It’s either “Just Socks” the store that sells mostly socks but also some other stuff and is always empty or the vacuum repair shop that hasn’t had a single car in the parking lot for the past twenty years
The "Water and Donut Store" where they get mad if you ask for donuts, say it's not the right time of day for donuts (all times of day/night are the wrong time, but there are always three or four stale, lonely donuts in the large glass donut cases) and have a station where you may, for a small fee, fill your water jugs with minimally filtered tap water. 🤨
We have a jewelry store in town that is by appointment only. During the day there's always a high end car parked at the back of the store but you never see anyone in there. When my buddy was getting ready to propose he tried calling to get an appointment and it went straight to voicemail with a message that said private clients only and then beeped. He left a message but never heard back. I've never met anyone who has seen anyone go in or come out of that place.
Not quite the same but I used to work at a local, family owned supermarket chain that is now out of business. I started at one of the busiest locations, but after I moved apartments I transferred to another location that was out in the 'burbs. At the first location I worked at, all our equipment was well maintained, stock was reasonable, stuff seemed normal.
At the suburban location, our equipment was all falling apart. The roof leaked. The other stores sent us their overstock and charged it to our departments. I was in the deli, and one day the contracted maintenance guy was there and I asked if he could take a look at one of the meat slicers. He said sorry, corporate told him not to do any work at this location that they hadn't pre-approved.
My first hypothesis was that this location didn't make any money, and that's why they didn't want to spend to fix it. One day I decided to ask the store manager about it—he was pretty chill and we talked sometimes, so I figured he wouldn't mind. I said "Does this store actually make any money?" and he said "Well, let me put it this way: the numbers I report to corporate show that every department here, except floral, makes a profit every month. And then the numbers they put out in the quarterly reports show that we've never made a profit since we opened."
"Where does the money go?" I asked.
"That's above my pay grade," he said.
I'm convinced someone was embezzling funds. A couple years after I left, the whole chain closed one day with no notice to the employees.
Back in the early 2000s, when malls were still frequented, there was a tea shop down a dark wing that was rarely visited. I was on a tea bender and visited often, it was always empty. The man who ran the shop was very friendly. He was so friendly that he never failed to overstuff the tea I bought, give me a free hot tea, my choice, even the very expensive tea, on the spot, and heavily discount the tea I did pay for. I recommended him to friends and family, who reported the same experience. Empty shop, free and discounted tea, very friendly.
After a while, he opened up a little. He was from Iran. He had to leave very quickly, but he missed his home country. When asked why he left, he would dodge the question. People I sent to visit also reported his question dodging. He hesitated to say much about Iran beyond its ancient (and very cool) history.
I do not think he was laundering money, but he wasn't there to make money. My guess is that he was whisked away by the US Government/CIA and given a new home in a quiet town where he could finally relax and just sell tea.
A few times, his older son was in the shop and was always visibly frustrated or bored, and he expressed a strong desire to "go home" back to Iran. The tea shop man tried to hide the seriousness in his tone when asking his son to be quiet. On occasion, his wife was there. She was friendly enough when speaking to you but always had a wary look on her face when you walked into the shop, looking right at your face for the first few seconds. I know that look personally. She was looking for danger in a face.
Even after the mall's soul died and the anchor stores left, the little friendly tea shop in the dark, empty wing stayed.
That family was not there to make money selling tea. Very, very good tea, might I add. Such a friendly man. I hope they found peace.
I found a money laundering deli
It's amazing, they love having customers as it improves their cover so everything is dirt cheap and really high quality.
Sometimes people come in and the guy behind the register politely shuffles us out with an armful of free cold cuts and a wink
None of you will ever hear about this place from my lips
you mean the 12 car washes that all sprung up at the same exact time all within 5 miles of each other?
the same ones that have practically zero cars driving through them because they opened at the height of 2020 where nobody was driving anymore?
the same ones that somehow weathered a bust market for carwashes for 3 years?
the same ones that are owned by two guys with the same last name that look suspiciously like retired mafia?
you mean those places?
nah, they're just a couple brothers that were really successful before the pandemic.
