2 ms·

> Like what does "money laundering" look like on the ground, how would I know if someone around me was trying to do that? You won't. Money laundering is givin

> Like what does "money laundering" look like on the ground, how would I know if someone around me was trying to do that? You won't. Money laundering is giving plausible reasons for the government to think illicitly gained money is actually legitimately gained. It usually takes the form of a business. Generally speaking the more service oriented the better (You wouldn't want to explain how a restaurant can serve 1000 people with 1 grocery store run. But a laptop repair business? Pretty easy to fake a few "I uninstalled a virus from mister smith's computer".) > I've had some random Amazon items show up addressed to me, but I didn't order them, and I think that was part of a scam, but I never fully got my head around how it works. That one is a fun one. You generally aren't the one being scammed, someone else is. It's (probably) triangulation fraud. [1] [2] Though it could also just be a scammer checking to see if a stolen credit card will buy things. > I hear about various "work from home" jobs actually being scams, but what's going on there? Generally, these are MLMs. It's usually targeted at stay at home moms. It's usually "be your own boss". And usually the business model is you try to recruit people to sell the products you are ostensibly supposed to be selling. Basically a pyramid scheme but legal because there's a product in the mix (really dumb that it's legal). [1] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1119606931 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1119606931 [2] https://chargebacks911.com/triangulation-fraud/ https://chargebacks911.com/triangulation-fraud/

eszed 3y ago
Restaurants work as part of a larger money-laundering operation, though. Cash washes through the till in the restaurant, and you sign the receipts for all the non-existent food your buddy's supplier sends you. There are probably some other dodges I'm not aware of. Source: worked for a mob-adjacent restaurant in London. (Excellent food, though, and in a nice location; it had celebrity guests in on the regular.) I got curious watching the owner ringing in ticket after ticket and stuffing the register with £50 notes, then once I saw a couple of inflated invoices it all made sense. A while later the Met took down the owner's cousin, and the restaurant closed shortly thereafter. It was an awful place to work (top tip: don't work for, or with, coke fiends; functional heroin addicts are fine), but goodness was that an education. I was an illegal immigrant at the time, so I didn't have many options.

eszed 3y ago

Restaurants work as part of a larger money-laundering operation, though. Cash washes through the till in the restaurant, and you sign the receipts for all the non-existent food your buddy's supplier sends you. There are probably some other dodges I'm not aware of. Source: worked for a mob-adjacent restaurant in London. (Excellent food, though, and in a nice location; it had celebrity guests in on the regular.) I got curious watching the owner ringing in ticket after ticket and stuffing the register with £50 notes, then once I saw a couple of inflated invoices it all made sense. A while later the Met took down the owner's cousin, and the restaurant closed shortly thereafter. It was an awful place to work (top tip: don't work for, or with, coke fiends; functional heroin addicts are fine), but goodness was that an education. I was an illegal immigrant at the time, so I didn't have many options.