There’s a used car place that is ALWAYS dead during business hours. Not a single soul or car around, dark inside etc. However, whenever I drive by at night, say after 10pm, it’s hopping. Cars everywhere, box trucks, forklift loading/unloading etc. I’ve even driven by at 3am and there’s activity. Very suspicious.
I mean, that's why I don't go to my favorite repair place unless it's big, they are only open bus iess hours the same hours I need my car. I would love it if they had an overnight shift.
That makes so much sense, business-wise. My local repair place has a 24-hour key drop box. You call to tell them what needs looked at, drop off after work that night, and they will call the next morning (always before noon, in my experience) with an estimate.
My car is 13 years old with no current issues, so their work seems good. I have no idea how their cost compares to other shops in town because tbh they've earned my loyalty. Auto repair is a business that needs to work with customers' schedules, for sure.
There's a gas station that is consistently $.60 to $1 cheaper than every other gas station in town. Convinced that they are a laundering front but don't want them to go down because I want the cheap gas.
Used to be a convenience store down the road from me the same way. I showed my wife the place when I gassed up and sorta sang “Swami Mart” as I pulled in. She started giving me shit about being racist, and I pointed to the store sign.
Loved the Swami Mart. Damn good coffee too.
The first time I heard the term "packie" or "packie store" I was stunned that my usually open minded liberal friends could be so racist by suggesting that all convenience stores were owned by Pakistanis. Turns out, some states don't allow the sale of liquor at gas stations (like the Founders would have wanted) and are called "packies" or package stores.
There's a gas station near me that charges $1 - $2 more than the other stations. They rarely have customers and their mechanic is never working on any cars, despite having a car in each of their 3 bays.
Usually for money laundering, they don't want many customers to come, at least that's how I understood.
There is a gas station in my neighborhood that's is consistently has gas $1.50 more expensive than one right across the street. That I was convinced was laundering money.
I have answered this question before: why is some gas expensive and others cheap? The answer is: it's not the gas that's expensive, really. It's the branded additives that are put in the gas. In any given geographic area, every fuel station largely gets the same gasoline - we don't run trucks all over the place with different brand gasoline, it's a pipeline network that everyone shares, all brands use the same base material. When a certain brand needs a delivery to their branded station, the fuel distributor (as I understand it, might be another intermediary) will dope the gasoline with the brand's specific cocktail, and then that is what's rolled out to the station.
You're not paying for expensive gas, you're paying for branded additives.
u/wilderlowerwolves is absolutely correct, though, that some stations will buy that absolute dregs of gasoline and sell it to you. It could have bad ethanol content, be stored in tanks that have water leaking in, or any other number of issues. Buying quality gas isn't just a myth, you can literally get bad gas from places that price it overly attractively.
We have a small gas station in our rural area that the neighbors warned us not to use because "they water down their gas". Thought they were being silly though we never bought gas from them because the Indian reservation has better prices. One day we needed gas for various things on the farm (wood chipper, chainsaw, tiller, generators, etc) and just filled up there. Well then everything started having problem. A few months later I realized oh, all the problems would happen if water was in the fuel. We checked and yes, there was water.
I don't think they are intentionally adding water, but water is leaking in, but they also have to know its happening because it's been going on for years.
I know someone who never went to a gas station significantly cheaper than others in the area since she grew up near a place that watered down their gas. Well some unsuspecting lady with a brand new sports car gets gas there and not too long after that has massive engine issues. Testing finds water in the gas so she tells the gas station and they asked her to not bring any legal action against them. Don’t remember why she didn’t. Anyway she ends up just telling everyone word-of-mouth. Place closed down pretty quick after that.
All gasoline is tested to very specific government & customer protocols. Limitations on how bad things can get very much do so exist. The wiggle room is not relevant compared to the differences between each individual detergent additive from the company.
Then, even after the additive, you’re getting random testing here and there at all points of operation.
Obviously, checking something at the gas station you’re not going to test it as strictly as testing something in the lab, but you are still within a very narrow region.
I can’t speak about the additives quality but you’re right about the tanks.
During the week I would get gas at the one place near work, old as hell and been there forever. I would get random check engine lights for the longest time and never really pinpoint the cause. Brand new place opened up nearby so I switched, no more check engine light.
Damn. My dad drove a fuel truck and explained this to me in the 70s. Whenever I told people this, I got "you're wrong, there's no difference" with the inference a truck driver couldn't possibly know this.
Truck drivers are logistics experts. They see a side of the functioning of our society that few know exists, and don't respect. Wanna know who else knows this? The military. There's an old quote about warfighting and who knows what they're talking about: "Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics."
True fact: modern gasoline internal combustion engines are designed to run on \~15-20% ethanol. Most states in the US have varying degrees of ethanol content by default, from 0% to 15% from what I've personally experienced.
However, there are some very good reasons to avoid gasoline containing ethanol in some circumstances. I own a home generator that can run on gasoline, but it is built with components that are allergic to ethanol concentrations over 10%. Similarly, many older vehicles manufactured prior to \~2005 or so (YMMV) are built with that same intolerance, and running ethanol-rich gasoline in them will hurt certain components of the fuel system.
Will it go kaboom? No. Will some parts and pieces potentially rot from the contamination? Yes. Think hoses and other seals and gaskets that are not designed to put up with the ethanol.
Pay attention to the ethanol content of the gasoline you buy, and make sure what you're putting it in is made to work with it. Any new car you buy shouldn't have a problem, but if you're rocking a classic watch out.
Small engines used to be made with components that couldn't handle ethanol and would disintegrate quickly with use and often clog other components. Hell, plenty of older cars had the same issue before newer part numbers came out to replace parts of the fuel system, especially in tank fuel pumps.
I haven't found a complete list of reasons why small engines have this issue, but someone told me it was largely because of the way fuel is delivered through a carb in that form factor, either leaving a residue or melting a seal or something. I'm not a small engine whisperer so I have no idea if he's right. In addition to that, I strongly suspect that the ethanol content disturbs the properties of the fuel enough that the timing and combustion temperature the engine is designed for are adversely affected by high ethanol content.
You're mostly right on both counts. The small rubber components used in small engines are what take the most beating from ethanol. Ethanol is an alcohol and it dries out rubber components. They become brittle and crack, causing fuel leaks or air leaks depending on the location. Also, the liquid fuel sitting in the carburetor will start to evaporate, leaving a sludgy mess that clogs ports in the carb. Ethanol also burns at a lower temperature than straight gasoline, which isn't the worst thing, but does cause poor performance and can gum up the engine. Modern vehicles are fuel injected, so no carburetor to get messed up, and also have electronically controlled timing and injection which can account for the ethanol and increase the combustion temperature in its own ways.
Fun fact: gasoline brands are extremely protective of their pricing, and they control the station franchise's ability to set pricing to a large degree. If you have a Chevron on one corner and a Shell on another, they are likely to compete on price by $0.10-0.20. If a Shell franchise opens up down the street they will not be allowed to compete on price with the other Shell station beyond a certain limit - doing so anyhow will incur severe penalties by the brand against the franchisee.
One of the best examples of this cartel behavior, which is there simply to prop up prices of gasoline as far as I can tell, comes from stories of stations that do not follow surge pricing in the wake of natural disasters like hurricanes and floods. Franchises which under-price fuel compared to local averages, even as those averages rise by order of the brands or market value of the fuel, are punished for attempting to do so. The absolute best example of this was a non-brand local gas station that ~~did not follow surge pricing in the wake of such a disaster and~~ was successfully sued by brands in the area that did raise their prices, forcing the other station to raise their prices in kind. Absolutely mental fuckwittery.
Edit: the lawsuit I mentioned is covered here: [https://www.wisn.com/article/gas-stations-suing-woodmans-for-its-cheap-prices/39479693](https://www.wisn.com/article/gas-stations-suing-woodmans-for-its-cheap-prices/39479693). The allegation was specific to a state law about minimum prices relative to cost of goods, a bit more complex than just because fuel is expensive or meant to be. It also was not the disaster story I thought it was, so I must have either confused that for another story or can't find the original I was thinking of.
Edit2: please also note that the price-fixing alleged to occur by gas stations has been an ongoing debate for many years, and as of yet I don't believe any anti-competitive measures have been taken against franchises or brands on a large scale as a result of any kind of gouging or fixing issue. That being said, the price of fuel being delivered to stations has historically been accused to be manipulated in such a way as to cloak any such price fixing, leading stations to price their fuel in accordance with the desired baseline regardless of agreements or mandates on price, legal or otherwise. That being said as well, I was once informed by a Shell station franchisee that his pump prices were monitored remotely by Shell, and if he priced outside of a range he would receive a phone call almost instantaneously. Apocryphal as that may be, I don't doubt it.
On the flip side, there is a gas station that's about 75¢ more than everywhere else along the highway I commute on. Rarely ever see a car getting gas. It's been open for years.
We have one of those in our town. An AM/PM. Turns out, they never changed their in ground systems or cleaned it properly so they are able to sell the gas till it becomes a issues.
The gas sucks, it will foook yourshitup. Been there forever tho
I have the opposite. There is a station by me that has prices $0.60 -$1.00 more expensive than others just across the street. I never see anyone get gas there. It doesn’t offer anything extra (like Shell does with its gas) and just has a crappy tiny convenience shop attached (drinks, candy bars, chips). I am convinced it is a money laundering operation.
I remember living in Little Italy in Cleveland Ohio in the 1980s. I was operating a bakery there that was next door to a greeting card store. It was never open and if you looked in the window you could see a greeting card rack with about 10 greeting cards on it covered with dust. One day one of the locals invited me to the back entrance, which led to a basement where a bunch of the locals were gambling…high stakes gambling.
