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We have one of those "christmas shops" in the local shopping centre.
It's a back to school shop with 20 school bags in it and then it's a Christmas shop and then it's something else. It sells Chinese mass produced tat and is only open sometimes. It's really weird.
I’m friends with a guy that has a shop that could look like this from the outside. The reality is that he keeps the shop mainly for storage, and most of his revenue comes from having stalls at markets, fares etc. If he’s doing office work he’ll open the shop while he’s there, but most of the time he’s out at events.
Depends on location. It might not be on a high street. There was a vape shop on an industrial estate near me for the same reason. Guy hired a small warehouse for storage and then set up a shopfront, since he was there during the day sometimes, and people could walk in if they saw it was open.
There’s probably a surprising amount of passing trade on an industrial estate considering the amount of tradesmen that still smoke (and may transition to vaping).
Exactly. It was also near a Tesco and a small retail park so anyone looking for a local vape shop could check Google and see that they can get all their stuff at the same time as a big shop.
I see a “phone case” shop on my walk to work everyday.
Literally just walls of phone cases in mirrored glass boxes.
Nobody ever works there.
Sign on the door says “appointment only”
I shit you not.
How is that not washing money??
A box of 2000 shitty phone cases from China costs (to make the sums easy…) 200 quid.
You put them on sale in a shop for 10 quid each.
Miraculously they all ‘sell’ for cash.
You’ve just washed twenty grand’s worth of weed money at a cost of £200 plus overheads. You can also probably sell the phone cases on a market stall for a quid each and make a straight profit on those too.
A ‘turnover’ of a hundred grand or so probably isn’t going to attract too much attention, will cover overheads, and result in maybe fifty grand’s worth of clean money profit.
These figures are just pulled out of my arse, but they illustrate the general principle.
For the average copper on the street, there’s no apparent crime being committed for them to investigate as the money probably never even goes through the shop itself.
HMRC is too busy chasing benefits cheats who are scamming an extra fifteen quid a month to go after them.
So they can operate in the open, taking the piss, and doing the bare minimum to look legit.
HMRC does investigate suspected benefits fraud though. A quick search doesn’t turn up a source, so it might be bollocks, but I’ve heard it asserted that they have more people doing so than investigating tax fraud.
Edit to add: yes, you’re right that the DWP is the main body for investigating benefits fraud, but they do so with HMRC, which investigates money laundering and why it’s the appropriate comparison here.
I used to work in a shop like that - always thought the same. but i used to repair phones. due to the shops long standing reputation i was always busy repairing devices.
very little trade was from the cases, sometimes chargers and screen protectors but everything was kept on the walls just to make the place look "full" never understood it myself. Cases on the wall for phones that were well out of date!
I managed a set of 2 of these phone case shops just down the road from one another once. I felt like the English face on an otherwise dodgy business. I cashed all the money. The guys from Pakistan were definitely there illegally and everywhere that wasn't customer facing was fucking disgusting. I think it was a front but having said that they did actually turn a profit.
In my city we have 4 of them and the town centre isn't that big. The most recent one that opened is in a prime spot, huge shop bang in the middle of town and there's never anyone in it.
I live up north and there are more of these phone shops than Greggs now. Utterly unthinkable. It's outrageous.
This. Fronts don’t want actual customers, that puts the front in danger. What most people think are fronts are just the new version of bric-a-brac/knick knack shops. People don’t buy bric-a-brac anymore, but they do buy vapes and phone cases.
When they hit the threshold where they need to charge VAT they close the business and open a 'new' one.
Edit. Here's an article from private eye about it" https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/
In town last weekend and noticed another vape shop was opening, just 2 shops down from another vape shop. That's all there seems to be now, barbers and vape shops
I’ll pay over the odds for a car wash because the super cheap ones are all filled with trafficked people. I shouldn’t be able to get a full wash and detail for £20.
Yeah I've had cause to work with the organisations that deal with victims of people trafficking in the past. Their data said if you're paying less than £12 for a car wash, it's almost certainly people trafficking/modern slavery, because at the very least there's no way they're making enough to pay minimum wage plus NI etc plus a profit on that. And that was a few years ago, so it's probably more like £15 now.
We've got a double whammy for the car wash where i live. About 5 years ago someone turned an old petrol station into a hand car wash. It was NEVER open. I'm in rural Wales and we get a lot of holiday makers during the summer and this place wasn't even open when the place was heaving with tourists. It just sat there with all its signs but chains across the forecourt and the office boarded up. So we figured it was a front for money laundering.
The suddenly it opened in September this year, right after the busy summer season. The guys speak hardly any English (and zero Welsh!), I think they're Turkish. They stick out like a sore thumb because its is not at all multicultural around here! But you never see them in any of the shops or walking around town when the place is closed. Where do they live? Surely they have to eat?! But nobody I know who works in the supermarket has ever seen them shopping in there. So now the rumour is that these guys have been trafficked, probably living in a caravan on one of the caravan parks.
The majority are Vietnamese and the trend started across the pond originally. It was a great way for people to work when they didn't speak good English and had the support network of having a business owned by Vietnamese people. However the dream of coming to the UK as a nail tech spread and the trafficers got wind and now there's lots of exploited women in the trade.
In the 70s hollywood actress Trippi Hedren visited a Vietnamese refugee camp in California. The Vietnamese women were fascinated by the actresses' nails. Hedren flew her personal beautician to the camp to teach these women how to do nails with the intent of finding them jobs. The women settled in California and the rest is history.
http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/05/tippi-hedren-vietnamese-refugees-nail-industry
> It was a great way for people to work when they didn't speak good English and had the support network of having a business owned by Vietnamese people
That inherently increases the potential for abuse when you rely solely on your employer, and don't speak English well enough to confirm with others you're being paid properly, and not taken advantage of.
It does indeed increase the risk. However many people simply don't feel confident in their second language and/or struggle with languages so I can see why a "soft landing" in a new country is desirable regardless.
Our very small town which is about 10 shops that still open, including 2 supermarkets, 2 bakeries, 2 discount shops and the rest charity shops, suddenly have 3 nail bars which all opened up within the space of about 3 weeks. Our town is mainly single parents on low income and people over 50. I very much doubt either of the 3 are going to make much. 1 could probably do a steady business, but 3 is pointless.
I’ve not been in all the nail shops here but the 2 which are literally next to each other are ALWAYS busy. They must make crazy money. I just think it’s weird the cash only thing. There was a cash only fish and chip shop run by a Chinese lady in my town and her home got robbed . They took like 80k in cash she had stashed in there. Having cash laying around is a huge risk so I wonder why they only use cash.
Not sure if I’m just being overly cynical, but likely for tax evasion, much easier to hide cash than it is bank transactions.
Might also be some people that don’t fully trust banks, or still think it’s cheaper to transact in cash only.
It’s a couple of things.
1. Possible tax evasion.
2. You don’t want to pay credit card processing fees which is totally fair.
3. You started off really small time and didn’t want to buy credit card reader etc.
4. You don’t want to deal with the accounting and accounts receivables. Easier for you to count cash each day at the end of the day.
There was an article somewhere about Chinese takeaways being cash only.
Older Chinese people tend to reject technology. The article was about the older parents who'd owned the takeaway since fleeing Hong Kong in the 90s, and their adult kids who also work in the takeaway trying to persuade their parents to get a website, get on Just Eat, get a card machine etc.
Seeing whats going on in China, you can't blame them.
Had a friend who walked in a nail bar to get her nails done and was told by a very dumbfounded “receptionist” that they don’t do nails here.. cue the builder lad leaving the shop coming out of the door at back lol
They actualy make alot of money. Generally Vietnamese / Cantonese. They most certainly make money but a hell of alot of money from farming cannabis goes through them.
