Money laundering shops why no action?

[NoisySnail]

Where I live there are a number of shops that are very obvious money laundering fronts. For example a dessert place that is hardly ever open, has no menu or prices, and when it is open has one scary looking man behind the counter and motorbikes going inside and leaving with a package.
Or the takeaway that has never been open in three years. Or the shop with very limited opening hours that has hardly anything to sell - just some pop and chocolate bars.
I am not someone who knows anything about money laundering but I can spot these dodgy premises a mile away. So why does no one do anything about thus?

Thanks Bungalow, I think I get it now. So the car washes - do the people in the know avoid these places because they're exploiting people? There's one of these car washes by me and its £20 for a valet, very cheap.and they always seem really busy, so as a business even though it's just a front the business must be making them.money aswell as letting them use it for money laundering?

The amount of barber shops, nail salons and certain off licence shops in my small town are ridiculous and definitely a front for money laundering because there is no way they can open shop after shop and stay in business

People with ethics avoid them.

Most people turn a blind eye, because it's £20.

Same as people buy from Temu.

Also you can have your front painted by a mate- pay him double, and then he's earned the money cleanly, and you can deduct it from business expenses etc.

It's why the shop fronts are painted every flipping month or so.

Yy also you can "sell" the business every now and then, register a different owner, then couple of years later they "sell" it back to you. Obviously there's a certain amount of discretion re what the value of the business is.

This.

I know some people who are in prison for 'a small fish in a very big pond' involvement in takeaways/nail bars as a front for drugs and money laundering - they were caught as part of a huge operation, the police had been watching them for months, but its likely Mr Big escaped overseas.

But the police and HMRC just don't have the resources to sit outside thousands of premises for days/weeks at a time to gather evidence and then follow all the comings and goings to see where they're taking the money and where it goes after that.

If they arrest a few small fry, it doesn't stop it happening because the ringleaders just recruit someone else and it all carries on.

This is an interesting article about dodgy shops on Oxford Street that touches on many of the issues https://www.ft.com/candy

What's the modern slavery number?

Anywhere that takes cash? Seriously? My parents ran a shop and only took cash, I assure you they were not a ‘front’ for anything. The beauty salon I go to (run by a mother and daughter from this town) only takes cash. My local chippy is cash only.

None of these are money laundering fronts.

Where I live is a shop that just sells mobile phone cases plus a small handful of reconditioned mobiles in the shop window as well as computer repairs. Run by three or four Asian men. I fail to see how it can fund overheads plus incomessufficient for these people. They are never busy. Been open for years. The other week I bought a new phone case. Deadly quiet in there with the men all sat round looking the height of relaxed together in a group. They take cash plus cards but where are the profits coming from? They have also mysteriously managed to renovate the premises it looks spanking new! The mind boggles.

A recent report on a massive benefit fraud case run from a convenience store!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13290051/The-benefit-fraud-millionaires-5-Bulgarians-pulled-Britains-biggest-benefits-fraud-taking-54million-6000-fake-ID-claims-fund-luxurious-life.html

We are a lawless country now, nobody does anything about Anything, so they get away with everything, that's why everyone wants to come here.

Apparently rapists are no longer going to be jailed, they haven't got the room, what message does that send out, women are worthless.

There was a restaurant near me that opened, except it never seemed to do much trade. Plenty of deliveries, but no customers. No reviews on trip advisor. If you walked in, you got a brusque ‘closed today’, and if you rang, they were ‘booked up’. Despite this apparent lack of trade, the owner had two very expensive cars. It couldn’t have been more dodgy if it had tried.

I did ring 101 to report, but the operator got confused that I couldn’t actually say what the crime was, and I got the impression that I was in danger of appearing in the Daily Mail as the person who rang the police because they couldn’t make a restaurant booking.

The business was eventually listed for sale, and I felt sorry for the new owners who had evidently been sold what they thought was a thriving business based on the books, but which turned out to be an utter sham.