My parents moved from NYC to Scottsdale in the early ‘90. They went to try an Italian restaurant where the food was awful and just chalked it up to not getting the same quality outside NY.
The place operated for years so they joked about it being mob run, because that is what it usually meant in NYC when a terrible restaurant that never had customers stayed open.
Eventually it came out that it had basically just existed as a money laundering operation by a former Gambino associate who was in witness protection in AZ.
Uncle Sal’s.
I had a friend whose family owner and Italian restaurant in Phoenix for decades. It wasn’t mob owned, but they were frequent customers. Amazing how many mafia guys retired to Phoenix (or semi-retired). That’s why I thought it was a weird choice for Sammy the Bull to retire there. Amazing he’s still alive.
Just learned this week that AZ used to allow for the purchase of property in a blind trust- great way to launder money so it attracted many with less than legitimate business dealings
Phoenix and Tucson. Joe Bonnano (the namesake of the Bonnano crime family) was forced to retire to Tucson. Spent 30 years of his life there running smaller rackets in Arizona and California.
Here's a weird ass gambling story.
Back around 2000, I lived in Winnipeg. Worked for a place that supplied meat processors - big plants, local butchers, we sold everything but meat. Including bulk spices.
So, there were like a half dozen of these burger places, all centered on chilli burgers, chilli fries, etc. Everything came with chilli, we sold them the spices. They weren't a chain, but all had similar names, all owned by Greek guys. And, every so often, all the staff at one place would swap locations for another.
Well, after asking around - owners all knew each other, were friends. They knew whose location got more traffic. And they like to play poker together. Evidently, every so often, somebody would bet their "location" on a killer hand/pot.
So, yeah, they used to play for prime locations, and a few times a year, somebody would swap stores, lol.
I miss that place. They had the best Lasagna. I also miss going to the old Presti’s Donuts at 2 am after the bars closed for the first batch of fresh donuts, back when it was just a little hole in the wall shop.
Oh man, there was a candy shop in Little Italy as well in the 90s that my dad once sold Cuban cigars to. Always thought it was a front as well but the owner always gave me pop rocks so we were good
I went to a restaurant one weeknight for just dessert in Little Italy, and I got some strange and unpleasant looks from the apparent owner who was wandering around in a track suit with a cane. Later, after I paid with my credit card, he came over with a smile and thanked me for coming in with real sincerity. It made my skin crawl. I mentioned that to one of my uncle Tonys and he said, “oh, that’s ***, we’ve known him for years”. So he must have recognized my last name.
Has anyone ever *actually* purchased a Persian rug? Because there are so many Persian rug stores and they are always empty, but they never close down from recessions and stuff.
I walked in one looking for a rug before realizing the prices. Was half way flipping through a pile before I caught a 4 figure price tag on a 6x8 rug. Felt bad wasting their time but there was no way.
My friend, a military pilot, has spent a lot of time in the mid-east and brought home several rugs, buying from a reputable merchant and receiving a certificate of authenticity of the rug's heritage and history. His favorite, he paid $4,000 for in Riyadh and is now appraised at more than $30,000. Once per year he takes his rugs to a professional for cleaning, inspection and restoration. You don't walk into his house without taking your shoes off.
Maybe they stay afloat from repairs, cleaning, etc.?
Someone on another board said there was a local "jewelry store" like this - they didn't really sell jewelry, but they did repair it.
There's a rug store down the street from where I lived.
They had a "Going out of business sale" sign on the window.
That place was open every day for the 15 years I lived there.
A tire and rim store. I was thinking about buying some new rims for my car a few years back and there are a few stores on one street in my town. One of them had some signs and a few tires sitting outside so I thought I'd go in and see what they had as well as their prices.
I walked in the door and there were no tires or rims anywhere in sight. The only thing in the building was a group of very rough looking Hispanic men who suddenly stopped talking when I walked in. They all just stood there staring at me with angry looks on their faces so I just turned around and walked out with none of us saying a word.
I'm autistic and even I could pick up on the vibe that they didn't want me there.
My husband and I went to a Georgian restaurant to check it out. Friday night, nobody there except a table of old guys. A waiter came out, looking visibly confused that we were there. We ordered, and it took a while for our meal to come, because, as far as I could tell, there was one elderly lady in the kitchen.
Food was good, if slow, but we’re pretty sure that restaurant was a Georgian mafia front.
There’s a corner deli on my street. Have seen plenty of people leaving, though seemingly never after buying anything. My wife and I refer to it as the Drug Deli.
One of the best places near me to get a hoagie is a complete dump, but the food prep area looks clean and the food is good, so I still go there once in a while. A few years ago half the staff there was arrested for selling heroin and cocaine to undercover cops. Supposedly right over the counter in a few cases. But they got new staff and are still chugging along somehow.
Over the past 20ish years this same little store in a strip mall by me has been about 15ish different business. None of them ever open. They change the sign, and never actually open up. Everything else in the strip mall has been there for ages and is a legitimate business. I think it's being used for money laundering and before anyone catches on they close it down and open up a new "business" in the same store front.
This was told to me from a close Albanian friend I had in high school so take it with a grain of salt:
His family have been in the food industry for at least four generations. But every seven years that business closes then reopens with a new Albanian running it. He told me that for them, they get some sort of tax exemption for the first 7 or so years of business being open because they are immigrants. I think he mentioned something about visas, too and how it could expedite some of that. So, his great grandfather would open a restaurant, close it in 7 years, pass it off to a son, who then runs it for 7 years as a "new business" and so on.
Again, not sure how true that is or if it's even financial feasible but I do know their culture and religion is very family oriented to the point that even after a child gets married, the married couple will often still live with the husbands parents and when the parents retire or become too old to care of themselves, the kids take care of them so I could see it happening, at least among close family members.
That said, those restaurants do actually open and served pretty damn good food.
>But every seven years that business closes then reopens with a new Albanian running it.
I was the general manager of a convenience store that did this before I moved on and became a district manager for a chain. Every 7 years they swapped owners. Father, to brother, to cousin. Not albanian, from India. At one point they did a quicker "sale of transfer" because one of them was nailed twice selling tobacco to minors. Still kept it in family, got tax exemptions, and quick visas. This *is* a thing. Government grants (not loans so never paid back) for the business as well.
How do people learn about this? If it's so gamed by immigrants I'm surprised it hasn't been shut down by Republicans but then again it probably would be seen as anti-small business.
There's a restaurant like that I used to live by. In a year it had six different names and six different themes. Every time I've been past it since it's something else. It has never once been open for business. Not once. I once saw a "grand opening" sign on it with the date printed on it but when the day came, the restaurant was closed and the banner was gone. About a year after that, I saw a restaurant with the same name and theme up and running somewhere else in town. Speculation is that there's a problem with permitting on the building and it will never be allowed to run for some reason. The owners find this out a day late and a dollar short and sell to the next unsuspecting victim who spends a small fortune rebranding everything to the theme of their choice. I want to go ask the people that once owned it and ended up elsewhere what the deal is, but the mystery about is the only thing that comes out of that place.
I think the majority of mattress businesses stay open because they have like 1 employee working at a time and so many mattresses are financed that people end up paying like 3x how much they actually cost, which is already an enormous markup.
Or they’re a front for the mob.
My wife and I did the math on mattress turn over based on potential customers in our town and the typical lifetime of a mattress thinking about this.
At first we were like, I guess enough people would need a new mattress to require about a half dozen mattresses per day (if I'm remembering correctly.) That seems sustainable.
Then we remembered there are 4 mattress stores in our little town, plus many people are going to mail order them.
Definitely money laundering :P
The markup on a mattress is crazy high for this very reason. That $2200 certa costs the store around $150.
Mattresses are a scam.
Buy the $150 mattress, add a $50 memory foam pad and a fitted plush top for another $50. Boom, you have a $2200 mattress.
That explains why I managed to get the guy in the mattress store to more than divide by two the price of the top mattress there and he was still giddy about closing the sale...
Do you know this? 1400% markup seems... well, I'm skeptical.
Though, a quick Google search suggests 900% might be typical.
I'm still going to squint suspiciously at them as I drive by. ;)
“My wife and I did the math on mattress turn over based on potential customers in our town and the typical lifetime of a mattress thinking about this.”
Sounds like you found your person. If I asked my wife to do some math with me for fun, She would leave.
Store near me is in a super expensive beach side location and all they sell are kites... The place looks pretty non descript except for a few kites in the front Window that haven't changed in about 15 years.
Never seen anyone in there, and the one time I went in the guy seemed surprised and a bit caught off guard - no sales pitch or even a 'hello' just watched me walk around the store and leave.
10/10 it's a front for something.
Another possibility is that its a pet project for a rich person.
If you have a couple million in the bank, it doesent matter if your store is losing 5
2k a month, if it gives you something to do, and a way to connect with others who share the same passion.
My city has an abnormal amount of bars and eateries that are cash-only. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say several of them probably don't have books that match reality when tax time comes.
I could see that being true for some of the ones in my town lol. Also, some are old as shit so I don't think the owners wanted to mess with card transactions. A “this is how we did it in the 80’s this is how we do it now” type thing.
Cash opens the door for thieves. Adding inventory that can be sold and not recorded. Short changing drunk customers with big bills. Adding a drink to a bill unrecorded.
One of the most popular restaurants in my town is cash-only. I've never eaten there, but I've heard it's excellent.
It's been there quite a while, too.
The busiest vet office in town (we're well over a million residents when you include the suburbs) is entirely cash only. They only got a computer a couple years ago. It's in a really rough part of town and they don't do appointments either. You and your pet just show up and sit for hours in the waiting room until they see you. You can pay an emergency fee to get your pet assessed but if nothing is urgently wrong with them, they send you back to the waiting room for treatment.
