really random question but im curious. in crime stories/movies, why are little food places, like pizza places or chinese places, often considered as fronts for drugs and gang activity? does this have any truth to it in real life? and if so, why? why a pizza place, and not some other type of business?
>>24729302
Pizza place, might be a reference to Italian immigrants/culture, and by extension the Italian mafia. Pure hypothesis there, though.
Apart from that, no idea.
Lots of money laundry, everybody Knows that one little business with no costumers, that for some reason is still going for years, yep that's it
In my hometown there was a mexican restaurant that was a front for drug-dealing.
It's easy because you hand over money and they give you a to-go bag with drugs in it. Looks just like regular business. Real low key.
>>24729302
It's because they use those businesses to launder the illicit money.
It might happen less often in real life, but in movies its usually a device to make a quick connection for the viewer. Oh these guys are running a betting racket in the back of a pizza place, they must be Italian mobsters.
Chinese triad in a Chinese Restaurant etc.
Fiction isn't too far from reality either, I'm sure this happens every so often in big cities.
>>24729479
Adding in because I left it out, It's better visual story telling than having the narrator or character or whoever say, oh look the ITALIAN MAFIA!
I'll explain basic crimenomics:
>most gangsters can hide their crimes, Al Capone got busted for tax evasion
Basic idea of how to launder money:
>set up fake business
>take money from drug deals and report it as pizza sales to the IRS
>congratulations you can now be a mob boss and buy property legally without putting up red flags
Have you ever wondered why there's bars/restaurants/small businesses that never seem to have any customers but never go out of business? They're fronts for organized crime.
pizza places are relatively cheap to run and it's easy to launder cash through them, or it used to be at least, not so much anymore.
to buy something like a house you need show where that money came from or you get fucked by the IRS. you can't just throw $30k or something in a bank account one day and go put a down payment on a house the next, that's how you get the irs on your ass.
All the Turkish lads at my local chippy are part of a gangraping crew, I think every town in England will have one of these now
>>24729841
tBh i'm surprised england isn't a caliphate already
>>24729302
I HATE YOU FOR MAKING ME HUNGRY WITH THAT IMAGE
I HATE YOU
>>24729531
>>24729791
how exactly does laundering work?
so say they make thousands of money off drug deals? do they just say pizza sales spiked way up in that period, or what?
>>24729302
Pizza places and restaurants are OK, but work better in fiction. Better scenery than true fronts. Most good fronts are straight up service industry, with very low overhead. Stores are low tier, no one hangs out, have to maintain some stock and employees. Restaurants are mid tier, because you can always make it look busy. Laundrymat in bad neighborhood or barbershop are high tier, deals in straight cash, not a lot of employees and always look busy. Tow truck companies are god tier, easy to fake, can stay mobile, and really no good way to track your funds. You eventually need to buy more trucks if business picks up but still a lot cheaper than leasing out space.
>>24730239
I'm no expert on this but I'd imagine they funnel the money through the businesses slowly to prevent suspicion.
>>24729302
Really any cash-based business can be used for money laundering. Breaking bad used car washes and nail salons. The Town used flower shops, and Weeds used a bakery. I know night clubs are another business that could easily be used for money laundering
The basic idea is this:
>business makes some amount of real money through legitimate transactions
>gangsters then record some amount of fake transactions, which would equal the amount of cash they wish to launder.
>legitimate money and drug money gets reported as income by the business
>the business income gets taxed and is now now safe to use.
