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No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras.

• richardv 14y ago
  Are you enacting Poe's law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law I seriously cannot tell, and you didn't wink at the end? Since McDonald's are easily franchise-able, I suppose they could legitimately be used as a Mafia Front... But really, Poe's Law? wink ;)
  • chao- 14y ago
    This is what came to my mind as well. I can't decide whether or not the comment is supposed to be serious. On one hand, I can't think of many above-board reasons that a restaurant employee would tackle you for having a tiny camera, or rip up medical documentation. On the other hand, the jump straight to a mafia seems a leap too far. Yet if we are going to speculate, I don't see a criminal explanation as significantly more plausible than others. To demonstrate one of my own: Perhaps they'd recently had a bad rating/inspection from the French/Parisian health department (replace with proper name), and were really worried about some undercover story by local news stations. A bit extreme to use physical intimidation, but perhaps the manager is on the verge of losing the place?
    • SilasX 14y ago
      Most sensible explanation so far. It accounts for why they would be worried about hidden, automatic cameras much more than the ones regular tourists have, where you can see when they're taking a picture or getting a good video angle. Also, most tourists don't take pictures of what's going on behind the counter, so you can catch someone trying to overtly do that, but a hidden camera would make that harder to spot, leading management to be more paranoid about built-in cameras. On top of that, "concern about the health department" has a much higher prior probability than "mafia collusion with major fast food chain".
      • waterlesscloud 14y ago
        What does strike me as odd is that it seems pretty likely that a McDonald's at tourist central would have to have a lot of pictures taken of it and in it and around it. It seems like that wouldn't even come close to being unusual. Granted, not usually by someone with the camera literally attached to his head.
        • SilasX 14y ago
          I thought I was saying the same thing: that yes, tourists are expected to be everywhere at the McDonald's, taking pictures, but if they start to do it in a strange way (i.e., target the "boring" stuff in the kitchen), or have stuff that looks like a hidden camera, then management may freak out.
    • CamperBob2 14y ago
      Page is down, but doesn't Occam's Razor handle this situation adequately? He ran into a random violent asshole. It can happen anywhere at any time to anyone.
      • Jach 14y ago
        I like this explanation too. What's odd though is the other accounts of similar experiences at Paris McDonalds'. (Is it the same one?)
      • hexagonc 14y ago
        But it wasn't a random violent asshole. It was three violent assholes which doesn't seem random to me.
        • ktizo 14y ago
          That's because, like the majority of people, you are probably quite bad at understanding both randomness, and the normal behaviour of violent assholes.
          • hexagonc 14y ago
            Um, sir, I have more than a layman's understanding of randomness, thank you very much. This is Hacker News; all kinds of people post here. I'm not even sure what you mean by "random" in this case; we're talking about one event. I didn't say anything about the distribution of violent assholes in McDonalds or France in general. It certainly wasn't "random" when the first violent guy brings over other employees who happened to also be violent. I don't know about France, but in the US, there are strict laws on what a commercial establishment can do to get someone off the premises. Now, mafia-run operations aside, most places would just ask you to leave and threaten to call the cops if you remain.
            • ktizo 14y ago
              Was just meaning that randomness tends to be clumpy and that violent assholes are more likely to be violent assholes when there are a few of them around, so the fact that they were three of them does not particularly decrease the chance of it being a random incident in comparison to there only being one violent asshole.
    • firebones 14y ago
      Three other ideas: What about French laws related to health (are they like NYC and trying to enforce health policy through food ingredient restrictions?) Could that be something they would not want getting out by accident? What about French labor or immigration law? Could there be some violation that they didn't want documentary evidence of? McDonald's as a corporation protects the intellectual property of their operations with great effort (but usually in the court of law--as when a manager might try to start their own burger place using the official playbook). Not sure what competitive advantage he could get from a few minutes in the store, though. But all of these really hinge on the employees thinking that the wearer a) wasn't a government official or inspector (confrontation would just bring more heat and/or b) that the wearer was of lower or weaker status. Mall cop enforcing a poorly understood "no pictures of the mall" policy over-zealously seems like the most likely case--maybe rooted in anti-terrorism paranoia. (Or else maybe the guy made the mistake of ordering a Royale with Cheese and these employees were not Tarantino fans...)
