Common fronts for illegal business

Carwashes

Asian nail salons.

Car Washes

Hobby Lobbys are notorious dens of male prostitution and meth distribution.

Whoops - Sorry #1 - You beat me to it…… Vaccum Cleaner Repair.

Massage shops

J

Slovenian "Architecturing" Universities

Church

Tanning Salons

Hospital

Dry cleaners

Floating hillbilly casinos on rivers

Bodegas

Henry Hill (Goodfellas) was involved in dog grooming, breeding and showing.

Various small shops that seem to never sell anything

HRC

Towing companies

Tuxedo Rentals

Mattress Stores

When I was living in Manhattan in the 90s, it used to be hilarious to me how many bodegas were clearly fronts--you'd go it, and there about 100 things on the shelves, which took up very little space, and you'd wonder how these places managed to pay the rent if they were surviving on selling gum and bags of Doritos.

Waste Management.

Whitey Bulger used to have liquor store as a front.

Bars and restaurants are good front operations.

The Trump Corporation.

Those gigantic beach souvenir shops in the Southeast US are Russian money laundering operations.

In college I used to see a local fish market that for some mysterious reason never had any fish.

Those water-refilling shops.

schools.

charities.

lobbyist groups.

political campaigns.

gofundme

student groups. (several prominent student groups have been caught directly funding terrorism)

activism

scouts/children groups (troop 420. . . many, many, many pint size drug dealers out there. It was one of the more generic girl scouts in the late 70s. Sunshine?)

real estate

printer shops (old school now, but it was quite popular back in the day.)

Recording studios

Vape stores. In fact I'd go as far to say there isn't a fully legitimate one out there.

Universities

That's a good one, Tony/R27.

Cigar shops

Dairy Queen

Any cash-only business, especially those that do not have traceable supply chains. Car washes are particularly attractive, since you cannot disprove that people did not use them. If you want to be extra careful, you let the water run all the time, buy then dump soap, etc.

Others include nurseries (for plants, not children), laundromats, and nail salons. Vending machine companies are still primarily cash-only, but that is changing.

Locally, we had a pizza place that was a front for a major pot ring. Some of the male dealers turned tricks on the side. Also locally, a "collector's" music shop and a comic book shop were both fronts for gay male prostitution. Going to any of these three places only ensured you any of the lesser STDs or worse.

There was a statewide chain of stores that sold new and used records and cassettes as well as brokered concert tickets. It was a front for pot and cocaine dealing.

This was the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

A certain unnamed gay website where posting sometimes involves pointless bitchery and recipes about cod and prunes.

Banana stands

Congress

There are TONS of car washes that open every week in Houston. I didn't even know about Breaking Bad when I guessed that they are fronts (Although I am a huge fan of Gomorrah). I'd also say produce suppliers and restaurants.

Wayfair.

Politics.

Parking lots

Bowling alleys

O heard a rumor once about a local used car business! I still am surprised at all these places stated here can be fronts for illegal activity. Car washes are a surprise to me! Not sure how that would work.🤔

Here, in Toronto, there a number of these upscale Iranian-owned dental offices, in expensive downtown locations, where you never see anybody. No customers, no dentists, not even a receptionist. Unless they see all their patients only late at night, it's beyond fishy. My theory: money laundering, just like all those upper floors of expensive condo buildings which are always dark. Since Canada doesn't have its own version of RICO laws, international money laundering is rampant.

Books/TV deals for politicians.

Political campaigns. Years ago I donated to a friend’s campaign in Westchester County NY. He was running as the first gay to run etc. I think it was for Congress and a primary. A lackluster campaign and of course he lost. Another friend told me the guy never intended to win but he got to keep any donations left over.

George Santos also comes to mind.

Asian Massage parlors

The Republican Party

Helvetica is always a safe bet.

Art Galleries, hands down are one of the biggest fronts.

Small boutiques.

R46 is that how that works?

Maralago

[quote] Those water-refilling shops.

That seems odd. I'm not doubting it, it just seems odd.

Cash businesses (like car washes) make sense, though.

There's this little mom-and-pop liquor store in my town. I had to kill time in the area and walked into it. The lights were dim, as if they were trying to save energy. There was dust on the candy bar wrappers. I walked out pretty quickly. The odd thing is that alcohol would be a regulated thing.

Starbucks

NYC pot shops, it would seem.

Strip clubs, particularly rural ones. Usually one-stop-shops for drugs, rent-a-criminals, fake IDs and a lot more.

