Money Laundering Fronts

[anonymous-user]

I live in a fairly well to do suburb of Leeds. A few mins walk from my house is a small row of shops and restaurants on both sides of the road. For the last few years on one side of the road was a nicely graphically designed shopfront belonging to a marketing agency.

It stood out to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it seems a bit weird for a marketing/digital marketing agency to have a retail premises like this (literally a shop format, large plate glass windows, except here filled with some posh looking desks and chairs). Nestled between a restaurant and a beauty salon. Secondly, there was never anybody in it. Never. Parking at the front with bollards restricting access. I think in 4 or 5 years, I saw people in it 2 or 3 times.

Recently signs popped up saying they were relocating (I presume business has picked up to 1 staff and 3 customers in 5 years). Low and behold, they move out and who should move in? Another equally stylistically designed marketing/digital marketing agency. Totally unrelated from any publicly available knowledge.

How many people do we see in this particular digital marketing shop? None.

What's the game?

[K87]

You might be right.

There is a car sales garage near me, security fenced all the way around. The lot is full of cars, at least 30, never opens and stock never moves.

I can only think that the business is used for taking money, there might be a legitimate reason, might not

[trickywoo]

I was under the impression that’s it’s much easier to launder via a high footfall cash business which your example doesn’t fit.

It could well be another kind of front though.

I had cause to look up a business on companies house the other day and it had 8 directors, 1 employee and was £9m in the red. Couldn’t see any group companies linked to it.

[hotchy]

We have a Chinese in the town.. it's been shutdown due to mice etc a few times so nobody, I mean nobody ever uses it. Walk by the window? Nobody ever in it. Isn't on delivery apps etc. Yet near 30 years, it's still open. Still no customers, nothing. Still the same curtains etc from when I was a small kid, it's like a full blown time warp. Must be some kind of dodgy going on

[slopes]

Turkish barber shops, one chain where i live has 3, never any customers in it at any time of day, staff sat reading newspapers/on their phones/half asleep, yet they have been open for well over 3 years now exactly the same. Definite money laundering operation.

[SAS Tom]

I can’t decide if my local takeaway is money laundering or not. The food they do is nice and they are on the delivery apps so it would suggest not however, if you walk in there is no menu to be seen, not even a leaflet so I don’t know what you do if you don’t know the place. There is always about 10 people “working” some just stood around, some eating the food and maybe 1 serving and 1 cooking. You’d think the others would be delivery drivers but there’s no cars parked outside and the actual delivery drivers come and go within seconds.

[K87]

slopes said:

Turkish barber shops, one chain where i live has 3, never any customers in it at any time of day, staff sat reading newspapers/on their phones/half asleep, yet they have been open for well over 3 years now exactly the same. Definite money laundering operation.

There is a barbershop that I used to go to, brilliant barber/owner and I had known him and his father for years, the son had a coke habit. His dealers insisted that he used the shop to launder their money and to even sell coke to customers that they would send to him, this went on for a year. When he stopped, they went to his shop, cleared all his stock and beat him up. He shut the shop that day and it didn't reopen.

[StevieBee]

Forester1965 said:

I live in a fairly well to do suburb of Leeds. A few mins walk from my house is a small row of shops and restaurants on both sides of the road. For the last few years on one side of the road was a nicely graphically designed shopfront belonging to a marketing agency.

It stood out to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it seems a bit weird for a marketing/digital marketing agency to have a retail premises like this (literally a shop format, large plate glass windows, except here filled with some posh looking desks and chairs). Nestled between a restaurant and a beauty salon. Secondly, there was never anybody in it. Never. Parking at the front with bollards restricting access. I think in 4 or 5 years, I saw people in it 2 or 3 times.

Recently signs popped up saying they were relocating (I presume business has picked up to 1 staff and 3 customers in 5 years). Low and behold, they move out and who should move in? Another equally stylistically designed marketing/digital marketing agency. Totally unrelated from any publicly available knowledge.

How many people do we see in this particular digital marketing shop? None.

What's the game?

It's not that weird.

Retail premises are generally cheaper than offices and often come with more favourable terms. Marketing/creative agencies are increasingly using these instead of the traditional office/studio set up for this very reason, particularly start-ups who, for the successful ones, can find they quickly outgrow those premises which accounts for the short-term occupancy. There's three near me that I can think of, two of which I know reasonably well and are bone-fide businesses.

Creative companies tend to deck their premises out in quirky ways so when one moves out, that quirkiness appeals to similar businesses.

Having a bricks and mortar base is sometimes useful to convey solidity to clients. Sometimes it's necessary regardless of whether the premises actually gets used or not.

For those that do use them, having a nicely design shop front allows you to advertise your existence to other business and so pick up walk-in business that wouldn't be the case on the third-floor of an office building.

It's not impossible that they are money laundering fronts but I'd say it unlikely given that there's rarely cash involved in the sort of trade that's undertaken.

[Boringvolvodriver]

Both of the last two posts appear to be the more reasonable explanations.

In my direct experience (gave evidence for the prosecution) of actual money laundering, the business and the premises masqueraded as a “travel agent” taking in lots of cash ostensibly for the local Pakistani community. The premises were situated in an area of housing in the area.

As others have said, a marketing agency will not getting paid in cash.

[Roofless Toothless]

“Would you happen to have a Ben Hur 1860 - the one with the erratum on page 116?”



If you know, you know …

[Aunty Pasty]

There seems to be an excessive amount of nail bars everywhere at the moment.

[C5_Steve]

Forester1965 said:

I live in a fairly well to do suburb of Leeds. A few mins walk from my house is a small row of shops and restaurants on both sides of the road. For the last few years on one side of the road was a nicely graphically designed shopfront belonging to a marketing agency.