I did email our council recently to find out how to report the local money laundering fronts but the .gov page they sent me didn't seem relevant for members of the public 😕. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/money-laundering-regulations-report-suspicious-activities

I can tell you what will happen…absolutely nothing! I reported a local ‘nail bar and spa’ in my town, I spoke to someone on the designated number advertised to report this type of thing and she couldn’t have been less interested.

If customers pay by card, the money has to go into a verified bank account and is traceable

The amount of barber shops in our town is absolutely ridiculous. Shops are all done out like tacky nightclubs with no expense spared. They sit there all day playing on their phones with zero customers. Staff seem to rotate but all look like they are related or friends. They completely bring the tone of the town down. Same with nail bars. They're two a penny. I teach and it's soul destroying for the youngsters coming through college trying to establish a customer base. It's about time they were looked into. Lots of them take cards - it doesn't mean that they are honest.

so my local vietnamese nail bar is cash only,
has majority young male vietnamese workers who speak very little english, but they do charge the market rate. It's not cheap.
Is this a money laundering/modern slavery set up?

These days, only taking cash is a sign that something's dodgy. Card readers now cost less than cash, are simpler etc. If all income is going through the books, then it should be fine however people want to pay. But if it's not all through the books, or it's laundering.... Well.

In my home town there is a nail bar that gets raided/closed down every 6 months or so

Everyone acts shocked,then it calms down and they all go back to have their nails done

A restaurant is the same-its always getting closed down for 'illegals' and the fact it's filthy behind the scenes

Again,everyone acts shocked but walk through the doors the second it opens

Where I live now,we have 9 Turkish barbers
A dessert shop
3 nail bars
5 pizza shops
A furntiure shop
4 cafes
All are for funnelling money-ive never seen a customer in any of them

I know of at least 7 shops that do cheap illegal tobacco behind the counter

Its a tiny town with about 10 'proper' shops and this rest above to make up the rest

Everyone moans about it but nobody does anything to stop it

It's pointless reporting it as nothing gets done

HMRC don’t have the resources to investigate.

I know someone who was reported for tax evasion (distant family member) of many thousands, > £100k probably. HMRC did contact them about looking at their last years books. All they did was close the company, start it again with a slightly different name and pay someone a few grand to be the “director”. Nothing happened to them. And they still do dodgy shit.

😂😂😂😂😂

Christ, we can't manage the public services on the staff we have at the moment - no chance will the government give any of us the resources we need for the scale of things.

Prisons are at 99% capacity with emergency meetings with the Cabinet Office about what the fuck they can do next to release more prisoners (men really, women's prisons aren't in the same state) and try not to get people killed by releasing the wrong ones....
Police are on the bones of their arse, HMRC investigation teams are and have always been a mix of incompetent and inept or competent but swamped, and Border Force already do what you're talking about but they are looking for the head honchos more than the poor buggers at the bottom of the food chain.

Most of the 1000 men arrested in a national operation targeting cannabis farms recently (for example) were trafficked and / or exploited - barely any of them were the brains behind the plot, so those guys will simply start up another farm with more victims to tend the plants while the first batch of victims go to prison and are then deported. But that all takes time, costs money and loads up police, Borders, prisons, CPS and court staff for the duration.

There’s a hairdresser near me - open 15+ years - which I swear is money-laundering. I used to go there but she’s really not a very good hairdresser and the place is never busy - how she can make enough even for business rates I don’t know.
Her Dh runs some sort of business (she’s told me that) so that has only increased my suspicions.

All of them allow the owners to skim off profits from the till and declare as much or as little as they like in turnover, overheads and profit. Your parents would have been the same. Maybe not to the tune of massive sums of money, but it allows for a lot more creative accounting.

It doesn't have to be a slur on your parents, it's a decision they took and they will know their reasons for it.

Your local chippy does it for the same reason. Cash only also loses a lot of sales to people who don't have access to cash these days... which in our town of 20,000+ residents is most of us due to all the cashpoints disappearing.