To think that (some) vaping shops and barbers are fronts ....

[crockofshite]

..... for dodgy dealings? There are so many of these shops in every high street, how can there be enough customers to support them?

Well yes, quite ....

In my hometown it’s well known that certain barbers are fronts for money laundering and the same owners run the heroin trade.

Nobody messes with them at all. They’re frightening people.

I live near a really nice (in fact, it's fairly Naice ) little market town in the Home Counties. Still hanging onto a few independent shops despite rocketing rents, and there are now sadly quite a few empty shops. An independent picture framers closed a couple of years ago, became a vape shop. Never, ever seen anyone in there (and you can buy vapes at the excellent local newsagents).

There are two traditional barbers (as in, men actually go in there and get haircuts) which have been there ages, plus about 5 hair salons - and it's not a large town at all, yet we also have two 'Turkish' barbers (one literally opened this week) both opened in otherwise vacant shops.

THREE fecking nail bars, all staffed by fed-up looking young women and men from SE Asia. I've long assumed the nail bars are using/abusing people who have been conned into coming here and no longer have much free agency .

The barbers always have fierce-looking guys who stand in the doorways or just outside on the pavement, eyeing up everyone who passes by and it does actually feel quite intimidating. It's a very liberal area demographically and if you voice your disquiet about what these businesses might actually be fronting, you're made to feel like a gammon. I get an unpleasant vibe from the guys who hang out there, and it feels like something unsavoury is going on in plain sight, yet buried in this nice little market town that everyone thinks is so cute.

Interested to see this evening's BBC item on vape shops and 'Turkish' barbers...!

I brought it up with a small business that has been in my local town for at least 30 years, all the Turkish barbers, vape shops, mobile phone shops what the hell is it about. She said simply - money laundering.

Also these shops supply those massive Nitrous Oxide canisters which are banned. Yet do see many dumped on the roadsides, in car parks etc.

Another tale tell sign are strange things together. Handbags and mobile repairs?

Good start, now about about the rest of the black economy, i.e. undeclared cash in hand work, VAT evasion, selling duty free booze and fags, etc.

Yeah, absolutely. Money laundering, drug dealing, trafficking, all that stuff. If you stand outside some of these barbers you’ll notice they’re never actually doing any work, it’s just lads stood around chatting or on their phones. A few of the vape shops round us are known for selling drugs and cheap tobacco under the counter aswell. Another one is American sweet shops.

Yes I think it's because as soon as one rogue business goes, another pops up. Could also be that the powers that be are profiting off these shops too but I don't have proof of that and don't want to be accused of slander.

That’s exactly how I feel about it too. It’s just so blatant.
At least it looks like police might have started cracking down on it:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3677xzk56no

Ah, I just posted the same link before seeing your update!

“Det Insp Daniel Fenn, on his ninth raid of the week, says some barber shops such as this are claiming income of £100,000 to £150,000 a month.”

How is that even remotely probable? They’re not even trying to appear genuine. I’ve seen barber shops in our local town, a haircut is usually around £10-£15. How many of these will you need to get to £100,000?

Though I can't have my nails done due to allergies to common ingredients found in in nail varnish and glue. There is no chance you can get your nails done by a white person. There are 4 nail bars in the town where I live and about 7 others I can think of where all the staff are Chinese/Vietnamese etc.

Yet always busy.

Thinking that the latest wave of Turkish barbers use black, white and yellow on their shop fronts. Also the people are not trained, rush the job. Proper barbers take their time and care. Also look at Streetview if your town has multiple years of photos.

6,666 at £15. In a month of 25 days, assuming they shut one day a week, 255 per day. Even assuming ten staff (unlikely) that's 25 ish per person per day. On a ten hour day, that's around two and a half minutes per cut.

Shelagh Fogarty is discussing this on LBC.
I am slightly puzzled that she is suggesting that people inform the police. Or their MP.
Does she think the police and MPs don't know?