The rural ones are friends with the local sheriff's department and operate with impunity.

psychic parlors

The NRA

“Family Restaurants”

home owner associations

human resources

influencers

"trainers"

homeless services -- in particular housing, often the land and properties are owned by foreign entities that use this act of charity as leverage into politics.

or you have the examples from the catholic church to scientology and their questionable real estate deals as well as homeless programs.. the latter it's long rumoured slave ships

We give nice massage. You give good tip, we give best experience.

In DC in the early 2000s, a huge stretch of 16th St was shops and restaurants that were NEVER open. I had to assume they were all fronts.

Joel fucking Osteen

R64 should say 17th street

tutoring (need to buy an essay? need a course or test taker? Looking for ritalin?)

r65

Goop or wholesale dropshipping

Shoe repair shops.

Seriously, do people actually get their shoes repaired often enough to support someone as their sole (snicker) means of financial support??

R70, when I lived in a little town, there was one shoe repair shop that served the whole surrounding area. That shop was actually pretty busy, annoyingly so. The proprietor was an asshole, would take forever to work on your shoes, had rules about not calling him for 4 weeks to ask about your shoes. However, this asshole would immediately charge your credit card (weeks before you could pick up your shoes).

Barone Sanitation

When I lived in Japan, there was a restaurant diagonally across the street from me. For months, I walked past and never ate there.

One day, I was tired, walking home from the train station, and decided to try this restaurant.

FYI, Japanese restaurants often have fake food displays / models in the front of the restaurant.

This restaurant's fake food display had dust all over it. I looked inside the restaurant, nobody at the tables. I inquired with some guy at the front whether I could eat there. He looked at me as if to say: "You've gotta be kidding me."

I gave up trying to eat there. I figured it was a yakuza (Japanese organized crime) front and I sure didn't want to be annoying to the yakuza.

You rang

Those American candy stores that are all throughout London..

Candle stores are run by the mafia.

Your local jeweler/pawn shop…

We buy & sell watches! New and Used gold & silver watches by Rolex, Omega, Movado and more!

Appraisals are free & don’t leave without your cash-offer!

Interior design firms especially those run by innocuous blond women, somewhat overweight, of a certain age, sometimes siblings

R76, yeah, the pussy mafia.

Mattress. Firm

We used to go to this cheap Chinese “restaurant” that had a $5 (or so) lunch special. I’d get Kung Pao chicken, egg roll, rice, chow main, pot stickers, & soup. Yeah, it was the early 2000s but it was way too cheap (& really delicious). The waiters looked like thugs & had no hospitality skills whatsoever. They had a huge dirty, but empty, fish tank smack dab in the middle of the room. My coworkers & I said this is a money laundering front or something.

We went there weekly, Fridays (IIRC) & one Friday we go & there’s a handwritten note on the door that just said “Bye, we’ve left” (or some such).

In the country where I live, the fronts of money-launderers are frequently bridal shops/dress shops, stores that sell rugs and blinds, and pawn shops.

Royalty...

Why would Laundromats or Car Washes be illegal businesses? They seem rather benign to me and many people use them. Am I missing something here?

The White House

There is a locksmith on my street that has never been opened in 25 years. It has a picture window and appears to be a perfectly normal operational locksmith shop.

Mattress stores.

There are quite a few storefronts that never seem to have any customers actually making purchases but somehow stay in business. A dusty medical supply store (the ones that actually had customers have moved online), with some hand-held urinals and neck braces in the window.

Times New Roman

R70, I can’t vouch for all of them, but every time I’ve been in our favorite shoe repair shop, I’m overlapping with someone else doing legit business there. I am definitely getting half soles or a new zipper, etc. My guy is pretty good.

There's a place near me called Muscle Connection near me that's been open for about 15 years now. They sell fitness equipment. I almost never see a single car in their parking lot.

Same goes for a local fireworks place called Phantom Fireworks. The building is huge - about the size of a WalMart, as is the parking lot. Again, you can drive past it at any given moment on any given day and there isn't a single car in the parking lot.

There’s a new store that opened on an UES side street. It seems to sell fur hats and blazers with loud prints and maybe some jewelry. It seems to be operated by an elderly Russian couple. The items sold are SO out of place in this neighborhood I can’t imagine why they opened it here. It’s bizarre. Across the street is a Russian -owned coffee shop that seems to be puttering along nicely. It’s charming and stylish and it makes a lot more sense than the fur hat shop. (They’re not even the cool kind of fur hats!)

Cash, r84. You want a business that can plausibly generate cash. Then you turn your illegal money into “legitimate” income.

Liberal Arts colleges.

Y'all forgot the biggest one:

Banks!

