Back in the early 2000s, when malls were still frequented, there was a tea shop down a dark wing that was rarely visited. I was on a tea bender and visited often, it was always empty. The man who ran the shop was very friendly. He was so friendly that he never failed to overstuff the tea I bought, give me a free hot tea, my choice, even the very expensive tea, on the spot, and heavily discount the tea I did pay for. I recommended him to friends and family, who reported the same experience. Empty shop, free and discounted tea, very friendly.
After a while, he opened up a little. He was from Iran. He had to leave very quickly, but he missed his home country. When asked why he left, he would dodge the question. People I sent to visit also reported his question dodging. He hesitated to say much about Iran beyond its ancient (and very cool) history.
I do not think he was laundering money, but he wasn’t there to make money. My guess is that he was whisked away by the US Government/CIA and given a new home in a quiet town where he could finally relax and just sell tea.
A few times, his older son was in the shop and was always visibly frustrated or bored, and he expressed a strong desire to “go home” back to Iran. The tea shop man tried to hide the seriousness in his tone when asking his son to be quiet. On occasion, his wife was there. She was friendly enough when speaking to you but always had a wary look on her face when you walked into the shop, looking right at your face for the first few seconds. I know that look personally. She was looking for danger in a face.
Even after the mall’s soul died and the anchor stores left, the little friendly tea shop in the dark, empty wing stayed.
That family was not there to make money selling tea. Very, very good tea, might I add. Such a friendly man. I hope they found peace.
To be fair, he might not have been hiding from anyone specifically, it could’ve just been they had escaped from a war zone and didn’t want to talk about it.
Yeah, that’s probably more likely.
I hope they found peace.
Well yes, except obviously not now that you’ve told on them and assasins find them.
But up to this point, prolly, yeah.
That’s lovely. I’m my experience, tea people are special people.
until deprived of tea.
then they’re special monsters.
There used to be a coffee shop in my town. Every day they had a two-part secret phrase that would let you get drugs, but it sounded like an order. I think I activated it one time. “Can I please get a double-double with whip cream?” “Sure. How’s your dog Mittens?” “I have no dog?!” Later, the coffee shop shut down because they got caught drug trafficking. They would double cup the coffee orders that had the drugs, and put the drugs in between the paper cups.
That’s a fun way to do it.
This was an entire episode of Castle (the guy from Firefly) except it was a Pizza shop.
I’ve never seen Castle, but I was pretty sure you were referring to Nathan “the guy from Firefly” Fillion. Ouch.
Captain Hammer?
Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck
The uh… The rookie…
I remember reading a story about something like that at KFC. And the code phrase was you wanted an extra biscut or something.
Every mattress store you’ve ever seen is likely a front for some shady shit.
You think the money is under the mattress?
Came to say this
My town has a population of about 2,000 people. There are five dedicated car washes within a 10-mile radius of my house, with two more under construction.
I honestly do not understand car washes and how they are supposed to turn a profit.
With drug money, duh.
Haven’t you seen Breaking Bad?
The drug trade is a trillion dollar industry. Got to wash them somewhere. Where better than at a washer?
Yup. Really easy to stuff some cash in the till and declare it as income with a car wash. Actually clean 100 cars a day? Buy enough cleaning supplies for 130 cars. Report on your records that you sold 130 washes. Dump the excess chemicals down the drain or just use them abundantly during washes. Sure, if you claim to wash a thousand cars when you only washed 100, then that could get you caught quickly. But if you’re not greedy, you could keep such a setup going for a very long time.
Biggest cost is the startup and then employees, with an occasional big maintenance repair. Buying cleaning products in bulk? The cost will make you feel cheated for what you pay for a quart to a gallon.
I get that, i used to service a small-ish car wash, and the amout of times something broke or didn’t work or the cost of osmosis filters alone was staggering to me. Always thinking about how many people would have to wash a car to just get that money back.
Sometimes it’s just a passion project by crazy people. My town has a shack on a busy non-walkable intersection without even parking spaces that sells only angel figurines. Let me be clear, this isn’t general angel knickknacks, this isn’t specific saints, it’s angel figurines ONLY. You will find no bless this house signs. No Christmas tree toppers or ornaments. Not a single holiday decoration, religious or otherwise. You won’t even find Jesus on the cross.
Angel. Figurines. Only. I always assumed it was a front for something until my mom helped with some taxes for them. No, it’s just one crazy couple who are obsessed with the sanctity of the angel figurine. They feel very strongly about it and asking if they do garden angels now that spring’s coming up and you’d love to patronage them is apparently offensive enough for them to take their taxes elsewhere lol.
There’s a mobile phone repair shop next to where we live. Everything in the window is faded from the sun. In 6 years of living here I have not seen it open or someone inside even once.