So, it is blatantly staring us in the face, just as we thought.

I can't believe the National Crime Agency are only just cracking down on them. I think I'll ramp up my crimestoppers reports, see if they can eventually get round to closing our magical no customer Euromart and ice cream shop. And beauty salon, and barbers...

Trading standards and illegal money lenders (ex police teams) look at ours.

Exactly. Plus, even if they did employ 25 barbers simultaneously, there’s another barbershop just down the road, and then another one, and another one… there won’t even be enough customers for all of them.
Similar with the American/ Mexican sweet shops, they’re on every corner in our local town.
As the article says, “Politicians and members of the public have raised concerns about many of these businesses which have boomed even while High Streets appear to be in decline.”

They're no longer proactive so they don't actively go out looking for crimes, neither the police nor councils, etc.

They are now only reactive, so will only act when the statistics highlight a problem. If the statistics show huge numbers of public reports about a turkish barbers, they'll eventually get around to acting.

Same with speeding, parking on pavements, anti social behaviour, it's all based on report statistics, so the more people who report, the more likely something will eventually get done.

I'm an accountant and we have to make "suspicious activity reports" for money laundering, proceeds of crime, including tax evasion. In our firm, we've made a few dozen reports over the past decade or two, and not a single one has been acted upon. I talk to other accountants and they say the same. When we are on courses about money laundering and reporting, etc., the speakers all say the same, that it's all about gathering statistics and evidence, so that eventually, HMRC, NCA and the police will form task forces to tackle specific crimes and then, if they're targetting a particular type of business, they'll use the data we've all submitted to them, but that they're very unlikely to do anything on a client by client piecemeal basis.

For the turkish barbers which have been raided, I suspect they're the ones who've had the most reports submitted by the public - there will be a reason why the police have chosen the ones they've chosen.

It's like cannabis factories in our town. Two huge ones were raided on the High Street, one being in a derelic ex-boots store and the other in a derelict ex Barclays bank - huge obvious buildings right in the heart. But despite the police officers literally walking past them every day (and being able to smell the obvious smell of cannabis - everyone else can smell it as they walked past), the police only acted when they'd received numerous reports from the general public! They're really not interested in going out and proactively looking for things anymore - too busy rushing to the donut shop!

The police need evidence to build a case to meet CPS thresholds, hence the more reports the more likely the evidential opportunities are. Much easier to do that with 10 detailed reports (times, vehicles, descriptions) than 1 vague report. Money laundering is hard to prove and takes more time and resourcing to follow trails (which often go nowhere) than finding 1 ton of cocaine in a shipping container.

Also the flavour of the day has been small boats for the past few years so resources will be focused on what's most politically relevant.

You may have seen this in your area, or you haven't. Houses bought at market prices are pulled down and something grotesque is built on the land. They probably are not making a profit on these houses. An example a mile from me https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.6160237,-1.0930394,3a,75y,186.53h,84.29t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sKAu-aL7QiEVJymIoONmVog!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D5.7117127426609215%26panoid%3DKAu-aL7QiEVJymIoONmVog%26yaw%3D186.53499996055334!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQwOS4wIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExNDUzSAFQAw%3D%3D then scroll to the oldest date

I believe that these properties are linked to money laundering.

We have two 'Turkish' barbers in the next village along to ours (a village that previously had none, the premises were previously an NFU Mutual and a feed store). They are 'open' 9-6 every day including Sundays and seem to share staff (intimidating blokes who glare at anyone who remotely looks like they are thinking of actually asking for a haircut). They never have any customers and I know of not one single person who uses them - they all go into town for a haircut like they have always done. Interestingly, it was our local migrant fruit pickers (mostly Romanians) who immediately pointed out that they were front operations for crime and who remain aghast that the authorities have done absolutely nothing.

We have one of those on my street. Hadnt been open in years but tge photos in the window change regularly