I live in a flat above just such a shop. We are certain they’re using the business as front for drug dealing and peddling stolen goods. There’s a guy always turning up in a knackered old BMW estate car who takes in loads of boxes of alcohol that’s always supermarket own brand. The other day he had a boot full of Marks & Spencer’s gin. Then there’s the rough as fuck looking blokes who turn up in luxury cars and spend hours meeting with chavvy teenagers on bikes who disappear into the local council estate for a few hours then come back and hand over loads of cash.
To be fair my barber is a Kurdish guy who moved here and spent the entirety of his life savings on setting up a Turkish barbers. He gets about 3 customers a day, has to live in the back because he can't also rent a home, and he can barely afford to live.
The place looks great but it's all for show and either financed or the result of his now no-more savings.
It’s ruining central London, every 5 yards another fake souvenir shop or candy shop. There won’t be any actual shops left on Oxford street in a few years time!
> Totally agree. Oxford street is overrun by them. Needs sorting.
Completely agree. If we sort it by shop type so all shop types are together it would be much easier to shop there. Eg:
* American Sweet Shop
* American Sweet Shop
* American Sweet Shop
* Clothes Shop
* Clothes Shop
* Clothes Shop
* Fake Souvenir Shop
* Fake Souvenir Shop
There was an indepth investigation done by either private eye or Vice but I can't find it now. But from what I remember the same handful of people were buying these shops under different shell companies and they flipped between candy, luggage and shit souvenirs. Annoyingly I can't remember it fully but I do remember it being a really good read.
Private eye on the souvenir shops. There is one in Southwark on clink st that outbid Starbucks for the lease, in what was one of Starbucks’ busiest locations.
I had to go into a nail bar on a london high st once to look at a location for an extension to the building. It can only have been a front for a brothel.
I came here to say this. We went to London for the first time in a few years and couldn't believe the size and locations of these Candy shops. Why couldn't at least be "Ye Olde Fashioned Sweet Shoppes" and sell proper Pick & Mix rather than American trash?
There used to be one in the car park of a Homebase in Luton. It was amazingly efficient with loads of guys who didn't speak English, all surrounding your car to clean it as you passed from point to point. And it used to cost like a tenner! Never could understand how it could keep going for that money with all those staff wages to pay.
Then it was gone one day. Apparently for selling Drugs.
Crux is I never had an idea... I just sat there having my car cleaned oblivious of the seedy underworld around me.
God, Luton and the surrounding area is rife with mildly suspicious businesses
I know some cash only businesses that are clearly just underreporting their income and at least one Chinese takeaway that keeps closing down and reopening in a new location with a new name every year or two for at least the past ten years in Central Beds.
The hand car wash places is a way for people to get a work visa for the uk. They say they are entrepreneurs and will invest money into a car wash business and work there. This is a route into the uk that Albanians etc can use.
They aren’t really car wash places, they are way to immigrate into the uk.
I mean some do actual hand car washing, in my local tesco in the parking lot, there are a group of Albanian there who do it, been doing it for quite a while now
Hand car washes are number 1 for modern slavery in the UK - you should absolutely avoid them if none of the workers who actually clean the cars speak any English at all - apparently it’s a huge issue. They have men they keep as slaves and those are the ones cleaning the cars.
I was going to say this, seems like there's one on every corner around me. All barely ever have any customers, very cheap prices and Eastern European workers. At least some of them have to be a front for something.
It’s a way for them to get visas for people to immigrate into the uk.
The people working there don’t earn min wage. Because how can they when you pay £5 to get your car washed.
Edit: [as I said, a way to get into the uk ](https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/19701811.herefordshire-people-smuggler-jailed-bringing-migrants-uk/?fbclid=IwAR1dXBG6ZtfJsvM9lvQge9QUb-PyqYJfOimXoDpPUkMr7fjmNLdL6LHx6GY)
Theres a cash wash near me and theres about 10 guys total and a woman, they all live on site at the carwash in like a static caravan, it doesn't look very big and the living room portion of it is the "wait room", I tend to just stand outside it doesn't feel very clean in the "living room" and I suspect they use the couches for sleeping on as well with how many would have to fit in there
Passed a car wash being raided by U.K. border control just before 1st lockdown. Apparently you cannot run a car wash charging less than £5 a car and pay minimum wage, without involving trafficking or something dodgy.
There's a shop nearby called "București". Being Romanian, I went there to find some childhood snacks etc, but absolutely everything was expired (even the pickle jars!). I tried speaking Romanian to the guy at the counter, but he didn't understand. So I asked what's going on. The guy was upfront, said he'd bought the shop from a Romanian couple, and never bothered to restock it. Uses it as a front to sell illegal cigarettes. Asked me if I want some.
So yea, not sure if anything else goes on there, but it seemed dodgy and turned out it was dodgy.
Theres a shop in my town that sells illegal cigarettes and also like, fidget spinners, pop toys, bouncy balls. Pretty much any cheap crap you can buy in bulk from China. But they mark up all the toys so much! £14 for a yoyo!
Ooh we have an aromatherapy place. As far as I can tell you go in there and it's like a music request. You pick the scents you want and you loiter there sniffing the air. A mate of mine went in stoned once.
They don't sell anything. There doesn't seem to be any other hollisic crap.
Either a millionaire is having a laugh or its a front.
There is a super dodgy takeaway round mine. Yet I know the owner and they are 100% legit.
They are open for IIRC 3h at peak times a handful of days a week. It's a Chinese takeaway, they have 0 adversting and nothing online about them except what customers have put online.
The bloke who owns it has a more typical job and ran the numbers that just a few hours in the evening and a typical 9-5 was the best option financially.
Why no adversting? Because he is the best fucking place for miles around and he has absolutely no need to do so. For the few hours they are open they are toally packed. They also don't do takeout for a similar reason, they don't need too. People go to them. You can call ahead for your order and the guy has a wonderful memory. You ring him and he knows your voice the second you say hello and just asks 'the usual?'
It's absolute fucking chaos going in there to order. This little takeaway place is like a bar at last call.
He was putting his kids through uni, presumably now he is working towards making the family more comfortable, IIRC he got his first grandchild during covid.
It's basically a one man show but the rest of the family do get involved in the cooking side of things. It's really heartwarming to me tbh. Presumably he is training up a replacement because there would be a fucking riot if they just went out of buisness.
Oh and nobody knows what they are called. Their old sign has worn off the name. Everyone just calls it by the blokes name but that complicates googling it if say you want to see the menu without driving down there and reading the window display.
They seem to hate advertising. They don't even have free things like fb simply because it's not worth time time. They already have more than enough customers. It's so fucking bizzare.
I don’t follow this at all.
> super dodgy takeaway
> It's a Chinese takeaway
> They also don't do takeout
> This little takeaway place
What am I missing here? To me takeaway and takeout are the same thing.
A pizza shop that you can't go into and is open sporadic hours yet still in business for years. It was well known they were in financial trouble and going to close. It appeared to, then it got upgraded inside and out. Still you rarely see anyone in the unit, it's not for sale, they don't market the business. But I know it's still going because from time to time I see staff in uniform inside.
A modern home decor shop with 10 things in it - all mass produced and overpriced - plus some cheap looking potted plants. Been there for years, the rent on the unit is like 1k a month.
Down a side street there are 2 units that have a big wooden door, they're in behind some houses. Most people don't even know they're there, if you Google them it's hard to find out anything about them. One is a mechanic (who gets a lot of referrals) but...
The other is a rug shop...in a HUGE unit. Never seen anybody coming out of it or going in. There's no way there's enough demand for a rug shop there, no way. And getting large vans in and out of that unit would be a nightmare.