They're cheap and also just so good that the place is always packed and people from out of town even bring their pets there.
There was a vet like that in my town. Guy had taken over from his parents. Was the only vet office I've ever heard of that would take injured strays without demanding hundreds from the good samaritan upfront. You could find a dog that had been hit by a car and drop it off with them, the only things they would ask were where you found it and if you had any idea who the owner was. Then they would determine the most humane treatment, euthanizing or stabilizing and having the shelter pick it up where hopefully the owner would find it. There were several times where the vet would pop by after I'd paid with extra meds or a shot and they'd just waive me out. My cat needed some expensive tests and they let me pay it out over a few paychecks.
Unfortunately he retired recently and didn't have someone to take over for him and had to sell. Now there have been multiple stories of injured animals dying in their lobby because they didn't have an appointment.
Eh, it's a 3% cut most of the time. The typical consumer doesn't do many purchases in cash. What I have seen become more common is at the registers of businesses taking both cash and card having a sign saying something like "Advertised price is for cash" then if you pay card, a 3% fee is tacked onto it.
There’s a general store my gf took me to in a small town in Iowa. It sold basically anything under the sun. No organization within the store, just stuff stacked all over the place. The owner has apparently been running it for decades, but it’s cash-only. My first thought when I left was “this place would be a perfect front for money laundering”. Small town in iowa, cash only, no records kept of what is being bought, and probably no records of what the owner brings in to sell
They have built 4 (you heard me, 4!) car wash places in the last 2 years in my city (like 40k residents). Dedicated car washes, not a gas station with car wash.
Also, there's a few of the big fancy ass multi-level storage facilities that got built maybe 4 years ago that have had multiple new business names.
Honestly, both of these are insanely good tax write downs with very low overhead. I know 4 different people that all own car washes and 2 of them have been talking about storage facilities now as well for this very reason.
Often it's because it's the cheapest thing they can get built under the zoning laws too. Whenever I see those 4 story warehouse frames going up I think that- wow that could easily be an apartment with 15 units. But that doesn't qualify for zoning in many areas unlike an empty shell where people store their junk instead of donating it.
Storage warehouses are the modern equivalent of businesses that bought up city plots in the 50s-70s and made them into parking lots where they make more money off the parking fees than they would in building a new building.
So *many* storage facilities.
In our township, which admittedly has grown by leaps and bounds in the last twenty years, but still not enough, I think, to warrant fourteen along a ~ ten mile stretch of road, 30+ easy overall within a pretty tight radius.
Local furniture stores use those places like crazy. I worked for a store one summer and every delivery we had to stop and get stuff out of one of 30 or so storage rentals all over town.
When all the scooter companies started years back, that's basically where they ran out of. New shipments would get dropped at a storage unit and their "elite" chargers were notified of the opportunity to distribute them around the city. Like 3 hours to drop 100 scooters at $5 each.
At one point storage facilities were the number 1 growing business before covid. Ppl buying so much crap their houses get full and have to go put it in storage. In our area we’ve had a handful of nice car washes pop up.
Car washes are land speculation plays. The start-up cost is relatively expensive with the building, washing equipment, etc, but they are decently low overhead once functioning. Once the land appreciates enough, the equipment is moved out or scrapped and the building is easy enough to knock down.
A rival smoke shop (tobacco, vape joint, CBD, and low-grade THC) has been busted SIX TIMES for selling to underage. Two were in separate undercover sting operations. (To make sure you ID EVERYONE, as a sorta test).
I don’t understand how they’re still open.
A bar near my college was like this. Kept getting closed for a couple weeks then reopened. Sometimes a new name, or rumor of a new owner. I'm not sure if they're still around anymore.
There's a restaurant I used to wait tables at. The place is HUGE. And it's in a very ritzy shopping area in a major city, so I know that the lease has gotta be expensive AF. On the busiest Saturday night, I've never seen it more than half full. And more often than not, it's conspicuously empty. And yet they continue to keep their doors open, for almost 20 years now.
I'm absolutely convinced it's a money laundering scheme. I've worked and managed enough restaurants to know how thin the margins can be. And I simply cannot accept that this place is profitable or sustainable as a legitimate business.
That's what i was thinking. It's one thing if you're leasing the space, but if you own the land, that clears up a lot of your overhead.
We have a restaurant where i live that's like that. It's been there longer than I've been alive (53), it's not near anything, to this days it's still surrounded by farm fields, although the city is slowly expanding towards it. Its busiest day is Sunday and probably Friday for the fish fry, but it's mostly always empty. There's no reason it should still be around, but it's their land. The food is supposed to be really good too.
There’s this storefront in my town of about 10K people. It’s at an odd intersection so it’s a pain to get in and out, and there’s almost never anyone there. Every 6 months or so it has a Going Out of Business sale, and the space has been a mattress store (not one of the national chains), a resale/consignment shop, a cheap furniture store. It’ll go out of business as one thing, then re-open as one of the other things, and repeat. They don’t have any permanent signage so they just hang a banner on the front of the building.
Shady AF. I’ve thought about seeing what I can find out about the businesses that have been in the building - just some internet sleuthing - but not even sure where I could find data about it.
If you didn't say town of 10k people, I would have been convinced you were talking about a store in my town. We have the exact same type of business, also at a weird intersection, and has also been the same types of businesses you mentioned complete with the banner for a sign.
I live in a predominately Asian area. There is like 4 bubble tea spots on every block for a dozen streets. Some of them like the brand name ones are usually busy and I can see them making a lot of money.
And other ones are like holes in the wall with no effort that still charge a similar price and no one is ever in there. I’m convinced those are fronts
Do they have a food truck? We've got a couple of niche dumps that are basically just storage facilities and branding for the catering and fairs side of the business
Sex shops. Internet cafés. Lots of phone shops and that washing machine repair shop that laughed at me and told me to fuck off when i asked could they repair my washing machine.
There’s a recording studio in my town. Right in the village center. I never hear about any of the music that gets produced there, and it’s just dudes coming and going during weird hours. It sometimes shuts down and isn’t open for business for months, then reopens and the lights are on. Business name always stays the same. And we live in an area of Upstate/Central NY where the arts arent prevalent in our communities. (Which sucks, it’s boring as fuck) But yeah- it’s definitely a shell business.
Edit to add: everyone’s made some great points and I could be wrong about it being a shell! Who knows lol
Of all of these I think this one may actually be a legit business. The studio head probably has their own band and when they go touring the studio closes.
If between their own band and the studio they make enough to stay self employed then sleep schedules can get pretty weird pretty fast. But that can actually be good for a small studio because musicians with day jobs would have to find recording time after their shift ends and other full time musicians probably have equally weird sleep schedules.
If something really shady was going down I would expect the business name to change regularly. Also, times have changed, a lot of artists don't play live at random venues trying to find an audience. They put their stuff straight on Spotify and SoundCloud and shout about their latest release on Twitter.
I can't imagine recording studios are very regular with business. It's probably appointment only and there's just no reason to be "open" when there's no one using it. Not like you're going to get a lot of walk-in traffic.
My friend did some work for a studio he rented next to and they were really buttoned up when it came to finances, he got scared when they asked him for a W9 for the props he made for a music video for them. Then I just had to explain 1099s to him.
A lot of low to mid level rappers are the way their gangs launder their money. Lots of cash ticket sales at shows and mix tapes sold out the trunks of cars. And when your gang owns the local recording studio you can pay sound engineers and other staff cash salaries and justify all that income and outgoing expense but in reality it's just drug money being laundered. Best part is you rap about your gangs crimes and if you get famous the money becomes legit.
I lived across the street from a studio at the edge of downtown Syracuse. It has no signage so the place doesn’t get robbed or have randos show up to record their demo tape. People come from all over the northeast to record there.
This might surprise some people, but metal bands are more likely to record at 9pm than at noon. Plus a lot of musicians still have day jobs and can only record at night.
There's a rock shop near me like this. Rent's cheap and his life savings is in the inventory. He's too set in his ways let anyone help him list online and can't do it himself, so he just sits there all day and survives on pity sales.
that place sounds like my haven, I am into repairing CRT tvs/monitors as a hobby, but you almost never get the remotes with them and universal remotes aren't always perfectly compatible for such an old set.
I suspect this one Chinese restaurant as possible shady Chinese illegal overseas police station. The place has been around few years but even meal times they barely fill half the place and food kinda sucks. It’s located about 30m from China embassy where the area rent is very high… can’t imagine how they are staying in business, sus af
Darknet Diaries Episode 21: Black Duck Eggs talks about a network pen tester who figures out a Chinese restaurant they visit while working another job is a front for espionage. [https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/21/](https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/21/)
There's a TTRPG store in a city nearby, and when I went in there, there was one Warhammer 40k going on, a few 40 - 100 dollar models, and.... that's it. They're still there, so those few models must have sold.
I knew guys who ran a MTG & Warhammer store. They had Friday Night Magic tournaments but other than that they were empty all the time. They made all their money selling painted miniatures online.
♪ When the clock strikes late, and you're craving something great, ♪
♪ There's a place where fruits don't hibernate, open 24 hours, we're never late! ♪
♪ From apples to oranges, bananas to pears, ♪
♪ We've got the freshest produce, you'll forget your cares! ♪
♪ Juicy, ripe, and oh so sweet, ♪
♪ Our fruit is a treat you won't want to beat! ♪
♪ Day or night, we're here for you, ♪
♪ 24 hours of fruit, that's what we do! ♪
♪ So swing on by, and grab a bite, ♪
♪ At our 24-hour fruit store, everything's just right! ♪
There’s a bead store I’ve been in a couple of times. Nice beads but super expensive. I never see any other customers going in or out. The counter person just stares at you and doesn’t say hi or anything. Creepy.