It stood out to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it seems a bit weird for a marketing/digital marketing agency to have a retail premises like this (literally a shop format, large plate glass windows, except here filled with some posh looking desks and chairs). Nestled between a restaurant and a beauty salon. Secondly, there was never anybody in it. Never. Parking at the front with bollards restricting access. I think in 4 or 5 years, I saw people in it 2 or 3 times.

Recently signs popped up saying they were relocating (I presume business has picked up to 1 staff and 3 customers in 5 years). Low and behold, they move out and who should move in? Another equally stylistically designed marketing/digital marketing agency. Totally unrelated from any publicly available knowledge.

How many people do we see in this particular digital marketing shop? None.

What's the game?

I work near Shoreditch and there's a huge number of these types of agencies, the majority of which look exactly as you describe. I'm not really sure why, but at first I was confused as to why I'm peering into shops with all these people sat around and then I Googled a few company names and twigged

As above ML schemes tend to be cash based to disguise the flow of illicit cash, or car auction sites nowadays it seems

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

Kingston high street has had three different American candy stores open up over the last year or so. They seem to be there for six months and then just vanish over night.

Turkish barbers and Chinese nail places seem to be the obvious money laundering fronts.

I am convinced Bakeries are the same now, I think I counted seven in the high street last time I was there. Surely people are not buying that much bread?

[Got4wheels]

In my local town centre there are two Turkish barber shops round the corner from each other. The second round the corner was set up after a fall out between the staff that turned into a street fight. The first one gets a steady stream of customers, but during the day theres always people walking in and out and hanging around in the doorway with murdered out AMG Mercs, Audis, BMWs and RRs.

I've only ever seen one customer in the second, the chap who runs it seems to spend it sat on his phone or trying to antagonise the staff of the first. The recent proliferation of deserted phone case/phone screen shops is bad here too. I raised it with an acquaintance who is aware of their intentions and they are 'impossible to deal with' apparently.

Michael

[GuigiaroBertone]

ThingsBehindTheSun said:

I am convinced Bakeries are the same now, I think I counted seven in the high street last time I was there. Surely people are not buying that much bread?

Use your loaf- I wouldn't crust them at all. They're making some serious dough and it's on the rise.

[Gary C]

I did a parachute jump with a croupier from a backstreet Chinese casino in Manchester and she said it was used mainly for money laundering.

Come in one evening and lose 100k in cash, come in next week and walk out with 80K in cash. Each party can explain where the money came from.
Did warn us if we ever went and won anything substantial, to make sure we lost it before leaving because you would not make it far up the road.

[Ashley1111]

Forester1965 said:

I live in a fairly well to do suburb of Leeds. A few mins walk from my house is a small row of shops and restaurants on both sides of the road. For the last few years on one side of the road was a nicely graphically designed shopfront belonging to a marketing agency.

It stood out to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it seems a bit weird for a marketing/digital marketing agency to have a retail premises like this (literally a shop format, large plate glass windows, except here filled with some posh looking desks and chairs). Nestled between a restaurant and a beauty salon. Secondly, there was never anybody in it. Never. Parking at the front with bollards restricting access. I think in 4 or 5 years, I saw people in it 2 or 3 times.

Recently signs popped up saying they were relocating (I presume business has picked up to 1 staff and 3 customers in 5 years). Low and behold, they move out and who should move in? Another equally stylistically designed marketing/digital marketing agency. Totally unrelated from any publicly available knowledge.

How many people do we see in this particular digital marketing shop? None.

What's the game?

Rawdon by any chance? I spoke to the landlord of several of the properties on both sides of the road, but not the building you mean. He would love to buy it and get another restaurant in there to complement what's on offer currently.

[P-Jay]

Back-in-the-day the usual money laundering fronts were Taxi firms and, well actual Laundries because they generally dealt in cash and it wasn't easy for anyone to monitor them for turnover. Good criminals and HMRC inspectors aren't stupid so I'd bet the game has moved on.

The American Candy Stores are a front, but not just for money laundering. Imagine you own a row of high street units. On paper they're worth a fortune, but the 'High Street' in the UK is in terminal decline, so tenants are getting hard to find and no one wants to buy them. Your only real hope is to hold onto them until Councils work out it's never coming back and rezone them residential or something that's going to make them valuable again. The problem is that whilst they're empty, you're liable for the rates and they can be MASSIVE. Someone comes along and says "well, okay I'll let from you for a token amount, on a rolling monthly lease, but I also want the ability to sub-let it".
The new lease holder sublets it to someone else, they sublet it to someone else and finally 4 or 5 times removed the lease holder is an off-shore holding company with no listed owners or directors. Someone comes along, throws up a bright plastic sign, fills with cheap counterfeit sweets and employs a couple of their mates to sit around all day and get up to whatever they fancy whilst they're there. Scam a few tourists out of £20 for a bag of dodgy skittles, sell a few knock-off vapes and I'm sure bank a few grand for someone who has cash and wants it cleaned.
The Landlord is still free to find a more legit tenant, and if/when HMRC / Council Rates people start to make really serious enquirers, the holding co folds and a new one takes over.

[Ashley1111]

ThingsBehindTheSun said:

Kingston high street has had three different American candy stores open up over the last year or so. They seem to be there for six months and then just vanish over night.

That's simply a business rates scam for the property owners. Put in new start company as "tenant" who then inherits the business rates liability. They pay no rent then disappear and wind the business up with the business rates unpaid. The landlord then gets a further 3-6 months (depends on property type) of business rates relief when they take the property back and become liable for the rates again. Rinse and repeat.

[Gary29]

Is it really that widespread that all of these Turkish barber type places are fronts for ML?

Every single town seems to have 2 or 3 of these type of places, they can't all be cleaning drug money?