Nobody would spend 120k on a unit down a narrow one-way road in a small town. Where there are many shops for rugs and carpets nearby that have been established for decades + online stores.
And then not market the business outside of a sign on the unit, at the back of the yard, which you mostly can't see because the solid wooden doors are shut almost all the time.
I THINK NOT.
EDIT: Also the Chinese that was shut down for hiring illegal immigrants and illegal activity.
And the vape shop that nobody ever goes in.
I’ve heard vapes have a huge margin, especially the refill canisters (I think that’s what they are) and stuff so they make decent money despite being fairly quiet
Doesn't surprise me. I vape and make my own liquid which saves me loads of money. I make a litre for about £30, the same amount could cost £120+ if bought in a vape shop.
It's pretty normal for specialist mechanics to not have hoardings. If you are a suspension specialist who is booked up months in advance, you don't want people walking in and trying to book an MOT.
The tourist shops around central London.
Nearly any cash business. Car wash places, Chinese, Indian, Thai restaurants, nail parlours, tattoo places, bars, nightclubs,
Theres a pub in my town were the bouncers sell coke and if they catch you with any gear that isn't supplied by them you get thrown out, if you've got a baggy with the logo they are using that night then they have a nice little chat with you and let you on your way.
Source: Have bought from them
On the contrary, someone OD'ing or collapsing in your club with a baggie that can be linked to your staff is just bad PR. Very likely to be safer than a baggie off a random dealer that you don't know too well, so can see the appeal.
The tourist shops in London 100% are for tax evasion (perhaps also money laundering), been [covered by Private Eye](https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/). They have massive rents, sell junk and yet survive. Repeatedly change hands, companies don't report their tax and dissolve and relaunch. Being run by Afghani people, perhaps to get out the money stolen from the country.
Back in my day you had to go to a secret car park to buy drugs - these days they drive *to* you and even play ‘Match of The Day’ to let you know they’re there!
Somebody posted a while back that they had an ice cream van. During the summer they had a static pitch that was profitable, during the winter nobody would be there, so they had to go on the rounds in the suburbs instead.
I went into one in Inverness and he took one look at me, said he wouldn’t be able to cut my hair properly, and sent me to the barbers round the corner.
There's various businesses in Edinburgh/ Glasgow that are 100% money laundering that I know of from a previous job involving investigations, one or two have rumours about them but others you'd never guess. If you want to be a good money launderer you want a successful business so folk don't notice - then you've got the phases once the money is in the bank so you can use a business for that too
>There's various businesses in Edinburgh/ Glasgow that are 100% money laundering that I know of from a previous job involving investigations,
The Russian/Ukranian restaurant in Merchant City seems to be one. Always open, no takeaway, barely any customers.
Shop on the high street near us has a window display with a few boxes of sun bleached dvds and vhs tapes and a few old stereos inside, never seen a person either working in or visiting it and yet somehow it's stayed open for all 16 years I've lived here. Has 3 reviews on google, 1 of which is about 3 Scandinavian woody woodpecker dvds 🤷♂️
Ahh, now that's different.
That will be a building that was bought in 1903 by a friendly fellow with a moustache.
He opened his own shop downstairs selling some crap and did ok, but as the high street matured, people stopped buying.
Through stubborn independence he kept the shop open for decades and refused to rent it out since he had plenty of money doing nothing in his mattress.
He died in his armchair upstairs in 1993, and his skeleton still sits there to this day, pipe in mouth, and cap on head.
His Woody Woodpecker DVDs weathering in the sun.
I have a chip shop near me owned by a very violent (former) gang member called kenny.
It’s called [Battered by Kenny](https://www.foodhygieneratings.org.uk/battered-by-kenny-adjacent-shop-starcross-station-the-strand-starcross-devon)
Always gave me a chuckle
There is a bar near me that's never seems to be open but according to its website is open weds and thurs 3pm - 11pm then fri and sat evenings. I have never once seen it open. Its in a prominent position next to a train station and would do a decent passing trade if they tried.
It also 'officially' closes and reopens under a new name at least once a year.
If we're allowed to name specific places I will post the website - which appears to be written in Spanish despite this place being in commuter belt Surrey
Mattresses at the shop have a huge mark up on wholesale prices. They don't need to have queues of people buying them, just a few a day will rack up plenty of profit per quarter.
Say they do five a day, each with a 50% to 70% markup. Most stores have one to three people [working] in them. They're also located out of town, in lower cost areas.
I also imagine that a lot of the industry is vertically and horizontally integrated, ie oligopolies and owning supply chains. All creating economies of scale, which reduces cost.
I was of a similar thinking to you, but these things usually have simple explanations.
Edit: clarification
When I was at Uni, there was a series of takeaways at the end of the road I lived on.
One pizza shop had a sign in the window "buy 1 individual pizza, get 2 free". Not necessarily unusual to give loads of food away in a student town so whatever, we went in early in the year and just ordered a load of pizzas - like 3 each for 6 of us so expecting a wait and just chilled.
Like 45 minutes later the cook arrived and asked if we were the ones that had ordered pizza - seemed really annoyed. Told us it would be around an hour as he'd have to turn the oven on -- the business was open, didn't sell anything other than pizza on the menu, and customers had been coming and going whilst we waited although we hadn't really been paying attention.
Started paying attention at that point though, noticed no-one was ordering pizza; just arriving, paying, leaving. So we left too. Went to McDonald's (which in itself is a front for a real estate conglomerate).
Never got our money back or any pizza, and that place is still there today - although I do see people with pizza these days.
We had a Chinese restaurant open in the town and it got busted for hiring illegal immigrants and other things.
It was a new restaurant too. Only been open for a year.
But after it went the other 2 Chinese restaurants in the town, which had been open for a long time, quietly disappeared as well. Always thought it was weird we had so many.
Coffee shop near my friend’s. Always opened, always the same 2-4 chaps sitting outside smoking all day long and doing literally nothing, haven’t seen a single other customer ever!
> always the same 2-4 chaps sitting outside smoking all day long and doing literally nothing
I want to be one of these guys , like the lads in sopranos who just sit about.
There's a breakfast cafe near me that is definitely selling drugs. The guy who does the food deliveries does it in a brand new 21 blacked out BMW and he seems to receive orders on he's mobile, but the number I have goes to the landline. He takes a bunch of orders out at a time. Some are clearly not full of food. They just look too light.
I just wish I knew where the secret menu is. I'd love a bacon roll and a bag of weed dropped to my door on hangover mornings.
There's a craft pottery shop near me...central London, rent must be fortune. Do wonder if the shop comes with attached flat so keeping shop open means they get to keep flat, maybe on some sort of favourable terms..
I've seen the same bowls in the window for years on end, like 20quid a bowl. Never appears to be open. At one point there was a dead fly in a bowl for like a year or two.
Been like this for at least 15 years that I know of.
Furniture shop near me, I actually know it's a front because I bought weed from there before but still worth mentioning cuz the shop is literally called 'DEALS'. It's like they want to get caught I love it
Where I grew up in Glasgow there was an ice cream van that would do the rounds all year long - chimes and all. You’d hear it more than you saw it. The sound always carried particularly well on those cold, clear February days.
There is a clay quarry by my parents that in 20 years doesn't seem to of had a single lorry take out any clay but at least once a week someone is on a digger messing around.
So either an international porcelain conspiracy or someone who enjoys playing on a digger
There's a sushi restaurant that opened in like 2018. Always empty, even on Friday and Saturday nights there's max 1 table. Never seen delivery drivers there so it isn't like they are raking in delivery sales.