I have long held the belief that all these mattress stores are all a front for something.
There's a shopping center nearby that has three of them. THREE MATTRESS STORES WITHIN THROWING DISTANCE OF EACH OTHER.
Mattresses are like a once every 10 years purchase. How the fuck is there enough foot traffic to support 3 of them mother fuckers that close together?
When I worked across the street from them I never saw any of them having big sales or anything. Nobody I knew anyone that worked at any of them. They never seemed busy. Never saw trucks bringing in stock.
It doesn't add up.
There is a super famous, incredibly mediocre destination BBQ restaurant in Central Texas that is famous for an all-you-can-eat family-style meal. For decades, they only accepted cash. Way, way longer than made sense. Like into the 2020s I think.
Their main menu item was all-you-can eat (hard to quantify number of sales), only members of the family that ran the place were allowed to count the take and the receipts at the end of each shift, and they only took cash.
I fully believe they were either laundering money or evading taxes by under-reporting. But then they opened a few satellite branches, including one at the airport, and started having to be more careful as they expanded.
There is an "unlicensed" car repair shop in my town. They always service upper-price class, new-looking cars with license plates from far away. Never actually seen anyone working on them, but the suit wearers that collect the cars always seem happy. Not fishy at all, no need to investigate.
There used to be a coffee shop in my town. Every day they had a two-part secret phrase that would let you get drugs, but it sounded like an order. I think I activated it one time. "Can I please get a double-double with whip cream?" "Sure. How's your dog Mittens?" "I have no dog?!" Later, the coffee shop shut down because they got caught drug trafficking. They would double cup the coffee orders that had the drugs, and put the drugs in between the paper cups.
There's multiple tiny Mexican restaurants in my town that I 100% know are run by the cartel. Like,I know the manager didn't buy a $100k dodge Durango hellcat selling burritos and tacos in a farm town.
I don't fucking care though, the tacos are good.
Sometimes it's just a passion project by crazy people. My town has a shack on a busy non-walkable intersection without even parking spaces that sells only angel figurines. Let me be clear, this isn't general angel knickknacks, this isn't specific saints, it's angel figurines ONLY. You will find no bless this house signs. No Christmas tree toppers or ornaments. Not a single holiday decoration, religious or otherwise. You won't even find Jesus on the cross.
Angel. Figurines. Only. I always assumed it was a front for something until my mom helped with some taxes for them. No, it's just one crazy couple who are obsessed with the sanctity of the angel figurine. They feel very strongly about it and asking if they do garden angels now that spring's coming up and you'd love to patronage them is apparently offensive enough for them to take their taxes elsewhere lol.
There’s a Mexican restaurant which I always wanted to try. Walked in and ordered a carne asada plate- the fucking thing was almost 30 bucks. It took like 20 minutes and was the consistency of reconstituted shoe leather and tasted like a jarred fart.
There is never a soul eating in there and yet it remains open.
SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER
One pizza place by my old house in the bad part of Minneapolis always had a bunch of cars in the parking lot. One day I decide to try it; I manage to find a parking spot, walk in, and the place is pretty much empty. I order a pizza, take it home, and it's one of the worst pizzas I've ever eaten. That place simply cannot be a legitimate business.
'Smartphone repair shop' near where I live. Has always light on (24/7 confirmed), but nobody inside. At times an ad flag (those 2mt tall with the shop name on it) comes out and is near the entrance.
One time I managed to catch a guy behind the counter and entered for asking if they had some spare parts (I think it was a battery) and he looked fucking disgusted just because I dared to enter. Useless to say, they did not have any spare parts.
As of today (4 or 5 months), not a single client entered.
Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.
In Switzerland it's either "Barber Shops" or "Döner Shops" their card reading terminals are for some reason always broken and you have to pay cash!