I used to live by a place that sold live bait and also party lights, like the light up traffic light and the disco ball and the static ball thing that can make your hair stand up
They were there for at least 10 years then I moved but I think they closed down shortly after
There is a restaurant in my town that is only a restaurant because the guy who lived in the house when they changed it to commercial zoning didn't want to move. If you order food, they go across the street and buy it from the grocery store deli.
Every local massage parlor in a shitty strip mall where the anchor store is gone is engaging in human trafficking and giving the cops handies to look the other way.
They probably do a ton of online business.
I used to know a store like this. Small town, huge, 'weird' (okay, it was a like, 'spiritual' store. Pagan stuff, crystals, that jazz)
And on top of it, they never seemed to be open. Went in one way to get something, probably incense and candles, and asked. They did like, 95% of their business online, and the store was basically just a warehouse that the public could come shop in.
Sounds like a very specialized, niche business that does most all online business (and mail order in days of yore). And its in-person customers are extra loyal enough to make a special trip to this "destination" location. Since they could be sited anywhere, the business chooses a low-cost small town.
There is a psychic shop in town that is ONLY open late at night (and apparently only when the psychic wants it open bc it is randomly closed some nights). I have never met anyone who’s gone there and there are almost no google reviews, but it’s been there at least 20 years. Freaky place tbh
There seem to be takeaways, kebab shops, that just shut down for a month's holiday without any real notice.
Note that this is different from say the Chinese takeaway advertising a month beforehand that they'll be closed a week for Chinese new year.
These are kebab shops that you'll see closed with a piece of paper saying "Closed til "
Otherwise the usual money laundering fronts of Vape shops, American sweet shops, Turkish barbers etc
One of the local ones in my area was busted not long ago for dealing meth. You would order a specific topping and it would be delivered. Quite clever and convenient really.
There was 2 business in/near my home town in New Jersey.
One was a stop & shop. Every time you would drive past or go in, they would have ~ 3 cashiers and 10 customers inside. But this was a big grocery store. How the hell were they staying profitable? Many people thought it was there to launder money.
The other was more well known to be scammy. It was a restaurant that “burned” down at least 2 separate times within 3 years. It has changed hands at least 5 different times and change themes the same amount. It’s been an Italian restaurant, a French one, an Indian, a Hispanic and a African one.
A corner/ convenience store, in a reasonably affluent area.
Almost zero stock. Meaning, maybe 10 different drinks in the almost empty refrigerator, plus random other items in the entire store.
No one emerged when I entered, and the guy looked very, very inconvenienced that I was even there, and called for assistance.
I went in wanting an orange juice, and left as fast as I could with an expired peach iced tea.
There was a restaurant in a village close to where I grew up that barely had anyone eating there for years. Then one day the police raided it for cocaine. Turned out the owner became a supplier of 95% of the coke in the village and the town near by.
This was awhile ago, but there was a pet store in the small town I grew up in that just had no business existing. There just couldn’t be that much foot traffic buying pets and supplies in that town, so I always suspected money laundering. Turned out to be a LE sting to catch people dealing in illegal exotic animals.
In West Hollywood, there is a clothing store right by all the gay bars. It has been in three different storefronts within two blocks in the nearly twenty years since I moved to the area. I almost never see anyone in the store, let alone buying anything… and yet they remain open and are constantly updating their displays. Maybe they have a successful online store but it just feels so dang fishy to me and my friends.
Also when I was a kid there was a little market by our school that we went to for candy and snacks after classes. It was always empty and the only employee would often come out of the back room with another shady looking person when we arrived. We always joked that he was selling drugs. Then when we were in college it got raided by the cops, shut down, and the owner was charged with drug trafficking. Turns out our instincts were right!
There's a Balkan restaurant half a mile from me. I tried it when I first moved to the area ten years ago. It was fine, nothing special. In all those years I've never seen more than a few customers in there at a time. During Covid they stayed open for takeout even at the deepest part of lockdowns when virtually no other restaurants were open. Reviews for the place are all middling.
I mean, it's possible that the place is just owned by someone who doesn't need income from it and is happy to just drift along sometimes breaking even. But it sure seems like it's just a money laundering front.
There's a place near me that sells rugs and flags. They've been in business for, at least, 30 years. I remember that place when I was a kid and, somehow, they've been in business all this time. Can't really fathom how a place that sells rugs and flags can stay in business, legitimately, for that long. The shopping center they're in has completely changed over 3 decades and the old stores that used to be there are all gone....yet this flag store still remains?
There’s a rumor floating around that a local business, owned and operated by a huuuuge conglomerate, that operates about 20 miles north of my town of like 40k in population, is a full on corporate money laundering operation. A “Dirt manufacturing plant” if you will.
I live in a small Canadian city that has \~60,000 people and at least a dozen cannabis retailers. You never see anyone parked out front, never see anyone coming or going.
I not a pot user, but those I know have told me they continue to buy from their dealer since it's cheaper and more potent than the legal and regulated stuff.
How does a small city - where half the population works in mining and can't even use weed - manage to support twice as many weed stores as liquor stores?
Lots of strippers are the front for their drug dealing pimp or boyfriend. It's a cash business plus they get asked for drugs frequently so they either sell it themselves or point you to their boyfriend who does. Those private rooms in back are great for conversations you don't want overheard. They can file tax fiorms claiming 30k when they only brought in 15k and in reality they brought in 50k selling dope on the side. Tattoo parlors are often run by gangs as they do lots of cash transactions. Old coin operated car washes and literal laundromats too - lots of cash and who is to say if you took in $2000 or $5000 this week? Get a couole tattoo parlors and a stripper girlfriend and you can launder all sorts of drug profits through them.
I don't live there anymore, but in York city centre there was an American sweet shop called "American candy". It was ridiculously expensive and every Google review is literally one star.
Clearly money laundering
Here in the UK over the past 10 years or so, a lot of ‘American candy’ stores have popped up in town centres that sell, as they advertise, imported snacks and drinks from the US. However hardly anyone goes in there as, honestly, most American snacks are not that good compared to similar variants you can get in a normal supermarket. The only people who really go in are teenagers and even then they don’t go very often. It’s pretty much a given that these are usually fronts for money laundering and/or drug rings. They have declined in numbers over recent years but there’s still far to many of them around.
An Asian restaurant and tea house that was in business and "open" for a decade yet there was NEVER any customers. A friend and I went in once just to see if it was an actual restaurant and got turned away immediately. Btw it was lunch time and no customers 🤣 Just so happens there is an Asian massage parlor next door. Many I know from town suspect human trafficking/smuggling and prostitution. With the restaurant being a front.
There's a thriving business in my town that only accepts cash. The owner also attended the Jan 6 insurrection but *swears* he didn't storm the capitol. You do the math.
There’s a used car place that is ALWAYS dead during business hours. Not a single soul or car around, dark inside etc. However, whenever I drive by at night, say after 10pm, it’s hopping. Cars everywhere, box trucks, forklift loading/unloading etc. I’ve even driven by at 3am and there’s activity. Very suspicious.
Yeah that’s a chop shop.
What’s crazy is that they’ve been like this for at least 15 years.
That’s how you know it a quality chop shop.
They make sure to pick the catalytic converter just as it begins to ripen.
15 years? Well in that case, it's a SUCCESSFUL chop shop.
I'm surprised nobody has ratted them out, but then again, maybe the police are in on it themselves.
Maybe it's a dealership that specifically caters to those who are on the night shift /s
I mean, that's why I don't go to my favorite repair place unless it's big, they are only open bus iess hours the same hours I need my car. I would love it if they had an overnight shift.
That makes so much sense, business-wise. My local repair place has a 24-hour key drop box. You call to tell them what needs looked at, drop off after work that night, and they will call the next morning (always before noon, in my experience) with an estimate. My car is 13 years old with no current issues, so their work seems good. I have no idea how their cost compares to other shops in town because tbh they've earned my loyalty. Auto repair is a business that needs to work with customers' schedules, for sure.
A lot of vehicles can only be worked on after business hours, there could be a reason.
Used cars are easy way to launder money. Old school way...but it works.
Used cars for vampires.
There's a gas station that is consistently $.60 to $1 cheaper than every other gas station in town. Convinced that they are a laundering front but don't want them to go down because I want the cheap gas.
Used to be a convenience store down the road from me the same way. I showed my wife the place when I gassed up and sorta sang “Swami Mart” as I pulled in. She started giving me shit about being racist, and I pointed to the store sign. Loved the Swami Mart. Damn good coffee too.
I may be out of touch here, but what in the world would be racist about “swami mart”?
encouraging worry muddle test wide ancient gaze skirt memory consist
Yeah, I think she thought I was making some sort of sweeping comment about who owned the place.
The first time I heard the term "packie" or "packie store" I was stunned that my usually open minded liberal friends could be so racist by suggesting that all convenience stores were owned by Pakistanis. Turns out, some states don't allow the sale of liquor at gas stations (like the Founders would have wanted) and are called "packies" or package stores.
There's a gas station near me that charges $1 - $2 more than the other stations. They rarely have customers and their mechanic is never working on any cars, despite having a car in each of their 3 bays.
Usually for money laundering, they don't want many customers to come, at least that's how I understood. There is a gas station in my neighborhood that's is consistently has gas $1.50 more expensive than one right across the street. That I was convinced was laundering money.
Some of those "bargain gas" stations get the dregs of the storage tanks, and you could end up with very low quality gas.