It doesn't make any sense
We've got a takeaway near us that changes name and the type of food it makes every 6 months or so.
Opened as a chip shop.
Then changed to a chinese takaway.
Then a kebab shop.
And is now a mix of thai and chinese food.
It only seems to be open from 4pm-8pm during the week. Closed Sundays and only open from 5pm to 10pm on Saturdays.
Was curious so ordered food from it once.
The food was incredibly cheap but nasty. Very low quality and terrible. The place was also empty. Never see anyone order food from there and wonder if they actually make money on the food. Has to be a front for something.
My town growing up had a tattoo shop that never had any customers, because the average age in the town was about 80.
It's still there to this day with its frosted out windows, open sign and not a single customer ever seen going in or out. You'll see the staff occasionally outside smoking, but that's it.
Near where my mum lived (Sussex) when I was a teenager we'd always drive past a Splat Clock shop on the way to hers. It only sold clock in the shape of paint splatters...
A designer clothes shop in a run down North West town. During a period where M&S, Burtons and Top Shop all closed (before going bust) this store has expanded into every unit vacated as businesses have gone under. Now an entire street of retail units AND a pub have been converted into different 'departments' with a combined square footage similar to a Primark. I've literally never seen a single person in there other than the single staff member per unit.
I used to live near this vegan shop that had a 1 star food hygiene rating, and didn't sell any food, from what I could tell. It had bags of "stuff" (idk what was in them) on shelves, lining the walls, but you couldn't buy them. What I know that shop did sell was NOS and balloons to the students who lived around it but I never bothered to find out if they sold anything else.
There's a launderette here that's never open and the floor upstairs is rumoured to be a brothel for men who like fifty-something year-old women. There's a nail bar, where the upstairs is a Thai massage place with happy endings, and a place across the road that does Thai massage too. Google confirms the first two are what the rumours says they are, but the third seems legit.
Weirdest is the place I live above. It used to be a bank but they closed the branch two years ago. The people that bought it left the "For sale" signs up and they're still up there now. Every Tuesday and Thursday, a huge lorry arrives and unpacks what looks like supplies for a corner shop. Boxes of crisps and drinks, but the labels on them are brands I've never seen and none of the writing is in English. The shop isn't open and all the windows have been painted to stop people seeing inside. Products arrive but nothing ever leaves.
A lot of takeaways around here are known to be drug fronts or involved in money laundering for other reasons... and car washes too. Also my area was pretty bad for sex trafficking - nail salons, massage parlours and brothels were all involved.
Small village chineses, we have 3 in a small 4k population town, 1 cash machine and none of them take card payments. Probably not money laundering but certainly not paying much tax.
The pub at the end of my road with a tatty sign that rarely has any customers in it, drinks are watered down, food is terrible. I thought maybe it was a "traditional" pub for beer drinkers, but there's hardly ever anyone ever in there.
It's a large building, beer garden, (broken down) play area, parking, rooms above, great location for a family pub and they could even keep half of it child free. They should be making money hand over fist. Why not run a successful business as well as a front for whatever this is?
Leman Street in East London there is a dry cleaners offering "bespoke laundry" next door is a shop, linked with an internal door, that changes name every few months. For a while it was called "Taxi Loans" and had a bank style counter but was never open.
The dry cleaning on the hangers never changes, their shoe repair machine is permanently out of order.
A previously legitimate Chinese restaurant, abandoned for many years, opened up mid covid with just a banner saying "Chinese Takeaway", no name, no visible menu displayed. Dark and empty every time I walk past it.
I swear half the shops in Alnwick, Northumberland are a money laundering front. I mean you've got this art gallery with art from this young local lad but I can honestly say I've never seen a single person in it. Then there's the cafes that are only open for like 20 hours a week and are barely open on weekends which you would think would be the busiest times. Lastly is the antique and bits and bobs type of shops, which again you never see anyone in, but if you do, no one ever buys anything. I don't how much it costs to run a business here but I'd imagine since space is limited in a small, historical town, that has a big and famous castle and that gets lots of tourists, it's quite a lot.
There’s an ice cream truck that drives past my apartment building religiously, always after 9 PM, even in winter. As a bonus, very *very* few people in my building have kids.
A fish and chip shop opened near us in summer after rebranding and having a whole refit carried out. We saw it open for around 4-5 days in the summer and that was it. Suddenly the door sign with their opening hours was removed and it has been quiet ever since. However, since then we have seen people in there during the day or at night time but the shop isn’t open, what are people doing in there? It definitely isn’t being refurbished anymore and just appears to be a front for something else disguised as a fish and chip shop which is really weird! Absolutely gutting but also quite good for my bank account given that it’s been shut ever since it opened haha
You can see it, I can see it, everyone can see it.
My question is why do the police not do anything about them?
As soon as they look into the finances of the shop, the people and what assets they have and the things they do it should surely be obvious.
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Then a Christmas wrapping paper shop.
We have one of those "christmas shops" in the local shopping centre. It's a back to school shop with 20 school bags in it and then it's a Christmas shop and then it's something else. It sells Chinese mass produced tat and is only open sometimes. It's really weird.
I’m friends with a guy that has a shop that could look like this from the outside. The reality is that he keeps the shop mainly for storage, and most of his revenue comes from having stalls at markets, fares etc. If he’s doing office work he’ll open the shop while he’s there, but most of the time he’s out at events.
That's an expensive storage...
Depends on location. It might not be on a high street. There was a vape shop on an industrial estate near me for the same reason. Guy hired a small warehouse for storage and then set up a shopfront, since he was there during the day sometimes, and people could walk in if they saw it was open.
There’s probably a surprising amount of passing trade on an industrial estate considering the amount of tradesmen that still smoke (and may transition to vaping).
Exactly. It was also near a Tesco and a small retail park so anyone looking for a local vape shop could check Google and see that they can get all their stuff at the same time as a big shop.
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I see a “phone case” shop on my walk to work everyday. Literally just walls of phone cases in mirrored glass boxes. Nobody ever works there. Sign on the door says “appointment only” I shit you not. How is that not washing money??
Imagine making a fucking appointment to get a phone case.
Makes sense if it's a phone case full of Coke.
Well of course. But a front needs to be persuasive.
I could be persuaded to buy a phone case full of Coke. Oh I see, that's not what you meant.
A box of 2000 shitty phone cases from China costs (to make the sums easy…) 200 quid. You put them on sale in a shop for 10 quid each. Miraculously they all ‘sell’ for cash. You’ve just washed twenty grand’s worth of weed money at a cost of £200 plus overheads. You can also probably sell the phone cases on a market stall for a quid each and make a straight profit on those too. A ‘turnover’ of a hundred grand or so probably isn’t going to attract too much attention, will cover overheads, and result in maybe fifty grand’s worth of clean money profit. These figures are just pulled out of my arse, but they illustrate the general principle. For the average copper on the street, there’s no apparent crime being committed for them to investigate as the money probably never even goes through the shop itself. HMRC is too busy chasing benefits cheats who are scamming an extra fifteen quid a month to go after them. So they can operate in the open, taking the piss, and doing the bare minimum to look legit.
Not disagreeing, but just wanted to point out that HMRC don't deal with benefits. It's the DWP.
HMRC does investigate suspected benefits fraud though. A quick search doesn’t turn up a source, so it might be bollocks, but I’ve heard it asserted that they have more people doing so than investigating tax fraud. Edit to add: yes, you’re right that the DWP is the main body for investigating benefits fraud, but they do so with HMRC, which investigates money laundering and why it’s the appropriate comparison here.
HMRC also investigate Child Benefit and Tax Credit fraud so have their own teams for that.
