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.

I like our local hand car wash. The lads don't speak a word of English (I think they're Romanian) but are always really sweet and never charge me the price that's on the wall despite doing a really good job of cleaning my car inside and out. They're always really busy too.

No, it needs be no more complicated than that. If they're the drug dealers, they just put cash through the business as sales, pay tax on it, etc. and then draw it out as their own wages/drawings.

On a bigger scale, if they're money laundering for others, they are given the cash, put it through as sales, but then "buy" goods or services from the other party, notoriously common being shop refurbishments, where they regularly pay a shed load of money to a scam building firm for shopfittings etc, the building firm being owned by the people who gave them the cash. An even more refined one is where the people involved actually buy and sell the shop itself, and each "new" owner pays a shed load of cash for shopfittings/refurbishment, etc., Of course, the shopfittings cost and the cost of the business itself will be hugely inflated far beyond their true value to "shift" the money from one party to another, again, giving the illusion of it being legitimate. It's why a lot of these apparently" dodgy" cash based businesses regularly close and re-open under new management, or change from one type of cash business to another, on a regular basis. They're being bought/sold within the "circle" of people known to each other, and not on the open market!

Loads of places like this where I live. I’ve lost count of all the barber shops, but there are also plenty of those half empty cafes with men hovering outside. And the American candy/ vape shops of course, that seems to be the newest business model.

Mine is full of coffee shops and vape shops. There are a lot of empty shops as well. Depressing

We have a a shop in our local area, it's set up like a minimarket but literally has barely anything in it (it basically looks like when you used to play shops at home and just took about 10 tins and a jar of coffee out of the cupboard) It was absolutely freezing the only time I went in - they - surprisingly- didn't have what I wanted I've never seen anyone else go in. And it's about 5 shops away from an actual supermarket. It's been there years and I'm sure it must be a front for sonething

I live in West Midlands. I see an empty high street everywhere, shops closed To Let sighs everywhere. Just out of curiosity when people say money laundering, how does it work? How do they launder money in those shops?

Hardly any chain shops left in my town centre, it’s all pound shops or shops that sell all kinds of household stuff and have their stuff all over the pavement in front. There’s a row of 5 of them, which seems really strange, why would you set up right next to someone selling the same stuff as you.

there is also a nail bar which I’m a bit suspicious of. Cash only and none of the staff speak much English apart from one lady. It’s always really busy.

We have the hand car washes, vape shops, candy, nail bars and empty desert stores in my town. There's a Thai massage shop near me that I can't decide whether it's brothel, money laundering front, or involved in people trafficking. Probably all three. Never seen a soul in there except one man that opens and locks up. I'd love an actual Thai massage, but I imagine that's the last thing I'd be offered if I went in there.

Very accurate description OP. I am North London, nice area. We have a cafe like you describe. There is one at the other end of our area, which I think is genuinely a cafe/ social spot for mainly Eastern European men to catch up with friends (its the languages I hear as I walk past). The other one has this slightly 'off' vibe, fancy front and inside, just as you describe. Until recently we had a dress shop with dresses that were £500-900 and simple t shirts were ridiculous prices, random non-designer labels. Door was always locked, you had to ring to go in. I went once out of curiosity.

My partner is convinced the florist is money laundering and as he doesn't ever send flowers. He can't get his head around the fact you are not going to see hoardes of customers in a florist. The massive truck of flowers and the woman churning out wreaths, bouquets and vans full of arrangements doesn't convince him!!!

There's a few like that near me, there's a pizza and also a smoothie business/shop near me that have never opened. They're on Google maps and I think they're money laundering, they have great signs, look the part but are never open

Yes we have them, they open run on nothing for a while then move or close.
Vape shop / Turkish babar / sweet shop.

Everyone knows about them , they are openly discussed & named on our local social media pages.

London

Quite a few suspected. One has been busted but still somehow open. Tiny corner shop at the very end of the high street before the houses start so really out of the way. cash only, always a guy stood outside or sat in his car with a bum bag.

We used to see people driving up, obviously making a special trip to go in and walking out seemingly empty handed. Would also see them unloading what looked like duty free ciggies from the backs of cars. They got busted for selling illegal smokes and vapes. They’ve obviously just moved where they keep all that and the guy outside directs you where to go.