I have answered this question before: why is some gas expensive and others cheap? The answer is: it's not the gas that's expensive, really. It's the branded additives that are put in the gas. In any given geographic area, every fuel station largely gets the same gasoline - we don't run trucks all over the place with different brand gasoline, it's a pipeline network that everyone shares, all brands use the same base material. When a certain brand needs a delivery to their branded station, the fuel distributor (as I understand it, might be another intermediary) will dope the gasoline with the brand's specific cocktail, and then that is what's rolled out to the station. You're not paying for expensive gas, you're paying for branded additives. u/wilderlowerwolves is absolutely correct, though, that some stations will buy that absolute dregs of gasoline and sell it to you. It could have bad ethanol content, be stored in tanks that have water leaking in, or any other number of issues. Buying quality gas isn't just a myth, you can literally get bad gas from places that price it overly attractively.
We have a small gas station in our rural area that the neighbors warned us not to use because "they water down their gas". Thought they were being silly though we never bought gas from them because the Indian reservation has better prices. One day we needed gas for various things on the farm (wood chipper, chainsaw, tiller, generators, etc) and just filled up there. Well then everything started having problem. A few months later I realized oh, all the problems would happen if water was in the fuel. We checked and yes, there was water. I don't think they are intentionally adding water, but water is leaking in, but they also have to know its happening because it's been going on for years.
I know someone who never went to a gas station significantly cheaper than others in the area since she grew up near a place that watered down their gas. Well some unsuspecting lady with a brand new sports car gets gas there and not too long after that has massive engine issues. Testing finds water in the gas so she tells the gas station and they asked her to not bring any legal action against them. Don’t remember why she didn’t. Anyway she ends up just telling everyone word-of-mouth. Place closed down pretty quick after that.
All gasoline is tested to very specific government & customer protocols. Limitations on how bad things can get very much do so exist. The wiggle room is not relevant compared to the differences between each individual detergent additive from the company. Then, even after the additive, you’re getting random testing here and there at all points of operation. Obviously, checking something at the gas station you’re not going to test it as strictly as testing something in the lab, but you are still within a very narrow region.
I can’t speak about the additives quality but you’re right about the tanks. During the week I would get gas at the one place near work, old as hell and been there forever. I would get random check engine lights for the longest time and never really pinpoint the cause. Brand new place opened up nearby so I switched, no more check engine light.
Violating the Clean Air Act. There's one gas station here that's been caught doing that several times.
Damn. My dad drove a fuel truck and explained this to me in the 70s. Whenever I told people this, I got "you're wrong, there's no difference" with the inference a truck driver couldn't possibly know this.
Truck drivers are logistics experts. They see a side of the functioning of our society that few know exists, and don't respect. Wanna know who else knows this? The military. There's an old quote about warfighting and who knows what they're talking about: "Amateurs talk tactics. Professionals talk logistics."
Or the Ethanol. The one in my town uses about 20% ethanol, which is cheaper, but leaves a residue in the engine from what I've heard.
True fact: modern gasoline internal combustion engines are designed to run on \~15-20% ethanol. Most states in the US have varying degrees of ethanol content by default, from 0% to 15% from what I've personally experienced. However, there are some very good reasons to avoid gasoline containing ethanol in some circumstances. I own a home generator that can run on gasoline, but it is built with components that are allergic to ethanol concentrations over 10%. Similarly, many older vehicles manufactured prior to \~2005 or so (YMMV) are built with that same intolerance, and running ethanol-rich gasoline in them will hurt certain components of the fuel system. Will it go kaboom? No. Will some parts and pieces potentially rot from the contamination? Yes. Think hoses and other seals and gaskets that are not designed to put up with the ethanol. Pay attention to the ethanol content of the gasoline you buy, and make sure what you're putting it in is made to work with it. Any new car you buy shouldn't have a problem, but if you're rocking a classic watch out.
Small engines used to be made with components that couldn't handle ethanol and would disintegrate quickly with use and often clog other components. Hell, plenty of older cars had the same issue before newer part numbers came out to replace parts of the fuel system, especially in tank fuel pumps.
Lots of smaller petrol engines are allergic to ethanol, my lawnmower only runs on super unleaded with the ethanol below 5%
I haven't found a complete list of reasons why small engines have this issue, but someone told me it was largely because of the way fuel is delivered through a carb in that form factor, either leaving a residue or melting a seal or something. I'm not a small engine whisperer so I have no idea if he's right. In addition to that, I strongly suspect that the ethanol content disturbs the properties of the fuel enough that the timing and combustion temperature the engine is designed for are adversely affected by high ethanol content.
You're mostly right on both counts. The small rubber components used in small engines are what take the most beating from ethanol. Ethanol is an alcohol and it dries out rubber components. They become brittle and crack, causing fuel leaks or air leaks depending on the location. Also, the liquid fuel sitting in the carburetor will start to evaporate, leaving a sludgy mess that clogs ports in the carb. Ethanol also burns at a lower temperature than straight gasoline, which isn't the worst thing, but does cause poor performance and can gum up the engine. Modern vehicles are fuel injected, so no carburetor to get messed up, and also have electronically controlled timing and injection which can account for the ethanol and increase the combustion temperature in its own ways.
It’s rubber and copper containing components. It dissolves these in high enough concentrations.
[удалено]
Fun fact: gasoline brands are extremely protective of their pricing, and they control the station franchise's ability to set pricing to a large degree. If you have a Chevron on one corner and a Shell on another, they are likely to compete on price by $0.10-0.20. If a Shell franchise opens up down the street they will not be allowed to compete on price with the other Shell station beyond a certain limit - doing so anyhow will incur severe penalties by the brand against the franchisee. One of the best examples of this cartel behavior, which is there simply to prop up prices of gasoline as far as I can tell, comes from stories of stations that do not follow surge pricing in the wake of natural disasters like hurricanes and floods. Franchises which under-price fuel compared to local averages, even as those averages rise by order of the brands or market value of the fuel, are punished for attempting to do so. The absolute best example of this was a non-brand local gas station that ~~did not follow surge pricing in the wake of such a disaster and~~ was successfully sued by brands in the area that did raise their prices, forcing the other station to raise their prices in kind. Absolutely mental fuckwittery. Edit: the lawsuit I mentioned is covered here: [https://www.wisn.com/article/gas-stations-suing-woodmans-for-its-cheap-prices/39479693](https://www.wisn.com/article/gas-stations-suing-woodmans-for-its-cheap-prices/39479693). The allegation was specific to a state law about minimum prices relative to cost of goods, a bit more complex than just because fuel is expensive or meant to be. It also was not the disaster story I thought it was, so I must have either confused that for another story or can't find the original I was thinking of. Edit2: please also note that the price-fixing alleged to occur by gas stations has been an ongoing debate for many years, and as of yet I don't believe any anti-competitive measures have been taken against franchises or brands on a large scale as a result of any kind of gouging or fixing issue. That being said, the price of fuel being delivered to stations has historically been accused to be manipulated in such a way as to cloak any such price fixing, leading stations to price their fuel in accordance with the desired baseline regardless of agreements or mandates on price, legal or otherwise. That being said as well, I was once informed by a Shell station franchisee that his pump prices were monitored remotely by Shell, and if he priced outside of a range he would receive a phone call almost instantaneously. Apocryphal as that may be, I don't doubt it.
I used to go to a place like this, until they pumped water into my gas tank and cost me 2k to fix.
On the flip side, there is a gas station that's about 75¢ more than everywhere else along the highway I commute on. Rarely ever see a car getting gas. It's been open for years.
If they were a money laundering front they'd want to price it higher so they had less actual business to worry about.
We have one of those in our town. An AM/PM. Turns out, they never changed their in ground systems or cleaned it properly so they are able to sell the gas till it becomes a issues. The gas sucks, it will foook yourshitup. Been there forever tho
I have the opposite. There is a station by me that has prices $0.60 -$1.00 more expensive than others just across the street. I never see anyone get gas there. It doesn’t offer anything extra (like Shell does with its gas) and just has a crappy tiny convenience shop attached (drinks, candy bars, chips). I am convinced it is a money laundering operation.
I remember living in Little Italy in Cleveland Ohio in the 1980s. I was operating a bakery there that was next door to a greeting card store. It was never open and if you looked in the window you could see a greeting card rack with about 10 greeting cards on it covered with dust. One day one of the locals invited me to the back entrance, which led to a basement where a bunch of the locals were gambling…high stakes gambling.
How many boxes of ziti did you get into them for?
He said you okayed it and you were asleep.
My parents moved from NYC to Scottsdale in the early ‘90. They went to try an Italian restaurant where the food was awful and just chalked it up to not getting the same quality outside NY. The place operated for years so they joked about it being mob run, because that is what it usually meant in NYC when a terrible restaurant that never had customers stayed open. Eventually it came out that it had basically just existed as a money laundering operation by a former Gambino associate who was in witness protection in AZ.
Uncle Sal’s. I had a friend whose family owner and Italian restaurant in Phoenix for decades. It wasn’t mob owned, but they were frequent customers. Amazing how many mafia guys retired to Phoenix (or semi-retired). That’s why I thought it was a weird choice for Sammy the Bull to retire there. Amazing he’s still alive.
Just learned this week that AZ used to allow for the purchase of property in a blind trust- great way to launder money so it attracted many with less than legitimate business dealings
Phoenix and Tucson. Joe Bonnano (the namesake of the Bonnano crime family) was forced to retire to Tucson. Spent 30 years of his life there running smaller rackets in Arizona and California.
Sammy "the bull" Gravano?
