If you worked at a money laundering front, it would almost feel normal. You notice some oddness, but unless you knew what to look for, you wouldn't realize what's happening.
Like a car parts yard that can pull parts for you, but the fee is very high and yet there are some regular customers who never pull their own parts and never complain about the price.
My coworkers and I used to eat at an Italian restaurant like this at a former job. Place was near a business park but would be nearly empty at lunchtime except for us. We used to joke that it was a mafia front, partly because it was an Italian restaurant with a bunch of mafia movie memorabilia everywhere but also partly because we always thought it odd the place stayed in business despite having hardly any customers.
Food was outstanding though, and extremely good prices for the portions. So even if we personally witnessed shit going down we'd probably have kept coming back.
I'm pretty sure the Grandma Lee's where I grew up was a Mafia front. Whole building burnt down mysteriously, too. Police had tape up for something like two years. Went in there once, to grab a to-go coffee. Definitely Mafia vibes.
Oh so they have actual people come over and buy overpriced stuff? Somehow I thought it was simpler than that: Just a bunch of fake transactions written with the real ones in the books.
Conceptually, at least, money laundering does require at least a veneer of plausibility of why the money is changing hands.
The most brazen example is of course the Yakuza with their pachinko parlors, where ball bearings from pachinko were used as currency. Partly this was, of course, to skirt gambling laws, but it was also to launder money through the pachinko parlors.
How? Yakuza goon comes in with money, buys a tub of pachinko balls. Drops it by obachan who's madly pouring balls through a machine like the money losing addict she is; obachan is all smiles for the nice boys.
But wait a minute, wouldn't that be like them giving her chips in a casino? What if she wins?
Well, yes, it would. But pachinko's win/loss ratio is worse than most casino games. Obachan is "losing" shit tons of money to the house, for the Yakuza, who controlled both sides of the operation. But SHE isn't losing very much, if anything, because she's playing balls the yakuza gave her. If she wins anything it's just her unwitting cut for doing work for them. Assuming she doesn't know the score, which maybe she does.
The principle here is just to wash the criminal money, which happens the moment the low level goon buys a bunch of pachinko balls (from his clean handed bosses) and plays them away (mostly being lost, to his clean handed bosses).
The goon can't just dump them. The need to be played or it'll be suspicious. He could play them himself, I suppose, and it'd work too, but who wants to sit around pouring ball bearings into a machine all day? Obachan enjoys that shit, so let her do it. So he'll play for a bit, then leave. Cops have nothing to work with.
Japan was ultimately forced to create a state monopoly over the exchange by creating TUC (Tokyo Union Circulation). They couldn't get voter support to crack down on gambling, so state control over the exchange was all they could do to suppress using it for laundering, by taking private ownership out of one side of the operation.
Just a bunch of fake transactions written with the real ones in the books.
A long term pattern of brazen fraud is much easier to pin down in an investigation. The art of laundering is plausible deniability. Historically many laundering operations (see: Pachinko, Al Capone, etc) have withstood years of intensive investigation that was unable to establish grounds for charges.
If you worked at a money laundering front, it would almost feel normal. You notice some oddness, but unless you knew what to look for, you wouldn't realize what's happening.
Like a car parts yard that can pull parts for you, but the fee is very high and yet there are some regular customers who never pull their own parts and never complain about the price.
Or a hole in the wall restaurant where the owner drives a new luxury car every year, and only has 20 customers.
My coworkers and I used to eat at an Italian restaurant like this at a former job. Place was near a business park but would be nearly empty at lunchtime except for us. We used to joke that it was a mafia front, partly because it was an Italian restaurant with a bunch of mafia movie memorabilia everywhere but also partly because we always thought it odd the place stayed in business despite having hardly any customers.
Food was outstanding though, and extremely good prices for the portions. So even if we personally witnessed shit going down we'd probably have kept coming back.
I'm pretty sure the Grandma Lee's where I grew up was a Mafia front. Whole building burnt down mysteriously, too. Police had tape up for something like two years. Went in there once, to grab a to-go coffee. Definitely Mafia vibes.
Heck, if the police asked, you would say nothing ever happened there.
I'm in the habit of not talking to the police, so I just wouldn't say anything.
Good point.
"Huh. I like this guy's lack of style."
Donnie Brasco and Goodfellas are also good examples.
Oh so they have actual people come over and buy overpriced stuff? Somehow I thought it was simpler than that: Just a bunch of fake transactions written with the real ones in the books.
Shrug.
Conceptually, at least, money laundering does require at least a veneer of plausibility of why the money is changing hands.
The most brazen example is of course the Yakuza with their pachinko parlors, where ball bearings from pachinko were used as currency. Partly this was, of course, to skirt gambling laws, but it was also to launder money through the pachinko parlors.
How? Yakuza goon comes in with money, buys a tub of pachinko balls. Drops it by obachan who's madly pouring balls through a machine like the money losing addict she is; obachan is all smiles for the nice boys.
But wait a minute, wouldn't that be like them giving her chips in a casino? What if she wins?
Well, yes, it would. But pachinko's win/loss ratio is worse than most casino games. Obachan is "losing" shit tons of money to the house, for the Yakuza, who controlled both sides of the operation. But SHE isn't losing very much, if anything, because she's playing balls the yakuza gave her. If she wins anything it's just her unwitting cut for doing work for them. Assuming she doesn't know the score, which maybe she does.
The principle here is just to wash the criminal money, which happens the moment the low level goon buys a bunch of pachinko balls (from his clean handed bosses) and plays them away (mostly being lost, to his clean handed bosses).
The goon can't just dump them. The need to be played or it'll be suspicious. He could play them himself, I suppose, and it'd work too, but who wants to sit around pouring ball bearings into a machine all day? Obachan enjoys that shit, so let her do it. So he'll play for a bit, then leave. Cops have nothing to work with.
Japan was ultimately forced to create a state monopoly over the exchange by creating TUC (Tokyo Union Circulation). They couldn't get voter support to crack down on gambling, so state control over the exchange was all they could do to suppress using it for laundering, by taking private ownership out of one side of the operation.
A long term pattern of brazen fraud is much easier to pin down in an investigation. The art of laundering is plausible deniability. Historically many laundering operations (see: Pachinko, Al Capone, etc) have withstood years of intensive investigation that was unable to establish grounds for charges.
That's actually the theme of my next video.