Homes that are well kept but you never see anyone there most of the time

a few weeks ago I watched an episode of 1 of my favorite shows, Trafficked on NatGeo. There was this chemist who is 1 of the only guys in the world who knows how to make LSD. He gave her interview with a mask and disguised voice from the house where he does it. He does it in the kitchen. He spends as little time there as possible. He only goes to the home to do his lab work and then leaves while another guy does another portion of the job and a third guy is the one who comes to pick it up for sale.

It was a nice house with mowed lawn and looks so clean on the outside.

Y'all are now giving me the heebie geebies! Thanks a lot.

Archewell

Trump Tower

Ethnic markets, restaurants.

[quote] There was this chemist who is 1 of the only guys in the world who knows how to make LSD.

Really? How hard can it be? A good chemist can’t figure it out? This doesn’t make sense.

Barber shops and beauty salons---they've long been fronts for bookie operations

Florists---they did a big phone trade with credit cards and so high end sex workers would use their accounts with credit card companies for their transactions

Antiques--a lot of drug money got "washed" in the antique trade, which ewlied on cash and probably still does

Political office.

Gay bars. I know that everyone loves The Stonewall, but it was really nothing but a business to front the Mafia. The police weren’t harassing it because of gay men. They were harassing it because it was a Mafia business in an Italian neighborhood.

—Marcia P. Johnson, I threw the first brick because guidos weren’t paying for their blowjobs.

I’ve always suspected Shen Yun and Emirates Airlines to be money laundering businesses.

Shen Yun and Epoch Times are affiliated with that Guo guy (Bannon's sugar daddy) who was arrested a week ago.

George Santos Campaign.

TeamHershel.Com

In Solvang, CA of all places there is this pretty elaborate wine tasting room that’s NEVER open. I lived there six years and the place was never once open. I just assumed it was out of business and the former owners just left the signage up. But no. Friends assured me the place was still open.

Solvang is a very weird place anyway. But the fun kind of weird with just the right amount of “sinister.”

Dottys 🎰

A wine tasting room would be a GREAT money laundering business.

You “sell” the wine to imaginary customers, then take the bottle of wine home and drink it yourself!

It’s “Ozark” meets “Sideways”!

Condo or house flipping. I live next to a group of upper priced condos that always seem to on the market and upgraded then resold to the next person who upgrades and resells. No one ever lives in those condos.

Nonprofits

The Republicans

R18 is that true. I’ve met so many hot guys in tow trucks. Often young and Greek or Portuguese looking. Often it’s the family business. My last tow driver was so hot and flirty but I couldn’t tell if he was just being friendly.

R26 Schools and scouts are not a front for anything. Stop being a perverted cunt.

Question: how can you tell if a business is a front for money laundering vs a business that is just legitimately run badly?

Concrete and paving businesses. Talk about hiding the bodies.

Oval Office, 2016-2021

R115 Why, the feds talking to you? U wanna be sleeping with the fishes.

R115, a badly-run business will close / go out of business, at some point. A front will inexplicable stay in business for a long time.

r107 decent pastries, though. If some people had to die. Well, it wasn't a bad trade off.

Gypsy driveway paving businesses.

I love Solvang. It's in a bucolic setting, has some great wine (even though I don't drink anymore), is home to some tasty pastries, is tacky as hell too. Also, Pea Soup Anderson's is not far away (always great for a visit and more tackiness in their little gift store section) as well as the Madonna Inn and Pismo Beach. I have some fond memories of all of those places and times spent there.

According to “The Black List,” Solvang is full of people in the witness protection program.

Ha, r123...had no idea! I've never watched that show, maybe I'll check it out now!

I've always wanted to go to Solvang. My brother lives within reasonable driving distance, but he didn't have anything good to say about Solvang.

Porno/smoke shops.

Cryptocurrencies.

Lady Lindzebelle’s parlor.

I'm not naming names or citing sources (ok they were the feds & local LE investigating them) but prime offenders/suspects were many of the small clothing and shoe shops on Wisconsin Av in Georgetown. Not the chain stores. Not so sure if that is still the problem there.

I live there and I had no idea. Though I knew I was able to bargain stores down like $300 boots to $185. LOL!

Real estate.

Mom and Pop furniture stores.

Hookah lounges

Convenience store

Trump Charities (didn't the NY AG close them down a few years ago ?)

Mike Pence & “Mother” - Agnostic Yoga instructors

Ron DeSantis - Humanistic Psychologist

I don't know if this is a thing outside of Brooklyn, but I've seen these Asian-owned "Music schools" popping up. They replaced the Asian "Spas" that were raided.

Datalounge

Strip Clubs

Adult bookstores with strip clubs

Gas stations (some are really crooked)

Independent small bookstores.

Congress

Oooh R125 apparently he controlled Gettr as well!

Adding right wing social media sites to the list.