  • ams6110 14y ago
    McDonald's are not really "easily" franchisable. You can't just write a check and buy a McDonald's franchise. You have to be an owner-operator, not an owner-investor. You have to go through crew training, learn all the positions, work as a shift manager, and go to Hamburger University among other things (in addition to having the money), before you are granted a franchise.
• citricsquid 14y ago
  I've looked into how McDonalds franchises work before and have learned about money laundering from Breaking Bad: how would using a franchise make sense? McDonalds (and most other franchise businesses) run very tight ships with stock (and marketing): if a business sells 100 burgers McDonalds is going to know, it seems that if suspicions were ever aroused with this McDonalds all the IRS (or whatever the french tax authority is called) would need to do is talk to McDonalds and compare what the franchise reports to McDonalds vs. what their accounts show?
  • user49598 14y ago
    and have learned about money laundering from Breaking Bad... ...
    • zheng 14y ago
      While I agree, that doesn't really effect their point.
      • user49598 14y ago
        Breaking bad is not a source for research.
        • shiftpgdn 14y ago
          You'd be surprised: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/07/the-uncannily-accurate-depiction-of-the-meth-trade-in-breaking-bad.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/07/the-un...
  • jlgreco 14y ago
    You throw out the merchandise with the highest profit margins while reporting fake sales. Bars are traditionally popular for money laundering because everyone pays in cash, liquor has absolutely insane mark-up, and it's really easy to pour it down the drain. I imagine a fastfood restaurant would not work as well, but who knows.
• AlexMuir 14y ago
  Without further information I find this very hard to believe. Laundering money through a fast food restaurant with a supply chain outside your control is a terrible idea. Franchises are required to purchase food centrally. Q How much cash are you banking this week? A 1,000,000 EUR Q So you have sold 500,000 Big Macs. A Yes Q Can I see your invoices for 500,000 buns please? The profit margin is not high enough for it to be worth ordering extra stock and throwing it out. The business would effectively be paying about 70% tax. That's not digestable, even to launder cash. More plausible reasons: Running a McDonalds franchise and significantly and systematically under-reporting revenue using unauthorised suppliers. But to involve low-level staff would seem unlikely. This isn't exactly covert surveillance. Some bored member of staff just didn't like the look of this American weirdo with a video camera for an eye, a piece of paper that he waves around and an attitude that he is entitled to buffer everything he sees anywhere in the world and then publicly blame an entire multinational for a minor, local incident. (Not my perception, but I think it likely that it was theirs.)
  • dr_ 14y ago
    Whether it's money laundering or underreporting revenues, the implication is that something is awry at this McDonalds. The author is probably doing McDonald's Corp. a service by contacting them. They should address it, immediately.
    • tibbon 14y ago
      Precisely. You could also put a kilo of cocaine into a cane or walker. Yet, assaulting every older/disabled person using such would be downright criminal.
      • einhverfr 14y ago
        Assaulting anybody is downright criminal in most jurisdictions.
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• simonster 14y ago
  It's not an ordinary McDonald's; it's the McDonald's in Paris next to the Arc de Triomphe. Given its location next to one of Paris's largest tourist attractions, it probably serves a much larger number of customers per day than most other McDonald's locations, and it's a potential target for anti-American sentiment. These could both be reasons for enhanced security, although I'm not sure why they'd mind cameras. (OTOH, I'm also not sure why they'd mind cameras if it were a mafia front, since presumably all of the illegal things happen behind closed doors.)
• pyoung 14y ago
  But why would the Mafia care if you took photos? Money laundering would happen behind the scenes, in the accountants office. Definitely agree that something is shady though. Not sure what, but this reminds me of a recent article on 'The Big Mac' index, which is used as an alternative measure of inflation. Perhaps McDonald's is under orders by the French government to prevent people from taking photos of their menus (and consequently their burger prices) to hide serious inflation problems. ;) On a side note, if you are going to be in Paris on vacation, the food capital of the world, why the hell are you eating at McD's?
  • mrtimo 14y ago
    > why the hell are you eating at McD's? Kids.
    • justinatjustat 14y ago
      all the more reason to avoid the hole: why would such a smart guy take kids to ESAD?
  • santigepigon 14y ago
    France's McDonald's operates like an entirely different restaurant [1]. [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/24/145698222/why-mcdonalds-in-france-doesnt-feel-like-fast-food http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/24/145698222/why-mc...