JP Morgan Chase, Comerica, Bank of America, etc
There's a mobile phone repair shop next to where we live. Everything in the window is faded from the sun. In 6 years of living here I have not seen it open or someone inside even once.
At the end of my street growing up was a used car dealership with the same 4 cars scattered out front my entire time through elementary, middle and high school. They didn't even bother airing up the tires...
Growing up west of Orlando, there was this store in the mall that sold like glass figures and porcelain stuff. Never once did I ever see a customer in there. Multiple stores came and went but that one, there since the mall’s opening, remained. When I worked for EB Games at the same mall, we’d always pass it when we dropped off our money and my manager would say it was a front. Everyone I knew called it the Crack Store.
Used to be a Pizza place in my home town that had $1 large pizza on Wednesday no limit, they were the worst pizza in town, but they were packed every week. It went on for years then they got shut down turns out they were using the increase in foot traffic to cover people coming in to buy drugs.
I knew a guy who drove a taxi for a company in New York back in the 70s and one day he got in a wreck and totaled his cab, and a very large very Italian man came and told him not to worry about it and that everything would be handled and there was no need for paperwork, and that was the end of it.
We have several Community Market arrangements in my town. People who make homemade stuff, like decorations, knitwear, art, crafts, jam, soap etc can book a stand for a day or several. It's extremely exhausting to sit on a shitty chair for 8 hours straight in a crowded place, and especially in the Christmas market when you are half outside and temperatures are close to freezing, so most people book two days in a row at most.
This one group of people just books end-to-end for the entire market duration. Like, weeks. They show up, fill their stand with TEMU crap, and take turns to sit at the stand and consistently sell nothing to nobody.
Only one? All vape shops are money laundering fronts, until proven otherwise.
One of our customers operates out of two leased "office" trailers next to an old pole barn in the middle of a corn field.
From there, they "operate" 17 different companies, all demanding separate billing from us.
There's no WAY it's legit. They have more "official" registered companies than they have office employees.
Edited because mobile sucks
There's a falafel place that closes at around 13:00 every day and doesn't seem to really care all that much if you pay or not. I can't imagine it not being a money laundering scheme.
They make great falafel though!
It's one of the three mattress stores within 2 blocks of each other, but I'm not sure which one.
Hint: it's all of them.
Once lived in a small town with not one, but TWO Hollywood Videos. In like the late 20-teens. Just napkin math numbers, you'd need every household in the town to rent a video twice a week to support both of those just maintaining their leases... Over a decade into the age of streaming dominance.
There was no way they weren't doing something shady on the side.
I know this great money laundering scheme in town. You take filthy money and they turn it into clean tamales. Abuelita has the slickest game in the county
Mattress Firm
There used to be a burger joint in my town that had terrible burgers, but they were ridiculously cheap. No idea how they made money, but they were always Russian guys and suits there. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
As a kid there was a pizzeria everyone at school said was a money laundering operation, no one knew of anyone who bought pizza there and it was always open... thinking about it now, the town had about 10 000 people living in it, and there was 6 pizzerias and that particular one was in a very odd place and no signage and i have never seen a menu form them anywhere
The auction centre every time they sell art (or whatever some of that stuff is supposed to be).
My town had an extremely generically named "spa" that I passed by all the time and joked that it must be a drug ring and I found out that no actually they were a human trafficking ring and they got shut down by the police.
There are three recently opened smoke and vape shops in my village that are 100% money laundering schemes, they all sell American sweets as well for some reason
There was a famous 24h florist in my city that everyone joked had to be a front for something. (Turned out it was drugs.)
Coincidentally, there's a shop in my neighbourhood that's also floral-themed and suspicious as heck: it says it sells flowers, but I only see potted plants (that don't appear to be for sale) and earrings on display stands (which do appear to maybe be for sale) when I peek in the window. I've lived here for many years, and I've never once seen it open, no matter what time of day or day of the week I walk past. With rent constantly rising and quite a lot of businesses in the street closing or moving away, it seems highly suspicious that this one could be turning a profit without ever being open.
