"[1] Since it was established, the Mayday Rescue Foundation's primary role had been as an implementing partner for international support to Syria Civil Defence (SCD, the "White Helmets"), for whom it provided training, equipment and mentorship funded by countries including the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany; the other implementing partner delivering aid to SCD is Chemonics, which delivered a comparable amount of support to the White Helmets on behalf of USAID.
[6] As of 2019, Mayday Rescue was assessing possibilities for Civil Defence-based stabilisation programmes in countries other than Syria, such as Iraq and Yemen.
[10] As a result of a disinformation campaign against Mayday Rescue and the White Helmets, increased scrutiny was placed on the Foundation by European governments.
Eleveld did not follow the principles of good procurement practice per Annex C to Accountable Grant Agreements[15] and insisted the audit firm must be Dutch, and sourced by him alone.
In an attempt to salvage the audit failure, Eleveld, arranged for SMK to conduct an advisory visit instead which was carried out and presented in November 2019.
[17] According to der Volkskrant, the new administrator called salaries of senior staff "excessive", in some cases €26,000 per month, although these had been consented to by donor countries.
[14] Immediately after Le Mesurier's death, a four-month forensic inquiry of Mayday Rescue's accounts by Grant Thornton was commissioned at the urging of donors;[14] a summary report of which de Volkskrant's journalists had seen.
[13] Grant Thornton stated that "The key finding of our investigation of the flagged transactions leads us to believe that there is no evidence of misappropriation of funds... we have been able to refute the alleged irregularities.
[17] It was later discovered that Johan Eleveld had a history of bankruptcy and had "properly looted" the solar energy firm Enforsa where he was a senior manager by transferring €190,000 to a company where he was a board member, and failing to repay a loan of €10,000.