    • zalew 14y ago
      it's not a 'French McD' thing. There are also McCafes in Berlin and I believe lots of other places, they are not regular McDonalds and they oparate aside existing 'normal' McD restaurants. The one on Kurfurstendamm in Berlin is a friendly cozy place filled with books and vintage pictures, nice place to sit for a few minutes just like any other cafe. Nearby there is the classic burger-smelly McD with long queues.
  • rmc 14y ago
    But why would the Mafia care if you took photos? Money laundering would happen behind the scenes, in the accountants office. In order to launder money you need to pretend you have more customers than you do have. A good way for the police/tax man to catch you is to record your business to prove that you don't have that many customers.
• pessimizer 14y ago
  There's a lot of money-laundering fast food franchises. I remember a KFC in Baltimore where the skeleton crew that manned it were barely familiar with the menu, and maintained a largely empty parking lot at all times in what I would imagine to be prime chicken-flogging real estate (it was my neighborhood.) They got a bit of unwanted attention a few years after I moved away when a junkie died in the single-occupancy bathroom and nobody noticed for three days. edit: found it - http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-12-19/news/0012190192_1_kfc-bathroom-baltimore-police http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-12-19/news/0012190192_...
• ktizo 14y ago
  Attacking people with cameras in a McDonalds, at a popular tourist trap, is not how any mafia front would behave if they wanted to last more than a week.
• hristov 14y ago
  It is possible. There are many reasons people may have been nervous around cameras. They may have been doing a number of illegal or semi-illegal things, like dealing drugs, embezzling something or other, or even cheating on time-sheets. And none of the above are that hard to believe. Drug deals especially happen all over the place and all the time.
• ChuckMcM 14y ago
  A much more plausible explanation of a story posted by a newly created account to a popular tech aggregator about a technology which competes with (and possibly pre-dates) Google Glass, with a picture of Google Glass on the same page, is that a patent [1] suit is about to break out. A cynic might think they were trying to harvest accesses from internal to Google IP addresses so that as of today they could show 'knowable infringement' aka treble damages. [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Eyetap&OS=Eyetap&RS=Eyetap http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...
  • ktizo 14y ago
    A patent suit is always going to break out these days, in anything even remotely connected with mobile computing, so the correlation there isn't very strong. [edit] The current pace of litigation seems to be leading towards some form of Kessler Syndrome - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome - but made of patents instead of orbital debris, that will finally result in all courtrooms in the world discussing nothing but technical IP cases.
  • jlgreco 14y ago
    I don't know about you, but that seems a good deal more implausible than a restaurant being run by a mob.
  • dsirijus 14y ago
    My thoughts exactly, though my sentiment is that Steve Mann deserves some thought from Glass engineers. I've been following his work for some years (decades) now, and while he is an "interesting" person, he has made many leaps in both design and tech involved, as well as testing.
    • ChuckMcM 14y ago
      Absolutely, the guy is a frickin' genius! All I know is we have three things: 1) A patent for the 'eyetrap' issued in 2003 with another 8 years or so to run. 2) A huge company with > $100B in the bank who has made a big publicity play betting on their technology that, on the surface clearly infringes. 3) No statements either from either party that a license is in place. In fact the Google Glass page should say "this device is covered by patents ..." but it doesn't. If in fact no license exists, I see a table in the square with between 100M$ and a 1B$ sitting on it with nobody watching. I would not be surprised in the least that someone decided to try and take it off the table. Time will tell.
• redthrowaway 14y ago
  Seems rather tin-hatty. Is it not more likely that, being next to L'Arc de Triomphe, they simply have extra security for anti-terrorism purposes, and that's why they attacked the guy who was recording everything? I recall a similar incident at Disneyland after 9/11. These guys even look like private security contractors, and their actions are more easily explained by the mindset endemic in that field than by criminal conspiracy.
• rdl 14y ago
  I think that fails Ockham's razor. I worked for Steve Mann about 15 years ago. Calling him the father of wearable computing is an understatement -- he was the father before it was even possible to create, and yet managed to make it happen essentially on his own a decade or more before it should have existed -- the JFK Apollo of wearables out of his own pocket. However, he is probably not the least suspicious person when dealing with stupid rule following automatons -- a true hacker in that way. If anyone could make slightly scared and overly paranoid security guys worried, it is probably Steve. Super friendly if you engage with him, but not going to err on the side of social graces over pushing tech forward. I am pretty sure this was an honest ignorant understanding by some worried people and sort of emphasized out of proportion -- I remember a similar incident at Boston Airport.