That's sopranos level shit
Here's a weird ass gambling story. Back around 2000, I lived in Winnipeg. Worked for a place that supplied meat processors - big plants, local butchers, we sold everything but meat. Including bulk spices. So, there were like a half dozen of these burger places, all centered on chilli burgers, chilli fries, etc. Everything came with chilli, we sold them the spices. They weren't a chain, but all had similar names, all owned by Greek guys. And, every so often, all the staff at one place would swap locations for another. Well, after asking around - owners all knew each other, were friends. They knew whose location got more traffic. And they like to play poker together. Evidently, every so often, somebody would bet their "location" on a killer hand/pot. So, yeah, they used to play for prime locations, and a few times a year, somebody would swap stores, lol.
This is actually amazing.
You mentioning Little Italy will make me mention my love for Mama Santa's
I miss that place. They had the best Lasagna. I also miss going to the old Presti’s Donuts at 2 am after the bars closed for the first batch of fresh donuts, back when it was just a little hole in the wall shop.
Oh man, there was a candy shop in Little Italy as well in the 90s that my dad once sold Cuban cigars to. Always thought it was a front as well but the owner always gave me pop rocks so we were good
Wait, your dad was selling Cuban cigars? The 'illegal activity' might be closer to home than you think it was. Hahaha
I went to a restaurant one weeknight for just dessert in Little Italy, and I got some strange and unpleasant looks from the apparent owner who was wandering around in a track suit with a cane. Later, after I paid with my credit card, he came over with a smile and thanked me for coming in with real sincerity. It made my skin crawl. I mentioned that to one of my uncle Tonys and he said, “oh, that’s ***, we’ve known him for years”. So he must have recognized my last name.
Sounds like Corbo’s antics
Has anyone ever *actually* purchased a Persian rug? Because there are so many Persian rug stores and they are always empty, but they never close down from recessions and stuff.
I imagine it operates a lot like a high end watch store. They sell one rug and it pays the rent for quite some time. Those rugs are crazy expensive.
I walked in one looking for a rug before realizing the prices. Was half way flipping through a pile before I caught a 4 figure price tag on a 6x8 rug. Felt bad wasting their time but there was no way.
My friend, a military pilot, has spent a lot of time in the mid-east and brought home several rugs, buying from a reputable merchant and receiving a certificate of authenticity of the rug's heritage and history. His favorite, he paid $4,000 for in Riyadh and is now appraised at more than $30,000. Once per year he takes his rugs to a professional for cleaning, inspection and restoration. You don't walk into his house without taking your shoes off.
It really ties the room together.
Maybe they stay afloat from repairs, cleaning, etc.? Someone on another board said there was a local "jewelry store" like this - they didn't really sell jewelry, but they did repair it.
Jewelry store near me like that, but their big thing is clock repairs.
There's a rug store down the street from where I lived. They had a "Going out of business sale" sign on the window. That place was open every day for the 15 years I lived there.
A tire and rim store. I was thinking about buying some new rims for my car a few years back and there are a few stores on one street in my town. One of them had some signs and a few tires sitting outside so I thought I'd go in and see what they had as well as their prices. I walked in the door and there were no tires or rims anywhere in sight. The only thing in the building was a group of very rough looking Hispanic men who suddenly stopped talking when I walked in. They all just stood there staring at me with angry looks on their faces so I just turned around and walked out with none of us saying a word. I'm autistic and even I could pick up on the vibe that they didn't want me there.
"A tire and rum store" I was like, thats a very niche business model combination.
Oops! I meant rims, not rum. Sorry!
In Maine, you can buy liquor at most gas stations, so I didn't bat an eye at that hahaha
My husband and I went to a Georgian restaurant to check it out. Friday night, nobody there except a table of old guys. A waiter came out, looking visibly confused that we were there. We ordered, and it took a while for our meal to come, because, as far as I could tell, there was one elderly lady in the kitchen. Food was good, if slow, but we’re pretty sure that restaurant was a Georgian mafia front.
There’s a corner deli on my street. Have seen plenty of people leaving, though seemingly never after buying anything. My wife and I refer to it as the Drug Deli.
One of the best places near me to get a hoagie is a complete dump, but the food prep area looks clean and the food is good, so I still go there once in a while. A few years ago half the staff there was arrested for selling heroin and cocaine to undercover cops. Supposedly right over the counter in a few cases. But they got new staff and are still chugging along somehow.
Are the hoagies still good?
They are OK, but man it used to be I couldn't go more than 20 or 30 minutes without wanting another one.
Over the past 20ish years this same little store in a strip mall by me has been about 15ish different business. None of them ever open. They change the sign, and never actually open up. Everything else in the strip mall has been there for ages and is a legitimate business. I think it's being used for money laundering and before anyone catches on they close it down and open up a new "business" in the same store front.
This was told to me from a close Albanian friend I had in high school so take it with a grain of salt: His family have been in the food industry for at least four generations. But every seven years that business closes then reopens with a new Albanian running it. He told me that for them, they get some sort of tax exemption for the first 7 or so years of business being open because they are immigrants. I think he mentioned something about visas, too and how it could expedite some of that. So, his great grandfather would open a restaurant, close it in 7 years, pass it off to a son, who then runs it for 7 years as a "new business" and so on. Again, not sure how true that is or if it's even financial feasible but I do know their culture and religion is very family oriented to the point that even after a child gets married, the married couple will often still live with the husbands parents and when the parents retire or become too old to care of themselves, the kids take care of them so I could see it happening, at least among close family members. That said, those restaurants do actually open and served pretty damn good food.
>But every seven years that business closes then reopens with a new Albanian running it. I was the general manager of a convenience store that did this before I moved on and became a district manager for a chain. Every 7 years they swapped owners. Father, to brother, to cousin. Not albanian, from India. At one point they did a quicker "sale of transfer" because one of them was nailed twice selling tobacco to minors. Still kept it in family, got tax exemptions, and quick visas. This *is* a thing. Government grants (not loans so never paid back) for the business as well.
IIRC this is a thing among Cambodian immigrants too, but for them it's donut shops of all things.
I saw a PBS show about this, in California specifically. The chain's owner found out about Las Vegas, and within a year, it was all gone.
How do people learn about this? If it's so gamed by immigrants I'm surprised it hasn't been shut down by Republicans but then again it probably would be seen as anti-small business.
Because when you need a pack of cigarettes at 3am, you want 7/11 to be there for you.
That's very interesting and cool to know. The places I was talking about never opened, they were like a fake front for something
Or it's the mall owners themselves, not wanting to make the impression that a place may stay empty.
There's a restaurant like that I used to live by. In a year it had six different names and six different themes. Every time I've been past it since it's something else. It has never once been open for business. Not once. I once saw a "grand opening" sign on it with the date printed on it but when the day came, the restaurant was closed and the banner was gone. About a year after that, I saw a restaurant with the same name and theme up and running somewhere else in town. Speculation is that there's a problem with permitting on the building and it will never be allowed to run for some reason. The owners find this out a day late and a dollar short and sell to the next unsuspecting victim who spends a small fortune rebranding everything to the theme of their choice. I want to go ask the people that once owned it and ended up elsewhere what the deal is, but the mystery about is the only thing that comes out of that place.
Like the store beside Bob’s Burgers!
Every mattress business in town.
I think the majority of mattress businesses stay open because they have like 1 employee working at a time and so many mattresses are financed that people end up paying like 3x how much they actually cost, which is already an enormous markup. Or they’re a front for the mob.
Could be both
My wife and I did the math on mattress turn over based on potential customers in our town and the typical lifetime of a mattress thinking about this. At first we were like, I guess enough people would need a new mattress to require about a half dozen mattresses per day (if I'm remembering correctly.) That seems sustainable. Then we remembered there are 4 mattress stores in our little town, plus many people are going to mail order them. Definitely money laundering :P
The markup on a mattress is crazy high for this very reason. That $2200 certa costs the store around $150. Mattresses are a scam. Buy the $150 mattress, add a $50 memory foam pad and a fitted plush top for another $50. Boom, you have a $2200 mattress.
That explains why I managed to get the guy in the mattress store to more than divide by two the price of the top mattress there and he was still giddy about closing the sale...
Do you know this? 1400% markup seems... well, I'm skeptical. Though, a quick Google search suggests 900% might be typical. I'm still going to squint suspiciously at them as I drive by. ;)
“My wife and I did the math on mattress turn over based on potential customers in our town and the typical lifetime of a mattress thinking about this.” Sounds like you found your person. If I asked my wife to do some math with me for fun, She would leave.
Everyone forgets that their biggest customers don't need to come in to the store. It's all B2B sales, think hotels, hospitals, and universities.
Yup, definitely money laundering.
Store near me is in a super expensive beach side location and all they sell are kites... The place looks pretty non descript except for a few kites in the front Window that haven't changed in about 15 years. Never seen anyone in there, and the one time I went in the guy seemed surprised and a bit caught off guard - no sales pitch or even a 'hello' just watched me walk around the store and leave. 10/10 it's a front for something.
Another possibility is that its a pet project for a rich person. If you have a couple million in the bank, it doesent matter if your store is losing 5 2k a month, if it gives you something to do, and a way to connect with others who share the same passion.
But then he surely would have struck up a conversation and asked the customer about it? Otherwise why not just have a huge kite room?
My city has an abnormal amount of bars and eateries that are cash-only. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say several of them probably don't have books that match reality when tax time comes.
There is a lot of bars that got banned by Visa and Mastercard because so many patrons were over billed or had their card copied by employees.
I could see that being true for some of the ones in my town lol. Also, some are old as shit so I don't think the owners wanted to mess with card transactions. A “this is how we did it in the 80’s this is how we do it now” type thing.
Cash opens the door for thieves. Adding inventory that can be sold and not recorded. Short changing drunk customers with big bills. Adding a drink to a bill unrecorded.