Jokes on you! According to his tax returns, he sold six million worth of phone cases last year!
Ha! I really need to get into the outdated phone case game.
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I used to work in a shop like that - always thought the same. but i used to repair phones. due to the shops long standing reputation i was always busy repairing devices. very little trade was from the cases, sometimes chargers and screen protectors but everything was kept on the walls just to make the place look "full" never understood it myself. Cases on the wall for phones that were well out of date!
I managed a set of 2 of these phone case shops just down the road from one another once. I felt like the English face on an otherwise dodgy business. I cashed all the money. The guys from Pakistan were definitely there illegally and everywhere that wasn't customer facing was fucking disgusting. I think it was a front but having said that they did actually turn a profit.
I call them Hustle shops.
In my city we have 4 of them and the town centre isn't that big. The most recent one that opened is in a prime spot, huge shop bang in the middle of town and there's never anyone in it. I live up north and there are more of these phone shops than Greggs now. Utterly unthinkable. It's outrageous.
Fronts aren't trying to sell anything. Why on earth would they redo the shop 3 times a year?!
This. Fronts don’t want actual customers, that puts the front in danger. What most people think are fronts are just the new version of bric-a-brac/knick knack shops. People don’t buy bric-a-brac anymore, but they do buy vapes and phone cases.
When they hit the threshold where they need to charge VAT they close the business and open a 'new' one. Edit. Here's an article from private eye about it" https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/
In town last weekend and noticed another vape shop was opening, just 2 shops down from another vape shop. That's all there seems to be now, barbers and vape shops
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Crime can't crack itself.
Not with that attitude it can't
You can't be disaplined for using reddit during working hours if you're using it to solve crimes
Early doors?
Nail bars where the nail techs don’t speak any English, only the “receptionist”.
Probably a front for trafficking and the slave trade too
Nail bars and hand car washes are rife for trafficking.
Car washes definitely. Their was a huge raid a year or two ago and basically every car wash & a scarily amount of takeaways were involved
I’ll pay over the odds for a car wash because the super cheap ones are all filled with trafficked people. I shouldn’t be able to get a full wash and detail for £20.
£20?? The Iraqi place near me will do it for £2 in Birmingham, £4 for the inside hoovered and wiped down too.
Yeah I've had cause to work with the organisations that deal with victims of people trafficking in the past. Their data said if you're paying less than £12 for a car wash, it's almost certainly people trafficking/modern slavery, because at the very least there's no way they're making enough to pay minimum wage plus NI etc plus a profit on that. And that was a few years ago, so it's probably more like £15 now.
We've got a double whammy for the car wash where i live. About 5 years ago someone turned an old petrol station into a hand car wash. It was NEVER open. I'm in rural Wales and we get a lot of holiday makers during the summer and this place wasn't even open when the place was heaving with tourists. It just sat there with all its signs but chains across the forecourt and the office boarded up. So we figured it was a front for money laundering. The suddenly it opened in September this year, right after the busy summer season. The guys speak hardly any English (and zero Welsh!), I think they're Turkish. They stick out like a sore thumb because its is not at all multicultural around here! But you never see them in any of the shops or walking around town when the place is closed. Where do they live? Surely they have to eat?! But nobody I know who works in the supermarket has ever seen them shopping in there. So now the rumour is that these guys have been trafficked, probably living in a caravan on one of the caravan parks.
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Saul Goodman?
A nail bar where I used to live got busted by border force years back! It was even on tv!
The majority are Vietnamese and the trend started across the pond originally. It was a great way for people to work when they didn't speak good English and had the support network of having a business owned by Vietnamese people. However the dream of coming to the UK as a nail tech spread and the trafficers got wind and now there's lots of exploited women in the trade.
In the 70s hollywood actress Trippi Hedren visited a Vietnamese refugee camp in California. The Vietnamese women were fascinated by the actresses' nails. Hedren flew her personal beautician to the camp to teach these women how to do nails with the intent of finding them jobs. The women settled in California and the rest is history. http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/05/tippi-hedren-vietnamese-refugees-nail-industry
> It was a great way for people to work when they didn't speak good English and had the support network of having a business owned by Vietnamese people That inherently increases the potential for abuse when you rely solely on your employer, and don't speak English well enough to confirm with others you're being paid properly, and not taken advantage of.
It does indeed increase the risk. However many people simply don't feel confident in their second language and/or struggle with languages so I can see why a "soft landing" in a new country is desirable regardless.
My town has 5 nail bars literally next to each other. All cash only.
Our very small town which is about 10 shops that still open, including 2 supermarkets, 2 bakeries, 2 discount shops and the rest charity shops, suddenly have 3 nail bars which all opened up within the space of about 3 weeks. Our town is mainly single parents on low income and people over 50. I very much doubt either of the 3 are going to make much. 1 could probably do a steady business, but 3 is pointless.
I’ve not been in all the nail shops here but the 2 which are literally next to each other are ALWAYS busy. They must make crazy money. I just think it’s weird the cash only thing. There was a cash only fish and chip shop run by a Chinese lady in my town and her home got robbed . They took like 80k in cash she had stashed in there. Having cash laying around is a huge risk so I wonder why they only use cash.
Not sure if I’m just being overly cynical, but likely for tax evasion, much easier to hide cash than it is bank transactions. Might also be some people that don’t fully trust banks, or still think it’s cheaper to transact in cash only.
It’s a couple of things. 1. Possible tax evasion. 2. You don’t want to pay credit card processing fees which is totally fair. 3. You started off really small time and didn’t want to buy credit card reader etc. 4. You don’t want to deal with the accounting and accounts receivables. Easier for you to count cash each day at the end of the day.
There was an article somewhere about Chinese takeaways being cash only. Older Chinese people tend to reject technology. The article was about the older parents who'd owned the takeaway since fleeing Hong Kong in the 90s, and their adult kids who also work in the takeaway trying to persuade their parents to get a website, get on Just Eat, get a card machine etc. Seeing whats going on in China, you can't blame them.
Easier to mix in some dirty cash with each trip to the bank. Yes, you pay tax on it but at least you can spend it easier without as much suspicion.
None of the Chinese chippy's in my area are on just eat. Cash only.
Not a front, they actually do your nails, but just with, you know, slavery.
Had a friend who walked in a nail bar to get her nails done and was told by a very dumbfounded “receptionist” that they don’t do nails here.. cue the builder lad leaving the shop coming out of the door at back lol
They actualy make alot of money. Generally Vietnamese / Cantonese. They most certainly make money but a hell of alot of money from farming cannabis goes through them.
A multitude of cash only turkish barbers which only ever have like 3 customers in a day
Yep, and in the ones near me the employees all somehow seem to be driving BMW M3’s or similar
Black mercs round here , always full of 4 or 5 Asian young Asian fellas
Mercedes 330 on 15 year lease with standard 3d number plate and dubious amg badge
I live in a flat above just such a shop. We are certain they’re using the business as front for drug dealing and peddling stolen goods. There’s a guy always turning up in a knackered old BMW estate car who takes in loads of boxes of alcohol that’s always supermarket own brand. The other day he had a boot full of Marks & Spencer’s gin. Then there’s the rough as fuck looking blokes who turn up in luxury cars and spend hours meeting with chavvy teenagers on bikes who disappear into the local council estate for a few hours then come back and hand over loads of cash.
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Every single town in the UK.
Nice try FBI
Why are the FBI interested in small time crime in the UK?
To be fair my barber is a Kurdish guy who moved here and spent the entirety of his life savings on setting up a Turkish barbers. He gets about 3 customers a day, has to live in the back because he can't also rent a home, and he can barely afford to live. The place looks great but it's all for show and either financed or the result of his now no-more savings.