  • jholman 14y ago
    Tearing up someone's documentation is never an "honest ignorant understanding by some worried people". Dr Mann also says P1 "angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head", which is also not consistent with an honest mistake.
    • rdl 14y ago
      More likely started as reasonable concern (or at least plausibly understandable), compounded with ignorance and machismo into stupidity and wrongness. McDonalds should apologize, but I don't think it was a conspiracy.
  • ilamont 14y ago
    The incident at Logan airport was big news in Boston in 2007. It involved an MIT undergraduate wearing a piece of art on the front of her shirt that consisted of a circuit board and LED attached to a battery. It freaked out some airport staff, and the Massachusetts State Police came very close to shooting her: http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html
    • js2 14y ago
      Also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
• mrb 14y ago
  But this McDonald's is located at 140, Avenue Champs Élysées! It is arguably the one at the most prestigious location in the whole France. This is just one block away from the Arc de Triomphe, on Paris's most famous avenue. I have eaten there myself: http://goo.gl/maps/ofMu http://goo.gl/maps/ofMu I highly doubt it is a front for a shady business. It would be like claiming the Apple store next to Central Park, New York City, is a front...
  • rwhitman 14y ago
    Exactly. I think there are several other equally plausible explanations as to why this particular McDonald's would have security to prevent video surveillance. It is also next to a number of the finest luxury retailers in the world...
    • huhtenberg 14y ago
      ... customers of which are highly unlikely to ever wander into a McDonalds, regardless of its location.
      • kurige 14y ago
        The US middle to upper class generally seems to look down at McDonalds as being a place where the poor, fat, or simply lazy go to eat. That's just not the case in other countries. I can only speak for Paris and Tokyo, and the very upper class may not eat there, but nobody else has a problem with it. It's not just American tourists keeping them in business.
        • huhtenberg 14y ago
          You are taking it out of context. Point being that no celebrity worthy of videotaping would ever be spotted at McDonalds. So their crackdown on video cameras is unrelated to the proximity to the luxury shopping area.
      • rwhitman 14y ago
        I was actually suggesting they were protecting the neighbors from a potential highly sophisticated criminal mastermind casing the joint to conduct an Ocean's 11 style vault heist of the property next door by drilling through the wall, but I didn't know how to communicate that ;) I agree. Rich folks don't go to McDonalds too often. However in Europe the brand is perceived a bit differently
• axiom 14y ago
  Isn't it more plausible that this is a key McDonald's location that has some kind of "experimental" menu that they use to test out new product ideas? so taking pictures of the layout or menu could potentially leak trade secrets. The mafia idea seems quite far fetched, if only because you'd think McDonald's would do a fair bit of work to ensure none of their franchisees are using their brand as a front for organized crime.
  • BHSPitMonkey 14y ago
    A McDonald's, at one of the busiest and most popular tourist locations in Paris, and they're trying to keep something in plain sight a secret?
• arandomJohn 14y ago
  Nonsense. I took a camera phone photo at a McD's in Hong Kong earlier this year and several employees freaked out and they all came over to ask me to delete it. Are ALL the stores with no-photo policies mafia fronts?
  • SilasX 14y ago
    Well, did this Hong Kong McD's have a large aquarium?
  • olalonde 14y ago
    What did you take a picture of? I remember taking a video of several people sleeping in the back of a Hong Kong (Central) McDonald's and nothing happened. Perhaps no employee saw me?
• krschultz 14y ago
  In high school I worked in a McDonalds. There was actually a poster in the back that said cameras were not allowed on the property. This was around the time of 'Supersize Me'. I don't remember exactly what the instructions said employees were supposed to do. I believe it was asking people to leave and refer them to McDonalds corporate PR for requests to take pictures. It definitely didn't say assault them. Clearly these guys were acting way outside of what McDonalds intended for them to do, but I think McDonalds' silly 'no cameras' policy might have incited them.
  • obtu 14y ago
    Those policies seem to be so that journalists don't go taking pictures on their own, but go through PR channels.