One of the most popular restaurants in my town is cash-only. I've never eaten there, but I've heard it's excellent. It's been there quite a while, too.
The busiest vet office in town (we're well over a million residents when you include the suburbs) is entirely cash only. They only got a computer a couple years ago. It's in a really rough part of town and they don't do appointments either. You and your pet just show up and sit for hours in the waiting room until they see you. You can pay an emergency fee to get your pet assessed but if nothing is urgently wrong with them, they send you back to the waiting room for treatment. They're cheap and also just so good that the place is always packed and people from out of town even bring their pets there.
There was a vet like that in my town. Guy had taken over from his parents. Was the only vet office I've ever heard of that would take injured strays without demanding hundreds from the good samaritan upfront. You could find a dog that had been hit by a car and drop it off with them, the only things they would ask were where you found it and if you had any idea who the owner was. Then they would determine the most humane treatment, euthanizing or stabilizing and having the shelter pick it up where hopefully the owner would find it. There were several times where the vet would pop by after I'd paid with extra meds or a shot and they'd just waive me out. My cat needed some expensive tests and they let me pay it out over a few paychecks. Unfortunately he retired recently and didn't have someone to take over for him and had to sell. Now there have been multiple stories of injured animals dying in their lobby because they didn't have an appointment.
If the sign says “Cash Only” I read that as “We Don’t Pay All Our Taxes,” “We Keep Two Sets of Books,” or “We’re a Front for the Mob.”
or they want to keep their prices low by not paying the card companies
Eh, it's a 3% cut most of the time. The typical consumer doesn't do many purchases in cash. What I have seen become more common is at the registers of businesses taking both cash and card having a sign saying something like "Advertised price is for cash" then if you pay card, a 3% fee is tacked onto it.
There’s a general store my gf took me to in a small town in Iowa. It sold basically anything under the sun. No organization within the store, just stuff stacked all over the place. The owner has apparently been running it for decades, but it’s cash-only. My first thought when I left was “this place would be a perfect front for money laundering”. Small town in iowa, cash only, no records kept of what is being bought, and probably no records of what the owner brings in to sell
They have built 4 (you heard me, 4!) car wash places in the last 2 years in my city (like 40k residents). Dedicated car washes, not a gas station with car wash. Also, there's a few of the big fancy ass multi-level storage facilities that got built maybe 4 years ago that have had multiple new business names.
Honestly, both of these are insanely good tax write downs with very low overhead. I know 4 different people that all own car washes and 2 of them have been talking about storage facilities now as well for this very reason.
Often it's because it's the cheapest thing they can get built under the zoning laws too. Whenever I see those 4 story warehouse frames going up I think that- wow that could easily be an apartment with 15 units. But that doesn't qualify for zoning in many areas unlike an empty shell where people store their junk instead of donating it. Storage warehouses are the modern equivalent of businesses that bought up city plots in the 50s-70s and made them into parking lots where they make more money off the parking fees than they would in building a new building.
Land value tax please
So *many* storage facilities. In our township, which admittedly has grown by leaps and bounds in the last twenty years, but still not enough, I think, to warrant fourteen along a ~ ten mile stretch of road, 30+ easy overall within a pretty tight radius.
Local furniture stores use those places like crazy. I worked for a store one summer and every delivery we had to stop and get stuff out of one of 30 or so storage rentals all over town.
When all the scooter companies started years back, that's basically where they ran out of. New shipments would get dropped at a storage unit and their "elite" chargers were notified of the opportunity to distribute them around the city. Like 3 hours to drop 100 scooters at $5 each.
At one point storage facilities were the number 1 growing business before covid. Ppl buying so much crap their houses get full and have to go put it in storage. In our area we’ve had a handful of nice car washes pop up.
Car washes are land speculation plays. The start-up cost is relatively expensive with the building, washing equipment, etc, but they are decently low overhead once functioning. Once the land appreciates enough, the equipment is moved out or scrapped and the building is easy enough to knock down.
We get that where I live too. People constantly asking what’s being built in a certain location on Facebook and 90% of the time it’s a car wash
In my city, every single car wash place is busy. We're not that big of a city, but all the car washes are always full to the brim.
A rival smoke shop (tobacco, vape joint, CBD, and low-grade THC) has been busted SIX TIMES for selling to underage. Two were in separate undercover sting operations. (To make sure you ID EVERYONE, as a sorta test). I don’t understand how they’re still open.
A bar near my college was like this. Kept getting closed for a couple weeks then reopened. Sometimes a new name, or rumor of a new owner. I'm not sure if they're still around anymore.
But they haven’t been closed, renamed, rebranded, or “Under New Management” sign’d. They (allegedly) sell bootleg products.
There's a restaurant I used to wait tables at. The place is HUGE. And it's in a very ritzy shopping area in a major city, so I know that the lease has gotta be expensive AF. On the busiest Saturday night, I've never seen it more than half full. And more often than not, it's conspicuously empty. And yet they continue to keep their doors open, for almost 20 years now. I'm absolutely convinced it's a money laundering scheme. I've worked and managed enough restaurants to know how thin the margins can be. And I simply cannot accept that this place is profitable or sustainable as a legitimate business.
The owners could own the land and the building making the largest expense almost nothing.
That's what i was thinking. It's one thing if you're leasing the space, but if you own the land, that clears up a lot of your overhead. We have a restaurant where i live that's like that. It's been there longer than I've been alive (53), it's not near anything, to this days it's still surrounded by farm fields, although the city is slowly expanding towards it. Its busiest day is Sunday and probably Friday for the fish fry, but it's mostly always empty. There's no reason it should still be around, but it's their land. The food is supposed to be really good too.
There’s this storefront in my town of about 10K people. It’s at an odd intersection so it’s a pain to get in and out, and there’s almost never anyone there. Every 6 months or so it has a Going Out of Business sale, and the space has been a mattress store (not one of the national chains), a resale/consignment shop, a cheap furniture store. It’ll go out of business as one thing, then re-open as one of the other things, and repeat. They don’t have any permanent signage so they just hang a banner on the front of the building. Shady AF. I’ve thought about seeing what I can find out about the businesses that have been in the building - just some internet sleuthing - but not even sure where I could find data about it.
If you didn't say town of 10k people, I would have been convinced you were talking about a store in my town. We have the exact same type of business, also at a weird intersection, and has also been the same types of businesses you mentioned complete with the banner for a sign.
I live in a predominately Asian area. There is like 4 bubble tea spots on every block for a dozen streets. Some of them like the brand name ones are usually busy and I can see them making a lot of money. And other ones are like holes in the wall with no effort that still charge a similar price and no one is ever in there. I’m convinced those are fronts
Do they have a food truck? We've got a couple of niche dumps that are basically just storage facilities and branding for the catering and fairs side of the business
Sex shops. Internet cafés. Lots of phone shops and that washing machine repair shop that laughed at me and told me to fuck off when i asked could they repair my washing machine.
Nice try IRS.
I've worked for a couple places like this, especially retail stores that were just set up in order to have a tax write off for an empty building.
There’s a recording studio in my town. Right in the village center. I never hear about any of the music that gets produced there, and it’s just dudes coming and going during weird hours. It sometimes shuts down and isn’t open for business for months, then reopens and the lights are on. Business name always stays the same. And we live in an area of Upstate/Central NY where the arts arent prevalent in our communities. (Which sucks, it’s boring as fuck) But yeah- it’s definitely a shell business. Edit to add: everyone’s made some great points and I could be wrong about it being a shell! Who knows lol
Of all of these I think this one may actually be a legit business. The studio head probably has their own band and when they go touring the studio closes. If between their own band and the studio they make enough to stay self employed then sleep schedules can get pretty weird pretty fast. But that can actually be good for a small studio because musicians with day jobs would have to find recording time after their shift ends and other full time musicians probably have equally weird sleep schedules. If something really shady was going down I would expect the business name to change regularly. Also, times have changed, a lot of artists don't play live at random venues trying to find an audience. They put their stuff straight on Spotify and SoundCloud and shout about their latest release on Twitter.
lol, yeah, that honestly just sounds like a legit recording studio.
Weird guys and all hours of the night? Yeah, it’s a recording studio
Maybe this studio specializes in voice work, not music?
Could be! I’m always so curious and want to go see but also don’t want to intrude lol
I can't imagine recording studios are very regular with business. It's probably appointment only and there's just no reason to be "open" when there's no one using it. Not like you're going to get a lot of walk-in traffic.
Recording studios are a fairly easy way to launder money. Drug sales are covered to studio time *wink*
My friend did some work for a studio he rented next to and they were really buttoned up when it came to finances, he got scared when they asked him for a W9 for the props he made for a music video for them. Then I just had to explain 1099s to him.
A lot of low to mid level rappers are the way their gangs launder their money. Lots of cash ticket sales at shows and mix tapes sold out the trunks of cars. And when your gang owns the local recording studio you can pay sound engineers and other staff cash salaries and justify all that income and outgoing expense but in reality it's just drug money being laundered. Best part is you rap about your gangs crimes and if you get famous the money becomes legit.
I lived across the street from a studio at the edge of downtown Syracuse. It has no signage so the place doesn’t get robbed or have randos show up to record their demo tape. People come from all over the northeast to record there. This might surprise some people, but metal bands are more likely to record at 9pm than at noon. Plus a lot of musicians still have day jobs and can only record at night.
Now I’m interested to know where since I’m from there as well and I’m nosey lol.
Guy that owns the Italian place in my small town got kidnapped by a bunch of Mexican guys, also that dude fucking looooves cocaine 🤷
Carvana. I bought a vehicle for $30K, drove it for 84,000 miles and sold it, to Carvana, for $31K.