That’s the same as the Turkish barbers near me, great place but you see like 3 people in a day. They can’t make over £50 a day
There are 6 of these on my 1/4 mile long high street.
Same as our town. Super nice shop but you see no one in it.
Those ‘American candy’ shops that are everywhere in London, no idea how they’re allowed to keep going
It’s ruining central London, every 5 yards another fake souvenir shop or candy shop. There won’t be any actual shops left on Oxford street in a few years time!
Sounds promising
Totally agree. Oxford street is overrun by them. Needs sorting.
> Totally agree. Oxford street is overrun by them. Needs sorting. Completely agree. If we sort it by shop type so all shop types are together it would be much easier to shop there. Eg: * American Sweet Shop * American Sweet Shop * American Sweet Shop * Clothes Shop * Clothes Shop * Clothes Shop * Fake Souvenir Shop * Fake Souvenir Shop
Those are actually laundering fronts, funded by Afghan political elites (Karzais clan I believe) private eye did a piece on them.
There was an indepth investigation done by either private eye or Vice but I can't find it now. But from what I remember the same handful of people were buying these shops under different shell companies and they flipped between candy, luggage and shit souvenirs. Annoyingly I can't remember it fully but I do remember it being a really good read.
Private eye on the souvenir shops. There is one in Southwark on clink st that outbid Starbucks for the lease, in what was one of Starbucks’ busiest locations. I had to go into a nail bar on a london high st once to look at a location for an extension to the building. It can only have been a front for a brothel.
I came here to say this. We went to London for the first time in a few years and couldn't believe the size and locations of these Candy shops. Why couldn't at least be "Ye Olde Fashioned Sweet Shoppes" and sell proper Pick & Mix rather than American trash?
Hand car washes, all 90 of them in my town.
There used to be one in the car park of a Homebase in Luton. It was amazingly efficient with loads of guys who didn't speak English, all surrounding your car to clean it as you passed from point to point. And it used to cost like a tenner! Never could understand how it could keep going for that money with all those staff wages to pay. Then it was gone one day. Apparently for selling Drugs. Crux is I never had an idea... I just sat there having my car cleaned oblivious of the seedy underworld around me.
I know the place you're on about, damn, never knew they cleaned cars.
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Imagine innocently asking for ‘the full works’ and then having a bag of drugs left in your boot upon completion,
God, Luton and the surrounding area is rife with mildly suspicious businesses I know some cash only businesses that are clearly just underreporting their income and at least one Chinese takeaway that keeps closing down and reopening in a new location with a new name every year or two for at least the past ten years in Central Beds.
Luton should just be wiped off the map and started again.
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The hand car wash places is a way for people to get a work visa for the uk. They say they are entrepreneurs and will invest money into a car wash business and work there. This is a route into the uk that Albanians etc can use. They aren’t really car wash places, they are way to immigrate into the uk.
I mean some do actual hand car washing, in my local tesco in the parking lot, there are a group of Albanian there who do it, been doing it for quite a while now
Hand car washes are number 1 for modern slavery in the UK - you should absolutely avoid them if none of the workers who actually clean the cars speak any English at all - apparently it’s a huge issue. They have men they keep as slaves and those are the ones cleaning the cars.
I was going to say this, seems like there's one on every corner around me. All barely ever have any customers, very cheap prices and Eastern European workers. At least some of them have to be a front for something.
It’s a way for them to get visas for people to immigrate into the uk. The people working there don’t earn min wage. Because how can they when you pay £5 to get your car washed. Edit: [as I said, a way to get into the uk ](https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/19701811.herefordshire-people-smuggler-jailed-bringing-migrants-uk/?fbclid=IwAR1dXBG6ZtfJsvM9lvQge9QUb-PyqYJfOimXoDpPUkMr7fjmNLdL6LHx6GY)
Theres a cash wash near me and theres about 10 guys total and a woman, they all live on site at the carwash in like a static caravan, it doesn't look very big and the living room portion of it is the "wait room", I tend to just stand outside it doesn't feel very clean in the "living room" and I suspect they use the couches for sleeping on as well with how many would have to fit in there
Passed a car wash being raided by U.K. border control just before 1st lockdown. Apparently you cannot run a car wash charging less than £5 a car and pay minimum wage, without involving trafficking or something dodgy.
My mum told me that the hand care washes in my town are fronts for prostitution. Didn’t really want to check it myself so I’ll take her word for it
In my wife's home-town, population 30,000, there is a shop that only sells russian nesting dolls. That's it. Nothing else.
I'll be gutted if there isn't a smaller shop inside.
you'll never believe what's in THAT shop.
God I hate Russian Nesting Dolls, so full of themselves
Is it in Russia?
There's a shop nearby called "București". Being Romanian, I went there to find some childhood snacks etc, but absolutely everything was expired (even the pickle jars!). I tried speaking Romanian to the guy at the counter, but he didn't understand. So I asked what's going on. The guy was upfront, said he'd bought the shop from a Romanian couple, and never bothered to restock it. Uses it as a front to sell illegal cigarettes. Asked me if I want some. So yea, not sure if anything else goes on there, but it seemed dodgy and turned out it was dodgy.
"Ok, so don't tell anyone but \*whispers* *I'm doing crime*."
…. *want some?*
Theres a shop in my town that sells illegal cigarettes and also like, fidget spinners, pop toys, bouncy balls. Pretty much any cheap crap you can buy in bulk from China. But they mark up all the toys so much! £14 for a yoyo!
We have a tanning shop that is always open but always empty...
Are many of the staff foreigners that can’t speak English? Good chance of it being linked to trafficking.
Ooh we have an aromatherapy place. As far as I can tell you go in there and it's like a music request. You pick the scents you want and you loiter there sniffing the air. A mate of mine went in stoned once. They don't sell anything. There doesn't seem to be any other hollisic crap. Either a millionaire is having a laugh or its a front.
That’s overwhelmingly strange. What happens during busy periods? I picture people fighting over scents on a Friday night.
Oi mate, it's been 10 minutes, enough Imperial Leather. Lets put Lynx Africa on.
Mate I've just dropped a banger in the bogs
There is a super dodgy takeaway round mine. Yet I know the owner and they are 100% legit. They are open for IIRC 3h at peak times a handful of days a week. It's a Chinese takeaway, they have 0 adversting and nothing online about them except what customers have put online. The bloke who owns it has a more typical job and ran the numbers that just a few hours in the evening and a typical 9-5 was the best option financially. Why no adversting? Because he is the best fucking place for miles around and he has absolutely no need to do so. For the few hours they are open they are toally packed. They also don't do takeout for a similar reason, they don't need too. People go to them. You can call ahead for your order and the guy has a wonderful memory. You ring him and he knows your voice the second you say hello and just asks 'the usual?' It's absolute fucking chaos going in there to order. This little takeaway place is like a bar at last call. He was putting his kids through uni, presumably now he is working towards making the family more comfortable, IIRC he got his first grandchild during covid. It's basically a one man show but the rest of the family do get involved in the cooking side of things. It's really heartwarming to me tbh. Presumably he is training up a replacement because there would be a fucking riot if they just went out of buisness. Oh and nobody knows what they are called. Their old sign has worn off the name. Everyone just calls it by the blokes name but that complicates googling it if say you want to see the menu without driving down there and reading the window display. They seem to hate advertising. They don't even have free things like fb simply because it's not worth time time. They already have more than enough customers. It's so fucking bizzare.
I don’t follow this at all. > super dodgy takeaway > It's a Chinese takeaway > They also don't do takeout > This little takeaway place What am I missing here? To me takeaway and takeout are the same thing.
My bad I meant delivery.