• bdunbar 14y ago
  Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Never been to France. Been to several McDonald's with security guards. I'm pretty sure they had CCTV. Not a front for money laundering - it was that kind of a neighborhood. Eastern Market has gentrified a bit since then ... Anyway. A no-camera policy could be put in place to deter snoops. Guys working for the other team (Burger King). Maybe they had a bad experience with guys taking pictures of other patrons. Ah - you're just trolling, aren't you?
• jbarham 14y ago
  Call me crazy, but operating the highest profile McDonald's franchise in Europe is probably not the first thing I'd consider if I needed to launder some money. But setting up a venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, given today's ridiculous valuations, seems like an excellent way to launder money.
  • sxp 14y ago
    This seems unlikely given how little physical cash is used in VC funding.
• patio11 14y ago
  So if we swap around a few of the particulars -- say, make the guy with the camera black, relocate the scene to the deep South, and then make the three perpetrators good old boys -- a fairly plausible hypothesis would rush to mind, even if it is outside the experience of the typical white American at the typical McDonalds. Mafia fronts certainly exist in the world, but they are probably greatly outnumbered by petty people who, given authority over someone they dislike (+), would abuse it if it were consequence-free. + It isn't even necessary to assume that the language barrier or anti-Americanism had anything to do with it. I mean, even in the deep South, a good old boy might try to rip a prosthesis off a black guy's head just because he doesn't like "weird Treky shit."
  • spitx 14y ago
    Just so we are all on the same page, the males look of distinct North-African extraction - Algerian, Moroccan, Egyptian or Libyan.
    • andrewfelix 14y ago
      It's France. They're French.
      • philwelch 14y ago
        Though there are also many French of Algerian extraction.
        • andrewfelix 14y ago
          I'm of South African 'extraction', but you wouldn't know unless you asked me.
      • pyre 14y ago
        There are a lot of Moroccans in Paris, from what I understand. Wasn't that what those riots a few years back were about? The Moroccans immigrating but not integrating?
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• jonmc12 14y ago
  I took this picture in a Paris McDonalds about 2 weeks ago (near the Hotel de Ville, not the Champs Elysees location): http://cl.ly/image/1g1b3Q0j152V http://cl.ly/image/1g1b3Q0j152V Notice that the employee is covering her face. She yelled at me after I took the pic - "you can't take pictures here!". Why was she upset? Well in my case the girl covering her face in the pic was very pretty, I took it that she might be a fashion model or aspiring actress. When I ordered her co-worker was very pretty as well and was wearing what was obviously a wig. Just a hunch, but the Paris McDonalds might offer their employees protection against cameras from tourists to protect the identity of their employees. Edit: also found this article, this case does not seem to correlate with my hunch - motivated by menus / prices: http://www.pixiq.com/article/woman-claims-she-was-assaulted-for-photographing-mcdonalds-menu http://www.pixiq.com/article/woman-claims-she-was-assaulted-...
  • mc32 14y ago
    Not sure if there is anything to this, but from what I've heard, privacy laws in France are more strict than in the US, for example. That's in theory, in practice, not many people actually care. On the other hand, some do. Also, in theory, if you shoot with a tripod, you would need to obtain permission from a ministry somewhere, but in practice, you will seldom get bothered by the police. In any event, photographing people in public places in France will get you more dirty looks than they would in London or NYC, for example --even if most times you will not get any reaction. Look up Droit d'image, as it concerns France. http://photothisandthat.co.uk/2012/02/15/the-french-privacy-law/ http://photothisandthat.co.uk/2012/02/15/the-french-privacy-...
    • bambax 14y ago
      > even if most times you will not get any reaction Oh yes you will. They will shout at you and some may try to take your camera.
  • harto 14y ago
    Lots of people would be upset if you took their photograph without asking. It's a bit discourteous.
• damoncali 14y ago
  I dont' think the average Micky D's makes enough dough for that.
• lnanek2 14y ago
  It would be very easy for any ordinary McDonald's to have rules against filming in their store. Heck, just one incident like this and the manager would instantly ban cameras from ever being in his store again. If word of the stink got above the manager's head, then corporate would ban cameras in every store. I get told no pictures allowed in lots of NYC stores that aren't even in tourist areas and aren't good candidates for money laundering. Can I come to a meeting at your offices and film every single thing I see, including the screens of any workstations I pass by walking to the meeting room?