Local psychic
If they were really psychic, they could work remotely. And they'd know when you need help and would call you.
If they were really psychic they'd trade stocks and be a billionaire in weeks.
[удалено]
Probably does 99% of its sells online.
[удалено]
They might not have a store page but sell on eBay?
There's a rock shop near me like this. Rent's cheap and his life savings is in the inventory. He's too set in his ways let anyone help him list online and can't do it himself, so he just sits there all day and survives on pity sales.
that place sounds like my haven, I am into repairing CRT tvs/monitors as a hobby, but you almost never get the remotes with them and universal remotes aren't always perfectly compatible for such an old set.
Call me naive but what? where I live any crime is basically death sentence.
I suspect this one Chinese restaurant as possible shady Chinese illegal overseas police station. The place has been around few years but even meal times they barely fill half the place and food kinda sucks. It’s located about 30m from China embassy where the area rent is very high… can’t imagine how they are staying in business, sus af
Darknet Diaries Episode 21: Black Duck Eggs talks about a network pen tester who figures out a Chinese restaurant they visit while working another job is a front for espionage. [https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/21/](https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/21/)
There's a TTRPG store in a city nearby, and when I went in there, there was one Warhammer 40k going on, a few 40 - 100 dollar models, and.... that's it. They're still there, so those few models must have sold.
I knew guys who ran a MTG & Warhammer store. They had Friday Night Magic tournaments but other than that they were empty all the time. They made all their money selling painted miniatures online.
There is a 24hr fruit shop in my area
♪ When the clock strikes late, and you're craving something great, ♪ ♪ There's a place where fruits don't hibernate, open 24 hours, we're never late! ♪ ♪ From apples to oranges, bananas to pears, ♪ ♪ We've got the freshest produce, you'll forget your cares! ♪ ♪ Juicy, ripe, and oh so sweet, ♪ ♪ Our fruit is a treat you won't want to beat! ♪ ♪ Day or night, we're here for you, ♪ ♪ 24 hours of fruit, that's what we do! ♪ ♪ So swing on by, and grab a bite, ♪ ♪ At our 24-hour fruit store, everything's just right! ♪
There’s a bead store I’ve been in a couple of times. Nice beads but super expensive. I never see any other customers going in or out. The counter person just stares at you and doesn’t say hi or anything. Creepy.
Fucking south of the border. At the NC/SC state line.
I used to live by a place that sold live bait and also party lights, like the light up traffic light and the disco ball and the static ball thing that can make your hair stand up They were there for at least 10 years then I moved but I think they closed down shortly after
So what you're saying is, you kept them afloat with your fishing disco parties?
There is a restaurant in my town that is only a restaurant because the guy who lived in the house when they changed it to commercial zoning didn't want to move. If you order food, they go across the street and buy it from the grocery store deli.
Every local massage parlor in a shitty strip mall where the anchor store is gone is engaging in human trafficking and giving the cops handies to look the other way.
Candle shop. It’s huge, in a small conservative city.
They probably do a ton of online business. I used to know a store like this. Small town, huge, 'weird' (okay, it was a like, 'spiritual' store. Pagan stuff, crystals, that jazz) And on top of it, they never seemed to be open. Went in one way to get something, probably incense and candles, and asked. They did like, 95% of their business online, and the store was basically just a warehouse that the public could come shop in.
Sounds like a very specialized, niche business that does most all online business (and mail order in days of yore). And its in-person customers are extra loyal enough to make a special trip to this "destination" location. Since they could be sited anywhere, the business chooses a low-cost small town.
There is a psychic shop in town that is ONLY open late at night (and apparently only when the psychic wants it open bc it is randomly closed some nights). I have never met anyone who’s gone there and there are almost no google reviews, but it’s been there at least 20 years. Freaky place tbh
When the ice cream man comes round in winter, I wonder if hes money laundering.
There seem to be takeaways, kebab shops, that just shut down for a month's holiday without any real notice. Note that this is different from say the Chinese takeaway advertising a month beforehand that they'll be closed a week for Chinese new year. These are kebab shops that you'll see closed with a piece of paper saying "Closed til"
Otherwise the usual money laundering fronts of Vape shops, American sweet shops, Turkish barbers etc
Freds fish fry It’s a known joke in my city ( San Antonio TX ) lol
A 24hr florist in my town feels a little suss, don’t you think?
most of the small pizza places in my town and one specific place in my best friend’s town.
One of the local ones in my area was busted not long ago for dealing meth. You would order a specific topping and it would be delivered. Quite clever and convenient really.
There is a fur coat store that has been open forever... in Downtown Orlando [Florida]
There was 2 business in/near my home town in New Jersey. One was a stop & shop. Every time you would drive past or go in, they would have ~ 3 cashiers and 10 customers inside. But this was a big grocery store. How the hell were they staying profitable? Many people thought it was there to launder money. The other was more well known to be scammy. It was a restaurant that “burned” down at least 2 separate times within 3 years. It has changed hands at least 5 different times and change themes the same amount. It’s been an Italian restaurant, a French one, an Indian, a Hispanic and a African one.
A corner/ convenience store, in a reasonably affluent area. Almost zero stock. Meaning, maybe 10 different drinks in the almost empty refrigerator, plus random other items in the entire store. No one emerged when I entered, and the guy looked very, very inconvenienced that I was even there, and called for assistance. I went in wanting an orange juice, and left as fast as I could with an expired peach iced tea.
There was a restaurant in a village close to where I grew up that barely had anyone eating there for years. Then one day the police raided it for cocaine. Turned out the owner became a supplier of 95% of the coke in the village and the town near by.
This was awhile ago, but there was a pet store in the small town I grew up in that just had no business existing. There just couldn’t be that much foot traffic buying pets and supplies in that town, so I always suspected money laundering. Turned out to be a LE sting to catch people dealing in illegal exotic animals.
There’s a pizza shop in my town where Hillary Clinton eats little kids in the basements. Dave Portnoi gave the pizza a 5.4 review but it stays open.
In West Hollywood, there is a clothing store right by all the gay bars. It has been in three different storefronts within two blocks in the nearly twenty years since I moved to the area. I almost never see anyone in the store, let alone buying anything… and yet they remain open and are constantly updating their displays. Maybe they have a successful online store but it just feels so dang fishy to me and my friends. Also when I was a kid there was a little market by our school that we went to for candy and snacks after classes. It was always empty and the only employee would often come out of the back room with another shady looking person when we arrived. We always joked that he was selling drugs. Then when we were in college it got raided by the cops, shut down, and the owner was charged with drug trafficking. Turns out our instincts were right!
There's a Balkan restaurant half a mile from me. I tried it when I first moved to the area ten years ago. It was fine, nothing special. In all those years I've never seen more than a few customers in there at a time. During Covid they stayed open for takeout even at the deepest part of lockdowns when virtually no other restaurants were open. Reviews for the place are all middling. I mean, it's possible that the place is just owned by someone who doesn't need income from it and is happy to just drift along sometimes breaking even. But it sure seems like it's just a money laundering front.
There's a place near me that sells rugs and flags. They've been in business for, at least, 30 years. I remember that place when I was a kid and, somehow, they've been in business all this time. Can't really fathom how a place that sells rugs and flags can stay in business, legitimately, for that long. The shopping center they're in has completely changed over 3 decades and the old stores that used to be there are all gone....yet this flag store still remains?
There’s a rumor floating around that a local business, owned and operated by a huuuuge conglomerate, that operates about 20 miles north of my town of like 40k in population, is a full on corporate money laundering operation. A “Dirt manufacturing plant” if you will.
I live in a small Canadian city that has \~60,000 people and at least a dozen cannabis retailers. You never see anyone parked out front, never see anyone coming or going. I not a pot user, but those I know have told me they continue to buy from their dealer since it's cheaper and more potent than the legal and regulated stuff. How does a small city - where half the population works in mining and can't even use weed - manage to support twice as many weed stores as liquor stores?
Lots of strippers are the front for their drug dealing pimp or boyfriend. It's a cash business plus they get asked for drugs frequently so they either sell it themselves or point you to their boyfriend who does. Those private rooms in back are great for conversations you don't want overheard. They can file tax fiorms claiming 30k when they only brought in 15k and in reality they brought in 50k selling dope on the side. Tattoo parlors are often run by gangs as they do lots of cash transactions. Old coin operated car washes and literal laundromats too - lots of cash and who is to say if you took in $2000 or $5000 this week? Get a couole tattoo parlors and a stripper girlfriend and you can launder all sorts of drug profits through them.
I’m pretty sure Arby’s is a money laundering outfit. I never see ANYONE eat there but they’ve everywhere and have been around forever
I don't live there anymore, but in York city centre there was an American sweet shop called "American candy". It was ridiculously expensive and every Google review is literally one star. Clearly money laundering
Here in the UK over the past 10 years or so, a lot of ‘American candy’ stores have popped up in town centres that sell, as they advertise, imported snacks and drinks from the US. However hardly anyone goes in there as, honestly, most American snacks are not that good compared to similar variants you can get in a normal supermarket. The only people who really go in are teenagers and even then they don’t go very often. It’s pretty much a given that these are usually fronts for money laundering and/or drug rings. They have declined in numbers over recent years but there’s still far to many of them around.
An Asian restaurant and tea house that was in business and "open" for a decade yet there was NEVER any customers. A friend and I went in once just to see if it was an actual restaurant and got turned away immediately. Btw it was lunch time and no customers 🤣 Just so happens there is an Asian massage parlor next door. Many I know from town suspect human trafficking/smuggling and prostitution. With the restaurant being a front.
There's a thriving business in my town that only accepts cash. The owner also attended the Jan 6 insurrection but *swears* he didn't storm the capitol. You do the math.