In my country, it’s the casinos. They naturally receive cash predominantly, and can easily launder millions. Everything else is small potatoes.
Just one? Knowing how expensive commercial rent is in this area, I’m pretty sure quite a few of the stores around here are fronts. No way this town supports 12 different nail salons. There’s a taco shop and a greek place in the same shopping center that both taste terrible and are always completely empty. How does a vacuum and sewing repair shop stay in business in this day and age?
Nah they make good steak and shrimp and they don't bother me so Ima leave them alone. There are much bigger criminals to worry about in this country than shady local businesses.
Not quite money laundering, but for a time thwre was shapp called the 'Happy Herb Shop'. In the centre of town. Maijuana is still lillegal in AUS
Was too young to get in when it was open, and closed down when I was old enough to go in. :(
There is a rug store here that has been "going out of business" for decades. Since before they moved to their current location in a massive new building.
I grew up near a place called the "McGuffin Lumber Company." It was just a tiny storefront business, and I never saw anyone go in. And, of course, "MacGuffin" is a Hollywood term for an arbitrary thing that motivates the plot of a movie, like the Maltese Falcon in that film. So it was a running gag in my family that it must be a front.
In 1991 two small businesses were busted for being fronts for illegal gambling parlors. 30 Cleveland cops were part of the bust. I lived next to both of them at one time. One was a t-shirt printing shop, I forget what the other was. A year later I moved into a neighborhood that had a pizza shop with a very nice sign, no windows and never seemed to be open. It was not uncommon to see a patrol car parked in front
oh yea that tiny indian restaurant with no customers and 10 waiters
Years ago, I was in the mall in Dearborn, MI. It has most of the stuff you'd find in any other American shopping mall. There's the Gap, American Eagle, and Spencer's Gifts. It's mostly full of teenagers doing things that teenagers do in a mall.
Then there's a random antique shop full of Edwardian furniture. I didn't see anyone in there besides a sales guy or two, and it seemed completely out of place. Dearborn is also fairly close to the Canadian border. I swear it's gotta be a money laundering front.
Uber
Bakery across from prisoners rights office I used to volunteer at. Went to get a loaf to make a sandwich once. Open shelving all around, mostly bare except for a few dusty loaves. Ask this big, very white man with a head like a four-slice toaster, for said loaf and he goes in the back and comes out with a bag of Wonderbread rofl.
There's a pet store on the inside of a tiny mall thats part of a strip mall. Every other business in that part of the mall dies, especially since the dmv relocated. Only thing that has remained consistent for the nearly 30 years I have walked this earth is the pet store and the nail salon. I at least see customers at the nail salon.
i work at a bank, and there's a restaurant owner who brings in so much cash, despite his place having terrible food. then again, old people may just like it
Used to live in a street with 7 barber shops, in a town known for drugs smuggling. It was safe to walk there at night though surpisingly.
I feel this way about mattress stores. Can't prove it either.
There’s a shoe store near me. It stands alone in an almost non walkable part of a street. I never see a car in the parking lot. It’s always open and it has been there for, like, 15 years or more. It’s impossible that that store is profitable.
Saw this in Reddit, but I'm banned 😃. Anyway, Norfolk VA: the French bakery/deli on Granby St, in Riverview... "Would you like to sample a pastry?" Sure - Hey, that's pretty good. "That'll be $40. Would you like more?" Uhh, no.
There's a restaurant in my town that everyone knows is just a money laundering scheme, but it's been there for like 10 years now so I guess no one can prove it.
I walk practically every day in front of a boba tea shop. Never seen someone go in it, or even clerks behind the counter. The shop is open until 10pm every day.
YaYa's Flam Broiled Chicken. It's not good. There's never anybody in the parking lot. But you're telling me they could move to a bigger location? One that's a converted bank?? Banks have vaults. For all the laundered money.
Medallion Rug Gallery
Subway?
Dan's Fan City
Charleston S.C.
The Dixie Drive In.