• dools 14y ago
  If you want to launder money, then you need cash transactions. McDonalds was one of the first restaurants to have eftpos transactions at every store (at least in Australia). I can think of several better ways to launder money than running a McDonalds. I'd say it's far more likely to be a tighter than usual security restriction due to the (perceived or real) threat from terrorism.
• olivier1664 14y ago
  Or maybe employees misses some legal autorisations to work and are afraid there is some working-inspectors that collects evidences.
• acavailhez 14y ago
  Little background here (I'm French and grew up in Paris): MacDonald's branding in France are really different in France than it is in the US, especially in Paris. Food is quite tasty, meat is fairly good, and even the colors are different: the flashy red/yellow has been replaced by a classy green/black two years ago. And this specific MacDonald's is one of the biggest and best located in Paris (Champs Elysées) Money laundering may have been a plausible explanation for a random US MacDonald's, it's really far fetched for this one.
  • Xion 14y ago
    > (...) the colors are different: the flashy red/yellow has been replaced by a classy green/black two years ago. I believe it's the same case pretty much in whole Europe. In all countries I've been to for the last two years or so (Poland, Czech Rep., Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland), the McD branding involved dark green background rather than vivid red one. > Food is quite tasty, meat is fairly good (...) That's generally correct, too. I have no idea about U.S. but here it seems that most of the shady reputation fast food gets is not because of the quality of ingredients, but the way they are processed to make the meals, i.e. almost exclusively fried with lots of added fat.
• zalew 14y ago
  Los Pollos Hermanos?
• conradfr 14y ago
  Money laundering in France are usually done with a kebab restaurant, not a McDonald.
• bambax 14y ago
  Is this the real PG throwing around conspiracy theories? Wow. I'm French and have been living in Paris my whole life. In France you're not allowed to take pictures or movies of people without their consent. If you try to take pictures of strangers in the subway you will be heckled and possibly assaulted, and the police will do nothing to stop it. I'm not defending my country here -- I'm a photographer and resent this a lot, this attitude is stupid -- but this is how it is. > No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Every fast food and most retail shops now have "private security" who are untrained/uneducated people standing at the door and watching people come and go. I would bet none of them speaks a word of English so it's unlikely the letter from a doctor in the US meant anything to them. They felt entitled to prevent the taking of pictures in the restaurant and felt they were being played with false official documentation. (Go try and take pictures at any McDonald's in Paris or any other fast food joint and you'll be met with extreme hostility, and possibly physical aggression). This privatization of security is a very big problem and a scandal in its own right (the rule of law means the state has a monopoly on legitimate violence) and I try hard to never comply with what those security people tell me, and tell them to call the police if they're unhappy -- the fact is that they have absolutely zero legitimate power but since nobody knows it, they have a lot of semblance of power. But I would be very very surprised if McDonald's in France (on the Champs Élysées!) had restaurants that were a mafia front. Undocumented labor is a more likely possibility, but again, no restaurant or in fact no retail place in Paris will let you take pictures inside their premises without a very strong confrontation. Go ahead and try.
  • sxp 14y ago
    Does this mean those places also ban people from using smartphones or normal cameras on the premises? There is no indications that Mann was actively taking pictures of strangers. And it would makes sense for a tourist to take pictures of his family at a restaurant. How are tourists normally treated when they try to take pictures of their vacation?
    • bambax 14y ago
      As I said above, you can take pictures of monuments, outdoors, and of people you know, indoors, where it makes sense (a restaurant, people at your table). But if you try to take pictures of strangers -- anywhere -- you will generate a very aggressive reaction. These rules are not written down so they're hard for strangers to understand; it's very possible for a tourist to feel photography is totally "free" in France when visiting tourist locations, and then find herself in the middle of a fight because she took her camera out of her bag at the wrong time in the wrong place (never in the subway for example!) The funny thing with these kinds of "rules" / customs is that you internalize them; I can't even imagine myself taking pictures in the subway...
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• Loic 14y ago
  You cannot do money laundering in a McDonald because you need to buy everything from McDonald. It is too easy to easy to control for the authorities. In France, money laundering is normally performed in small pizza restaurants or way easier, moved across the border to be handled in casino-like shops in Germany where it is easy to open such bet/play shops. For the why this reaction, I have no ideas, plain stupidity is often the good answer.