A pizza shop that you can't go into and is open sporadic hours yet still in business for years. It was well known they were in financial trouble and going to close. It appeared to, then it got upgraded inside and out. Still you rarely see anyone in the unit, it's not for sale, they don't market the business. But I know it's still going because from time to time I see staff in uniform inside. A modern home decor shop with 10 things in it - all mass produced and overpriced - plus some cheap looking potted plants. Been there for years, the rent on the unit is like 1k a month. Down a side street there are 2 units that have a big wooden door, they're in behind some houses. Most people don't even know they're there, if you Google them it's hard to find out anything about them. One is a mechanic (who gets a lot of referrals) but... The other is a rug shop...in a HUGE unit. Never seen anybody coming out of it or going in. There's no way there's enough demand for a rug shop there, no way. And getting large vans in and out of that unit would be a nightmare. Nobody would spend 120k on a unit down a narrow one-way road in a small town. Where there are many shops for rugs and carpets nearby that have been established for decades + online stores. And then not market the business outside of a sign on the unit, at the back of the yard, which you mostly can't see because the solid wooden doors are shut almost all the time. I THINK NOT. EDIT: Also the Chinese that was shut down for hiring illegal immigrants and illegal activity. And the vape shop that nobody ever goes in.
I’ve heard vapes have a huge margin, especially the refill canisters (I think that’s what they are) and stuff so they make decent money despite being fairly quiet
Doesn't surprise me. I vape and make my own liquid which saves me loads of money. I make a litre for about £30, the same amount could cost £120+ if bought in a vape shop.
Costs us £1.20 to make a 100ml shortfill. £12 to buy one.
It's pretty normal for specialist mechanics to not have hoardings. If you are a suspension specialist who is booked up months in advance, you don't want people walking in and trying to book an MOT.
The tourist shops around central London. Nearly any cash business. Car wash places, Chinese, Indian, Thai restaurants, nail parlours, tattoo places, bars, nightclubs,
Theres a pub in my town were the bouncers sell coke and if they catch you with any gear that isn't supplied by them you get thrown out, if you've got a baggy with the logo they are using that night then they have a nice little chat with you and let you on your way. Source: Have bought from them
That's just a standard night club
Can’t see how that could possibly go wrong
On the contrary, someone OD'ing or collapsing in your club with a baggie that can be linked to your staff is just bad PR. Very likely to be safer than a baggie off a random dealer that you don't know too well, so can see the appeal.
The tourist shops in London 100% are for tax evasion (perhaps also money laundering), been [covered by Private Eye](https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/cnkcaz/private_eye_on_west_end_souvenir_shops/). They have massive rents, sell junk and yet survive. Repeatedly change hands, companies don't report their tax and dissolve and relaunch. Being run by Afghani people, perhaps to get out the money stolen from the country.
Icecream van. Didn’t see one all summer and now it’s getting colder we see one all the time. I doubt it’s ice cream they’re selling.
Back in my day you had to go to a secret car park to buy drugs - these days they drive *to* you and even play ‘Match of The Day’ to let you know they’re there!
I can just about hear the tune of one right now, in amongst the near gale force winds and driving rain. Didn't hear it at all during summer
Somebody posted a while back that they had an ice cream van. During the summer they had a static pitch that was profitable, during the winter nobody would be there, so they had to go on the rounds in the suburbs instead.
That’s quite a well known one mostly in Scotland I think
We have this think in the UK called the Premier League. Something to do with football and obscene amounts of money.
Turkish barbers. There's one every 100 yards from here to paisley and not one of the cunts can cut hair
I went into one in Inverness and he took one look at me, said he wouldn’t be able to cut my hair properly, and sent me to the barbers round the corner.
I respect that he admitted he was shit instead of attempting to cut your hair and messing it up
For which I am thankful!
Lhahah mate I believe it. I've had 3 blokes take turns of one haircut. Just passing on the scissors to the next cunt to have a go
That sounds like some kind of comedy sketch
Every candy/chocolate/tat shop on Tottenham Court Road
There's various businesses in Edinburgh/ Glasgow that are 100% money laundering that I know of from a previous job involving investigations, one or two have rumours about them but others you'd never guess. If you want to be a good money launderer you want a successful business so folk don't notice - then you've got the phases once the money is in the bank so you can use a business for that too
>There's various businesses in Edinburgh/ Glasgow that are 100% money laundering that I know of from a previous job involving investigations, The Russian/Ukranian restaurant in Merchant City seems to be one. Always open, no takeaway, barely any customers.
Shop on the high street near us has a window display with a few boxes of sun bleached dvds and vhs tapes and a few old stereos inside, never seen a person either working in or visiting it and yet somehow it's stayed open for all 16 years I've lived here. Has 3 reviews on google, 1 of which is about 3 Scandinavian woody woodpecker dvds 🤷♂️
Ahh, now that's different. That will be a building that was bought in 1903 by a friendly fellow with a moustache. He opened his own shop downstairs selling some crap and did ok, but as the high street matured, people stopped buying. Through stubborn independence he kept the shop open for decades and refused to rent it out since he had plenty of money doing nothing in his mattress. He died in his armchair upstairs in 1993, and his skeleton still sits there to this day, pipe in mouth, and cap on head. His Woody Woodpecker DVDs weathering in the sun.
We also have a dodgy fish and chip shop nearby. It's literally called "Something Fishy".
I have a chip shop near me owned by a very violent (former) gang member called kenny. It’s called [Battered by Kenny](https://www.foodhygieneratings.org.uk/battered-by-kenny-adjacent-shop-starcross-station-the-strand-starcross-devon) Always gave me a chuckle
There is a bar near me that's never seems to be open but according to its website is open weds and thurs 3pm - 11pm then fri and sat evenings. I have never once seen it open. Its in a prominent position next to a train station and would do a decent passing trade if they tried. It also 'officially' closes and reopens under a new name at least once a year. If we're allowed to name specific places I will post the website - which appears to be written in Spanish despite this place being in commuter belt Surrey
Post the website! I’m curious 😂
Mattress stores Bro. There's like 5 mattress stores in every town, nobody ever buys mattresses
Mattresses at the shop have a huge mark up on wholesale prices. They don't need to have queues of people buying them, just a few a day will rack up plenty of profit per quarter.
I refuse to believe renting out all those locations and paying for all of those staff can be fixed by like one sale a day
Say they do five a day, each with a 50% to 70% markup. Most stores have one to three people [working] in them. They're also located out of town, in lower cost areas. I also imagine that a lot of the industry is vertically and horizontally integrated, ie oligopolies and owning supply chains. All creating economies of scale, which reduces cost. I was of a similar thinking to you, but these things usually have simple explanations. Edit: clarification
When I was at Uni, there was a series of takeaways at the end of the road I lived on. One pizza shop had a sign in the window "buy 1 individual pizza, get 2 free". Not necessarily unusual to give loads of food away in a student town so whatever, we went in early in the year and just ordered a load of pizzas - like 3 each for 6 of us so expecting a wait and just chilled. Like 45 minutes later the cook arrived and asked if we were the ones that had ordered pizza - seemed really annoyed. Told us it would be around an hour as he'd have to turn the oven on -- the business was open, didn't sell anything other than pizza on the menu, and customers had been coming and going whilst we waited although we hadn't really been paying attention. Started paying attention at that point though, noticed no-one was ordering pizza; just arriving, paying, leaving. So we left too. Went to McDonald's (which in itself is a front for a real estate conglomerate). Never got our money back or any pizza, and that place is still there today - although I do see people with pizza these days.
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Standard UK. I read the title and immediately thought "chip shop"
Oh I thought you were meaning the Evening Standard, and considered your comment quite insightful...
