Money laundering fronts/shops/cafes...how is your high st..??

[bumblebee1000]

Just curious really.....our high street now has appx 9 cafes all have the same flashy design and interior, some have a shisha area out back. very very few customers, just the odd few, males chain smoking and glued to phones, never see any women inside or outside in smoking areas, often big expensive cars parked outside. Also have the 4 barber shops which are always empty and now have one of those american candy and vape shops, this shop sold my friend fake tobacco yesterday and offered him a load of duty free tobacco from Holland, he has reported this shop to trading standards and hmrc as threw away the tobacco. So how is your high street....is it similar ? Has anyone reported these places and seen any action. Personally find them depressing. we are in London.

Yes I do, In my town in the highlands it’s mostly shut down shops but the standout one that stays open despite high costs etc is the phone shop, that sells only phone covers that seem to be from the early 2000s, no one ever in it obviously. 🤔

There's a nail shop near me,that never seems to be opened normal hours.
But if you're on a drive at night ,it's open.

The sweet shops and souvenir shops on Oxford Street are obvious, but it hadn't occurred to me that phone accessories shops and barbers would be dodgy. TBH most of the new barber shops that have sprung up near me are doing a roaring trade: loads of twenty-something guys who need constant haircuts.

I'm not sure about the dessert shops though. Surely if you were setting up a money laundering front you'd want non-perishable stock. And why would you bother picking a class of establishment which is relatively highly regulated? Lot of red tape involved in selling food to eat on the premises.

Are they selling a service? That is usually a clue.

much easier to launder when it’s a service, like cutting hair, that you are selling.

Dodgy barber here. Very few clients and they often post fancy cars parked outside on their Instagram.

My hairdresser said they're dodgy money launderers.....

Barber shops here too, we have a road that has 6 Turkish Barber shops on and I've never seen anyone in them.

Oh god, I’m really naive!

we do have a carpet shop but there’s no carpets in there and the windows so thick with dirt you can’t see in… that one’s a brothel.

A town in my area seems to have lot of nail bars, an American candy shop and an unusually high number of vape shops for the town.

I used to be surprised there was enough business in phone repairs years ago and then I saw an article and realised how naïve I'd been.

@megletthesecond Fleet?

There’s a hat shop in my town. I’m suspicious of that as I can see how it’s a profitable business.

We had a dessert shop but that closed very quickly. That was a successful home business during covid but didn’t work as a cafe, a victim of their own success which is a shame. I wonder if there are a few like that around.

There’s a chain of cake shops that I see everywhere but I never see anyone buying from.

@YoullCatchYourDeathInTheFog

Surely if you were setting up a money laundering front you'd want non-perishable stock.

They make the money from the money laundering and drugs. They're not bothered whether the stock sells or not, wastage is just a cost of running the "business", like the shop rent, utilities, etc.

We had a sandwich shop near us that no sane person would ever buy a sandwich from. Everyone local tried it once and wouldn't return as the service, quality etc was awful - everyone said the same that they made you feel as if you were disturbing them, and they never had the "usual" range of fillings etc. Yet, there was usually one of several fancy cars parked outside.

After a couple of years, the police raided it. The owners ended up prosecuted for drug dealing and money laundering and got jail sentences!

Three nail bars in my town, always busy. Loads of barber shops are dodgy for sure but the worst are the two dessert shops. Never seen anyone in them.

No cash would make money laundering much harder, it’s one of the reasons to go cashless. People may not like it but it would make organised crime far harder.

The usual nail bars with staff who don't speak English, a vape shop with nobody in it ( I actually did go in once and was told I couldn't buy the deal on the poster without signing up to their loyalty scheme and giving them all my details so didn't bother) and the local sunbed shop which got raided for drug dealing. I wonder if some of the local tattoo shops are a front, we seem to have a disproportionate amount of them for a small town.

Belinda O'Hanlon (co-founder of Annabelinda) and her business partner knew nothing about Marks's illegal activities - their business was totally legitimate and separate, and no money laundering took place through their books. He offered them part of his premises as his wife knew them, and he figured that having a legitimate business on the premises would be a good thing. So it wasn't a 'front' in the usual sense, ie a business with little or no actual activities created to facilitate money laundering. They were horrified when they discovered what was going on in a part of the building they didn't lease.

@Snorkmaidenn Amazingstoke.

I assume that all vape shops, nail bars, barbers, fried chicken shops are fronts for money laundering and drugs.

No one's mentioned hand car washes. Where you pay your fiver and half a dozen people wash your car. Do the sums, it's doesn't add up. They're not even earning minimum wage. Yes, they're occasionally busy with several cars at once, but most of the day, they're just sat around smoking.

Equal parts money laundering and people trafficking.

Northwest and nothing seems dodgy on my local highstreet. There is one shop that sells a great range of sweets alongside smoking "parephenalia" but that's very open and common knowledge.

How do you avoid it though? I always used to opt for the large, long-established car wash on a main road, to try to avoid supporting traffickers.

Guess who got raided by the police and found to have loads of illegal staff?

(And, before anyone asks, I can't always wash my own car because of a disability. I do when I can.)

How does it work, what's the scam? Is it that they're getting cash from drugs but can't spend it, so on paper these 'front' businesses take loads of cash whereas the reality is that no-one goes in? And then they declare it as profitable, pay tax etc, and can then pay into a bank and spend the money? Or is it more complicated than that?

The number of barbers in my local area is ridiculous, I think we're up to 13 on two streets alone. However they are all constantly busy, where did young men get their hair cuts before the influx of Turkish barbers?

We also have one car wash but this is also busy with cars blocking the road trying to get in. So although it won't be legal (in that the men working there get paid anywhere near a normal wage) it's not a front in that nobody is actually working there, they're non stop.

We also have one dessert parlour which rarely has anyone in. However the desserts are amazing and they do a lot of trade on Just Eat and are linked with the curry house next door which is always full and is equally amazing!

What about those Chinese herbal shops? I never see anyone go in there and they are on every high street/locations all around London.

Exactly the same here, in a downmarket part of Surrey with great transport links to London. I knew they couldn’t be real but too naive to understand what they actually are. We have a total glut of low rate coffee houses, ice cream parlours, cake shops (like, three shops that only sell cakes in the same small town), a Turkish restaurant that only ever has a handful of customers, low rate barbers shops. What are they for? How does the money laundering work?

And yy to the hand car wash and Chinese herbal shops. I thought these were legitimate to be honest.