Used to be a Pizza place in my home town that had $1 large pizza on Wednesday no limit, they were the worst pizza in town, but they were packed every week. It went on for years then they got shut down turns out they were using the increase in foot traffic to cover people coming in to buy drugs.
Nah they make good steak and shrimp and they don’t bother me so Ima leave them alone. There are much bigger criminals to worry about in this country than shady local businesses.
It’s way more than one shop. Meh, shop there anyway if you like anything they sell. Chances are your government is blowing ridiculous money on bullshit anyway. Pay cash too when you can. And do everything you can to resist digital spending tracking.
At the end of my street growing up was a used car dealership with the same 4 cars scattered out front my entire time through elementary, middle and high school. They didn’t even bother airing up the tires…
In Switzerland it’s either “Barber Shops” or “Döner Shops” their card reading terminals are for some reason always broken and you have to pay cash!
Their card terminal is broken because they can then lie on the taxes on how much they made. They can’t do that with a card transaction.
Yes that’s literally what money laundering is
No it isn’t, it’s tax evasion. Businesses do it to get more money from lying on their taxes, not taking “dirty” illegal money and making it legal
That depends on if they’re reporting LESS money than they actually made, or are reporting MORE money than the shop itself actually took in.
If everything is in cash, you can inflate it pretty easily without raising eyebrows.
Yeah, but reporting “less” is 100x more likely. And saying “everything is money laundering” is wrong, they’re messing around with taxes.
Those fucking candy shops in London. You know the ones. Also, I used to manage a car wash/detail shop in Florida, and Breaking Bad nailed it.
Those fucking candy shops in London. You know the ones.
I’m sorry, I’m an ignorant American who’s never been across the pond. I’m also confused by further comments calling these shops “American.”
Could anyone explain?
They’re in very valuable retail locations in the city centre, they sell American brands of candy at unreasonably high prices, and I have never seen a single customer in any of them buy anything.
They look like this
I’ve seen one opposite a cinema, cheaper than buying your sweets inside so it gets plenty of custom. It was the only one around though.
This article breaks it down.
American Candy shops in Denmark too. It’s hilarious. I still go to them when I visit my bestie though haha. Love those mixed bags.
Denmark
but, but you have real chocolate in denmark… why allow such an affront?
Ladkris is heaven.
Ladkris
looks fancy. prob can’t afford it.
can afford a few Tony’s Chocolonely here and there, and that’s enough. fucking fantastic stuff.
Ladkris is sold everywhere, it’s a nice treat and common for Christmas gifts. If you are in the UK, think Hotel Chocolate. In America, Godiva.
yeahhhh, had family that worked for godiva. some of it was rather nice but again, their product chain wasn’t conflict free for a long time and I don’t like slavery choco.
Yep, the ones in London are American candy shops too.
Yea, we had one out here in the SW near me but it didn’t last and by far wasn’t the shadiest shop in that area though lmao. I went there for Gatorade and some nostalgia treats. They didn’t have a lot of scoop bins though and it was a bit out of the way.
For some reason (probably just from good memories), the sweets with the isles of scoops are distinctively a Scandinavian thing to my brain.
I haven’t seen a candy shop with the scoop bins in forever. When I was a kid, they were a staple of Americana.
There was a small one that recently rebranded into a doughnut shop. If it was a front at some point, its popular enough to be legit now.
If you used to manage, weren’t you directly involved in the layering of dirty money?
Please do an AMA!
His name is Bogdan
Only one? All vape shops are money laundering fronts, until proven otherwise.
One of our customers operates out of two leased “office” trailers next to an old pole barn in the middle of a corn field.
From there, they “operate” 17 different companies, all demanding separate billing from us.
There’s no WAY it’s legit. They have more “official” registered companies than they have office employees.
Edited because mobile sucks
Could it be a landlord situation? It’s pretty cheap to open an LLC. Sometimes landlords will open many of them, an LLC for every rental property they own. It protects them from liability. If something goes really wrong and a tenant sues them for big $$$, the most they risk losing is the single rental house the tenant is renting.
Ironically that’s one of the things they don’t claim to be involved in.
To list some of the things they claim to do
Construction
Hydro excavating
“Tribal Economic Development”
Native American health insurance
“Health” supplements (think: “vitality” pills)
Renewable Energy projects
Manufacturing
Finance
Industrial development (though never actually heard of a won bid)
(all of these entities are “owned” by a Native American- which I’ve alwas suspected is for tax benefit purposes)eh. you know what? let em.
The feds (and white men) have fucked them around for 400 years. Let 'em grift everything they can.
Won’t somebody please think of the landlords?
Theres a pizza store near me that always sells the weirdest pizzas, they have beans on pizza and just about everything else. Nobody ever goes in and ive never seen any deliveries leave.
It would be more unsettling to see people enter, but never leave.
Baked Beans on a pizza is great. It’s like fancy beans on toast
Ive acturally tried it and tbh beans belong on pizza
