American Candy Stores... What's the scam?

[YummySweeties]

I keep seeing these places on my high street, and in the news!

The news is implying that these stores are some kind of tax scam, but how? Surely their costs (running a high street shop) must be huge?

It’s money laundering.

You open a legit business and bank extra money with your takings.

www.timeout.com/london/news/revealed-the-shocking-secrets-of-oxford-streets-sweet-shops-and-souvenir-stores-050522

I could be wrong but are they not selling counterfeit goods and not paying tax? When the tax man comes calling they shut down and leave no trace?

Yes I've heard that as well.

I don't think they even care about actually selling anything. Their products are so overpriced. And nothing is ever priced with a sticker. So you waste your time going and asking the price for every little thing. But never buy anything cuz it's so overpriced it's crazy

Mainly money laundering, but today I saw a report of £100k worth of counterfeit chocolate being seized, too.

What news are you all watching where you're seeing this? I've heard no mention of it. But I'd be interested to see if

Front page of the BBC news website this morning

From what I saw on the news, it appears that the authorities have seized what they believe to be counterfeit chocolate bars, and that the ingredients in the goods may contain allergens not specified on the packaging.

Well known front for laundering money gained through drug dealing.

Not just that, you have no idea if the place it was made and repackaged in was even clean, certainly won’t have been inspected. It could be made out of anything.

Money laundering, private Eye has covered it quite a bit over the years, before the latest rebrand as candy stores a lot of them were tourist tat shops, but same aim of laundering.

I have my suspicions on Ritual and L'Occitane stores too. I'm seeing them everywhere, cannot for the life of me understand how they stay in business.

Yeah I’ve seen it be discussed on Twitter for a while ditto those souvenir tat shops

But surely they will then have to pay tax on the money they've laundered?

Yes, giving argument that its legit.

Laundering isn’t to avoid tax necessarily…although if the store doesn’t turn a profit you may pay no tax. It turns money that is the proceeds of crime into money that has providence in a ‘legitimate’ business and can therefore be paid into a bank and spent.

Money laundering. Similar to nail bars and Internet cafes back in the day.

Money laundering is to make dirty money clean. So money gained from the sale of illegal weapons will be 'washed' through a legitimate business (these sweet shops) and be considered clean once complete.

Thats the point, you lose say 20% of the money but it makes 80% of it legit money you can spend as you wish, just like you would with any other income.

Laundered money can be traced back to a legit source, so you can bank it, invest it, use it for a mortgage, buy a business with it etc. Dirty cash you can’t use for any of those things.

DS1 told me this months ago. I thought it was an urban legend.😲

They’re great for laundering money as you just say, ok yeah we sold 1000 boxes of M&Ms at £5 a go and that’s £5000 cleaned - and you don’t actually have to have sold any at all. Because the mark ups are crazy it makes it quicker I guess!

Steve Allan per chance??

They have been accused of selling counterfeit goods, money laundering, selling other things eg drugs, and being part of elaborate schemes to avoid business rates on empty properties. I suspect they do vary as to how legitimate they are. I personally don't understand the attraction- I lived in the USA and the sweets are horrible

Are some of those supposedly Chinese herbal places doing the same? There seem to be tonnes of those even in places with hardly any residents who are likely to resorting to Chinese medicine.

There was a thread on Mumsnet about these shops and the eyebrow waxing places which used to be on Oxford street about 8 years ago, amazed it’s taken the police so long to work it out. 😁

money laundering and fake sweets fil of shoot chemicals.