged through a representative that it was conducting a criminal investigation into the NGO’s deception over 2nd Milk and his immoral child adoption operations.
The statement said, “We cannot discuss matters relating to the case because there is an ongoing investigation.”
But in the statement, the department described the steps it has taken so far in the investigation into unethical child adoptions, including the revocation of Children of All Nations’ accreditation—an organization connected to Carney that the PIJ first made public.
“The United States Bureau of Consular Affairs” The Department of State is in charge of directing the United States’ adherence to the Hague Adoption Convention, which offers protections for kids and families participating in international adoption. Agencies must be accredited and uphold significant compliance with federal regulations governing international adoption into and out of the United States in order to offer services in situations involving intercountry adoption. The statement also stated, “We take note of the Department’s public notification regarding the recent actions taken by the Intercountry Adoption Accreditation and Maintenance Entity (IAAME) to revoke Children of All Nations’ accreditation.
According to NWA Gives, one of the fundraising venues where 2nd Milk had requested funds, the organization is no longer accepting contributions. Speaking anonymously because he lacks the authority to discuss the issue, a local manager said that the probe’s results have caused funding to dry up and held PIJ responsible for the first publication that sparked the donor fear and investigation.
He asserted that misinformation was being spread by some misinformed American funders and irate employees behind the PIJ reports.
People are now telling us they can’t work with us everywhere we go. We are no longer able to visit the Social Welfare office because they claim that we were involved in illegal adoptions. Those who were conducting adoptions with us have stopped, and they claim that the US government is looking into us. We have also been asked to answer questions by the NGO board and the US embassy, all as a result of that false article. Jason is a good man; all men have flaws, but the people who have personal grudges and an axe to grind over money are destroying him. We are aware of the individuals responsible; they include a group from the US and former workers from Malawi. The truth will eventually surface, the official promised.
However, it’s possible that Carney’s actions are really frightening contributors. It’s possible that Kayla Turner was a donor back in Arkansas, USA. When accusations of fraud appeared, she had already committed to paying money to receive assistance from Channel of All Nations, the adoption agency/NGO that was also connected to the Carneys, to help her adopt a child in Malawi. She can still clearly recall the day law police confronted Jason Carney at the Atlanta International Airport, the day she learned of the fraud accusations.
She spoke over the phone with PIJ and said, “I was in a support group with other families seeking to adopt children.” “Everyone was taken aback.”
Turner ceased her relationship with the Carneys and felt compelled to notify others on Facebook: “We have chosen to pause our adoption while we consider our options (changing agencies, nations, etc.).” She stated, “Please let us know if you’d like to know more or get the information we have to stop yourself or a friend from falling victim to an organization like this.”