There’s also a dodgy looking cash only nail bar and a random milkshake bar that’s always open late. A carpet shop that never has anyone in. A computer repair/gadget shop that’s also way out of the way, never has anyone in yet is still open. And of course the usual Turkish barbers

We've had money laundering cafes, the latest round here is Asian supermarkets, we seem to have hundreds now (on the sites of those cafes!!)

My favourite local money laundering business is a very very good Italian run gelato shop, they at least have the decency to provide the product to the public and it's amazing. Although I refuse to believe gelato generates so much money that you can fund that many Bentleys and Range Rovers!

SE London and my local strip of shops as I call them

1 Turkish Barbers . Sometimes have customers there and 2 of my Sons have their haircuts there.

1 Vape and Phone/laptop Shop. Think its legit as the Man takes Cash or Card whereas the Turkish Barbers do not and I read somewhere that they all only take cash

I do not believe you.
We have a dessert place that is an obvious money laundering place. No products or prices on display, funny opening times, and I have never seen a single person in there. I live opposite so I see it a lot. There will be no or virtually no cash going through the tills. It has still been running for about two years.

I’m somewhat naïve I think (and also not very observant) and find it hard to tell a real business from one that is a front. There are a lot of nail bars in my town though and several phone repair/vape shops. Loads of Turkish barbers but those do always seem to be full of customers having their hair/beards coiffed.

There’s one shop which sells home furnishings. The products on display in the window are some very retro net curtains which have been there since I moved to the town 16 years ago. It’s a large shop in a central location so rent would be pricy. I’ve long suspected that one is a front.

Why do the police do so little about these places?

North West.. Have stopped going into town and just shop online now because all we have is three (legit) vape shops, four barbers, betting shops and three shops selling fake tobacco and fake vapes. Throw in take aways and that's it.

One of the fake tobacco places keeps getting raided and shut down, then reopens with people from the owners family running it. In the paper a few weeks ago the guy running it was raided then did a runner to his home Country leaving his wife and kid to deal with it. Few weeks later it was open again with his brother running it. Still selling fake stuff. This is on repeat every few months.

Also have a pizza shop that only seems to open one day a week at 10pm then shuts at 11pm. They never have any pizza left if people try to buy any.

The post office is inside a corner shop which also sells fake vapes and stolen phones.

The guy that runs a shop that stares at you as soon as you go in, if you ask how much something is you get ignored, and he literally won't let you buy anything. I once went in to look at some pictures and he shouted at me to get out. Also in the paper for dealing meth from the shop!

Also have a clothes shop that ONLY sells one item of clothing, So imagine a dress in various different colours but all the same dress in one size only.. A size 8. They sell nothing else just rows and rows of the exact same dress in blue, red, green etc The one time I went in there (they had a cash machine inside to get money out) my card was cloned and 100s of £ was taken from my account.

The only legit place we have is a home bargains which constantly gets robbed.

I am sure there are loads in York where I live. You would have thought that HMRC / trading standards / police / somebody would be on to them and could take a look at the books. It's how they got Al Capone...

But for "some reason", it's not done.

What's the correlation between deserts and Muslims?

Our little market town is mainly legit (or semi legit!) businesses, but up the road in Big Town is a place we literally call "Money Laundering Cafe".
Once my OH went to get food there when it was Ethiopian Money Laundering Cafe, and the bloke looked panicked and told him to return in twenty minutes - he expected to come back and find the shutters down and it all locked up, but he did (for the price of twenty quid clearly plucked from the air, no written menu of course!) get given "the worst Ethiopian food I've ever had". I am guessing he was mistaken for an undercover tax inspector haha!

We should have a system like in the States where if you help the state recover money you can get a cut of it - the Floyd Landis Shop Them All To The Feds law.

As an aside, people don't like criminal people trafficking and the drug dealing and prostitution etc but without the British customers buying drugs, buying bodies, and patronising obviously dodgy businesses it would rapidly become a non-problem.

Should we legalize (and tax and regulate) drugs and have a branch of HMRC/customs who work on commission? And admit we really have an ID card system under the hood (anyone who's renewed their driving licence using their passport record already "in the system" knows this, just add a free ID photo card like they have in NI and be done FFS).

All the stuff about immigration - nobody cares that much about the nice ladies from Ghana looking after Granny, the Albanian coke dealing gangsters, however!!

@RachelSTG socialising at places that don’t serve alcohol.

In my nice, thriving High Street on the London fringe, there are chains and independent shops and cafes which all seem legit. It's the barbers and hairdressers which only take cash and are never busy that seem to be fronts for money laundering.