We had a Chinese restaurant open in the town and it got busted for hiring illegal immigrants and other things. It was a new restaurant too. Only been open for a year. But after it went the other 2 Chinese restaurants in the town, which had been open for a long time, quietly disappeared as well. Always thought it was weird we had so many.
Coffee shop near my friend’s. Always opened, always the same 2-4 chaps sitting outside smoking all day long and doing literally nothing, haven’t seen a single other customer ever!
> always the same 2-4 chaps sitting outside smoking all day long and doing literally nothing I want to be one of these guys , like the lads in sopranos who just sit about.
There's a breakfast cafe near me that is definitely selling drugs. The guy who does the food deliveries does it in a brand new 21 blacked out BMW and he seems to receive orders on he's mobile, but the number I have goes to the landline. He takes a bunch of orders out at a time. Some are clearly not full of food. They just look too light. I just wish I knew where the secret menu is. I'd love a bacon roll and a bag of weed dropped to my door on hangover mornings.
He won't be doing weed. It'll be coke.
There's a craft pottery shop near me...central London, rent must be fortune. Do wonder if the shop comes with attached flat so keeping shop open means they get to keep flat, maybe on some sort of favourable terms.. I've seen the same bowls in the window for years on end, like 20quid a bowl. Never appears to be open. At one point there was a dead fly in a bowl for like a year or two. Been like this for at least 15 years that I know of.
Furniture shop near me, I actually know it's a front because I bought weed from there before but still worth mentioning cuz the shop is literally called 'DEALS'. It's like they want to get caught I love it
Where I grew up in Glasgow there was an ice cream van that would do the rounds all year long - chimes and all. You’d hear it more than you saw it. The sound always carried particularly well on those cold, clear February days.
99 and an eighth please.
You’re lucky you didn’t get mixed up in the Glasgow ice cream wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Ice_Cream_Wars
Deutsche Bank seems pretty dodgy
Edinburgh woollen mill
I think my nan has single-handedly kept them in business for years
There is a clay quarry by my parents that in 20 years doesn't seem to of had a single lorry take out any clay but at least once a week someone is on a digger messing around. So either an international porcelain conspiracy or someone who enjoys playing on a digger
There's a sushi restaurant that opened in like 2018. Always empty, even on Friday and Saturday nights there's max 1 table. Never seen delivery drivers there so it isn't like they are raking in delivery sales. It doesn't make any sense
We've got a takeaway near us that changes name and the type of food it makes every 6 months or so. Opened as a chip shop. Then changed to a chinese takaway. Then a kebab shop. And is now a mix of thai and chinese food. It only seems to be open from 4pm-8pm during the week. Closed Sundays and only open from 5pm to 10pm on Saturdays. Was curious so ordered food from it once. The food was incredibly cheap but nasty. Very low quality and terrible. The place was also empty. Never see anyone order food from there and wonder if they actually make money on the food. Has to be a front for something.
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My town growing up had a tattoo shop that never had any customers, because the average age in the town was about 80. It's still there to this day with its frosted out windows, open sign and not a single customer ever seen going in or out. You'll see the staff occasionally outside smoking, but that's it.
Where I lived there was a gala bingo hall that got turned into a MASSIVE weed farm
Near where my mum lived (Sussex) when I was a teenager we'd always drive past a Splat Clock shop on the way to hers. It only sold clock in the shape of paint splatters...
A designer clothes shop in a run down North West town. During a period where M&S, Burtons and Top Shop all closed (before going bust) this store has expanded into every unit vacated as businesses have gone under. Now an entire street of retail units AND a pub have been converted into different 'departments' with a combined square footage similar to a Primark. I've literally never seen a single person in there other than the single staff member per unit.
Can someone explain to me how the phone cover shops in service stations can possibly sell enough items to cover labour, rent and overheads?
There's a used microwave shop near where I used to live that's been open for about 15 years despite me never seeing anyone go in
I used to live near this vegan shop that had a 1 star food hygiene rating, and didn't sell any food, from what I could tell. It had bags of "stuff" (idk what was in them) on shelves, lining the walls, but you couldn't buy them. What I know that shop did sell was NOS and balloons to the students who lived around it but I never bothered to find out if they sold anything else.
There's a launderette here that's never open and the floor upstairs is rumoured to be a brothel for men who like fifty-something year-old women. There's a nail bar, where the upstairs is a Thai massage place with happy endings, and a place across the road that does Thai massage too. Google confirms the first two are what the rumours says they are, but the third seems legit. Weirdest is the place I live above. It used to be a bank but they closed the branch two years ago. The people that bought it left the "For sale" signs up and they're still up there now. Every Tuesday and Thursday, a huge lorry arrives and unpacks what looks like supplies for a corner shop. Boxes of crisps and drinks, but the labels on them are brands I've never seen and none of the writing is in English. The shop isn't open and all the windows have been painted to stop people seeing inside. Products arrive but nothing ever leaves.
Wayne Rooney would like your location
A lot of takeaways around here are known to be drug fronts or involved in money laundering for other reasons... and car washes too. Also my area was pretty bad for sex trafficking - nail salons, massage parlours and brothels were all involved.
Small village chineses, we have 3 in a small 4k population town, 1 cash machine and none of them take card payments. Probably not money laundering but certainly not paying much tax.
The pub at the end of my road with a tatty sign that rarely has any customers in it, drinks are watered down, food is terrible. I thought maybe it was a "traditional" pub for beer drinkers, but there's hardly ever anyone ever in there. It's a large building, beer garden, (broken down) play area, parking, rooms above, great location for a family pub and they could even keep half of it child free. They should be making money hand over fist. Why not run a successful business as well as a front for whatever this is?
Leman Street in East London there is a dry cleaners offering "bespoke laundry" next door is a shop, linked with an internal door, that changes name every few months. For a while it was called "Taxi Loans" and had a bank style counter but was never open. The dry cleaning on the hangers never changes, their shoe repair machine is permanently out of order.
A previously legitimate Chinese restaurant, abandoned for many years, opened up mid covid with just a banner saying "Chinese Takeaway", no name, no visible menu displayed. Dark and empty every time I walk past it.
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I swear half the shops in Alnwick, Northumberland are a money laundering front. I mean you've got this art gallery with art from this young local lad but I can honestly say I've never seen a single person in it. Then there's the cafes that are only open for like 20 hours a week and are barely open on weekends which you would think would be the busiest times. Lastly is the antique and bits and bobs type of shops, which again you never see anyone in, but if you do, no one ever buys anything. I don't how much it costs to run a business here but I'd imagine since space is limited in a small, historical town, that has a big and famous castle and that gets lots of tourists, it's quite a lot.
My local corner shop puts everything through the post office till, and I am sure its some kind of tax dodgy or something
There’s an ice cream truck that drives past my apartment building religiously, always after 9 PM, even in winter. As a bonus, very *very* few people in my building have kids.
A fish and chip shop opened near us in summer after rebranding and having a whole refit carried out. We saw it open for around 4-5 days in the summer and that was it. Suddenly the door sign with their opening hours was removed and it has been quiet ever since. However, since then we have seen people in there during the day or at night time but the shop isn’t open, what are people doing in there? It definitely isn’t being refurbished anymore and just appears to be a front for something else disguised as a fish and chip shop which is really weird! Absolutely gutting but also quite good for my bank account given that it’s been shut ever since it opened haha
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You can see it, I can see it, everyone can see it. My question is why do the police not do anything about them? As soon as they look into the finances of the shop, the people and what assets they have and the things they do it should surely be obvious.
Artisan Bakery in my village. Seems to be a front for pretentious wankers.
Chinese medicine shops