The Bhutanese Leading the way.
A TikTok post by Kalu Rinpoche on Thursday, accusing a Bhutanese couple in Australia of not handing over AUD 261,000 in funds for setting up a Community Center in Perth, went viral and drew a lot of strong reactions online.
The accusation
Rinpoche said that the funds of around half a million AUD had been collected during the Buddha holy relic tour (19 to 30 January 2026) to Perth, Canberra, Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne by the French Buddhist Union (UBF) at his request and were meant to be used for the Community Center in Perth.
Rinpoche said that during his first visit to Australia in July 2025 he had been hosted by a couple in Perth, and during his teachings, he had announced the centre and had also sought help from the couple.
Rinpoche said that he kept asking for detailed accounts from the couple, but it took around two months, and after a lot of expenses were deducted for the tour, the balance amount was AUD 261,000.
He said he set up a new Board of Directors for the Community Center and asked for the couple to transfer the fund there, but despite repeated requests and even sending a formal letter through a lawyer, there was no reaction.
He said he does not want the money for himself but for the community in Perth, and he said he is making his post to spread awareness. Rinpoche named the couple and their company and asked people to watch out for them.
Many online accounts started sharing pictures of the couple along with the audio of Rinpoche’s post.
Couple to sue
The couple, through their company’s Facebook page, issued a statement denying the allegations, and they said they have engaged legal advisers and are pursuing all legal avenues, including defamation.
The Bhutanese got in touch with a person close to the family and familiar with the case regarding the allegations on TikTok by Rinpoche.
The person said that the couple is planning to file defamation cases against Rinpoche both in Bhutan and in Australia, as what Rinpoche has alleged is not true.
How it started
The person close to the family said the wife had lost a sister and while grieving her death, she was put in touch with Rinpoche while in Bhutan.
Once in Australia, the woman and her husband played host to Rinpoche on his first-ever trip to Australia in July 2025, funding his domestic air tickets and also his accommodation there. Rinpoche does not deny this. The person said during this first trip, all the offerings were kept by Rinpoche.
The person said after the announcement of the community center, Rinpoche sought the help of the couple, who were also told by Rinpoche that he would try and arrange 3.5 million (mn) dollars from sponsors for funding the center.
The couple then spent the next four to five months looking for 25 acres of land for the center and eventually tracked down one costing AUD 1.8 mn. They also worked on setting up a non-profit called the Druk Community Center Australia (DCCA), which the person said took a lot of legal work, time, and effort by the couple, who could not devote the same attention to their business, which was impacted.
The person claimed that with not many initial registered members, it was mainly the family members who registered and came on the board.
However, Rinpoche was unable to come up with the funds, and so Rinpoche decided to use the tour of the holy relics from France to raise funds for the center.
The tour took place in January 2026, and Rinpoche said that around 75,000 Buddhists in Australia, both Bhutanese and non-Bhutanese, visited the relics in five cities. As per the donations list sent to him by the couple on 6 February 2026, AUD 525,435 was collected.
The person close to the family said that the couple and their family worked very hard in helping organize the logistics and operations of the holy relics tour, from booking venues to transportation, stay, security, etc.
When problems started
The problems, it appears, started for all sides when money started coming in. The sister of Kalu Rinpoche said that on the first and second days, it was noticed that it was only the couple and their family members doing the counting of the cash donations, and so the recommendation was made to add more people, and though there was some friction, this was done.
However, the person denied this, saying that a monk who is the representative of Kalu Rinpoche was there during the counting on the first two days, and the friction that happened was not about the suggestion to add more people to count the cash, but over the insensitive behavior of a person from Rinpoche’s team.
Rinpoche’s sister insisted that while the monk was supposed to be there he was not invited by the couple for counting and so did not go.
Kalu Rinpoche alleged that on the first two days there were inconsistent figures, but the person said this was because the money was also coming through bank and online transfers, so figures kept changing.
The second point of friction was when Rinpoche, on the final day of the holy relics, announced that Euro 15,000 would be given as a donation to the French Buddhist Union from the funds collected.
The payment was never made by the couple, and Rinpoche said he had to pay personally from his own finances.
The person close to the family said that the payment was eventually not made due to the controversies and issues that later followed.
Rinpoche also asked for Nu 150,000 to be given to Karma Kelvin in Bhutan from the fund for some social work in Eastern Bhutan.
Here the person said that the non-profit rules in Australia forbid a non-profit from transferring money to an organization that is not a non-profit, so the wife instead paid Karma Kelvin using her own BoB account.
After the event, Rinpoche said he asked for the detailed accounts as this is what he practices, but it was denied to him for around two months, and there was no response to calls and messages by various people; only after much pursuing were the detailed accounts sent two months later.
The person denied this, saying the couple had sent it earlier.
Matters seemed to have reached a head as Kalu Rinpoche made his third visit to Australia in March 2026, where he met the couple and told them of his plans to bring in management change for the non-profit and add more board members.
Both Rinpoche and the person agreed on this point, and both said that initially, the family was even willing to resign from executive positions and hand them over to Rinpoche’s new board, with the condition being that it has to be done legally under Australian laws. The family told Rinpoche that there are prison sentences of up to 7 years if things go legally wrong.
Different accounts and the announcement
There is then a divergence of accounts of what happened from here. Rinpoche said after a Saturday teaching in Perth, he invited the couple and told them in front of the new board that the board would expand, but the couple could stay on. Rinpoche said the couple agreed.
However, the person said the couple were surprised to see the new board members there, and they had not agreed to the immediate change, instead saying that things must be done properly with the filling out of membership forms to become board members and so on. The person said the couple went with membership forms, but nobody filled them out. Rinpoche said people filled up the membership forms in front of him.
The next day, on Sunday, in front of a major Wang crowd, Rinpoche announced the change in the board. Rinpoche said this had been done with due information and consent.
The person said the couple had never agreed, and the sudden announcement hurt their reputation in the community, with people asking them what went wrong.
Rinpoche said the couple had agreed to the change as a strategic step, as they knew he would challenge them if they did not agree, so they waited for him to leave Australia and then changed their stance again.
Their baby and plan for the funds
The couple, in the meantime, met the Consumer Protection office in Perth that regulates non-profits, and they also met a consumer protection lawyer. The person said the couple was told the DCCA set up by them is essentially their ‘baby’ and they are accountable for it, and this, along with Rinpoche’s announcement, hardened their resolve not to resign from the DCCA set up by them.
When asked by this paper about what the couple plans to do with the remaining AUD 261,000 funds of DCCA, the person said their plan is to raise more funds and build the center, but they also had a special general meeting recently and decided that if things go wrong, the first option is to donate the entire amount to the Gelephu Chortens project and the second option is to donate it all to the various Bhutanese Buddhist associations in Australia representing major religious institutions and leaders back home.
Rinpoche’s sister said that the family kept saying they were doing Zhabto or voluntary work, but they charged around AUD 39,000 in expenses as service charges for setting up the DCCA, project management, etc., from the expense accounts. The person said the couple did this after they did not like the way they were treated, and so decided to charge for their services and time.
Rinpoche’s sister said that initially, for the fundraising for the relics, the husband was sharing his account number, but she made him change it.
With the case now likely to hit courts in both Bhutan and Australia, it remains to be seen what the courts decide on the defamation aspect, and beyond that, what happens to the AUD 261,000 in disputed funds now in the public eye.