• throwaway5252 14y ago
  I believe it was at this McDonald's that I was deliberately short-changed without a recepit. This is a big tourist point where daily sales must easily reach five thousand. These guys are probably trying to cover a simple operation to rip people off. If I recall correctly (murky here, I didn't really care and may be mixing this with another memory or a different location) the cashier even nonchalantly covered the front-facing display with his hand (this actually took a very unusual gesture), so I couldn't see what the entered amount was. I paid in cash, the sum was tiny, and I didn't really care. It's McDonald's.
• antoncohen 14y ago
  > No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Not the case. McDonald's employees in Prague, CZ got pretty pissed at me for taking picture, and were quite rude about it. I think it's McDonald's corporate policy to not allow pictures, at least in EMEA. Lots of stores in high-traffic areas have private security. I think this incident was probably caused by power-crazed security implementing McDonald's policy in an inappropriate way.
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• nikcub 14y ago
  Franchise restaurants are terrible avenues for money laundering because of all the internal controls put in place by the parent company. Cash registers are linked directly back to central servers under control of the parent company, so that the franchisee does not gain an opportunity to skim on the revenue share that is passed back up. The same tight controls put in place by the parent org to assure they receive their full revenue share, and so that they can monitor store sales, inventory demand, and all the other good things that come with instant centralized sales info etc. etc. also prevent money laundering as a side effect. Further, both McDonalds stores on the Champs-Elysees are corporate owned and operated. McDonalds in France has a high rate of corporate store ownership and operation compared to other countries (20% in France compared to 15% globally) because of a previous bad experience with the national franchisee (it was fought out in a court battle[1]) and that store being a marquee store for the brand in Europe. My only theory as to why this happen is that the staff were confronted with a situation that they were not accustomed to dealing with and that caused them to react poorly. McDonalds is a highly controversial company and because of their profile they are constantly being targeted by individuals, groups and the media (see 'supersize me', 'fast food nation', 'mclibel' etc.). The security at this store may have mistaken this visitor, who had a camera attached to his glasses which could be considered 'hidden', with somebody who was looking to expose the restaurant in some way. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/12/business/mcdonald-s-tries-paris-again.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm http://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/12/business/mcdonald-s-tries-...
• ececconi 14y ago
  when I was at a McDonald's in Madrid Spain, it was the only place that a person at the front told me to put my camera away and delete the pictures that I had on my camera. I proceeded to walk out of the building. The man inside followed me for a few steps before letting me go.
• larrys 14y ago
  "Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location" There are many easier ways to launder money then to do it while operating a McDonalds (which has pretty high vetting for franchises. It's not trivial to be awarded a McDonalds franchise and certainly not in a top location). And most importantly if you are doing something illegal the last thing you want to do is to draw attention to yourself. Not to mention the fact that even if they were laundering money they wouldn't exactly have much to hide from pictures from a random guy with a weird head device.
• batista 14y ago
  >No one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device. Ergo this was not an ordinary McDonald's, but one with security people looking for cameras. Why would a McDonald's have security people looking for cameras? Possibly because it was a mafia front. If you wanted to launder money, a fast food restaurant in a popular location would be a good place to do it. Wait, what? An international fast food franchise as a mafia front? And for laundering money? So that the mafia also has to check in with the multinational's franchise title owners? And all that in Paris? How about some stupid security guy noticed the device and thought (correctly) that it contained some covert camera, and that the guy that has it is possible trouble (journalist investigating the place, a pervert, etc)? The premise that "no one at an ordinary McDonald's would even notice such a device" is also deeply flawed, what with the paranoia about a) terrorism and b) pedophile photographers these days. They don't even have to "look for cameras" actively, all it takes is some customer to point it to them "hey, there's a guy with some strange device over there, something fishy is going on".
• dutchwilly 14y ago
  pg, I have discovered in my many years that the truth is often simpler than we expect. Your theory is interesting, but I have http://eyetap.blogspot.com/2012/07/physical-assault-by-mcdonalds-for.html?showComment=1342640667852#c9091162978321776743 http://eyetap.blogspot.com/2012/07/physical-assault-by-mcdon.... Thank you for pointing the way.
• blaines 14y ago
  Was reading wikipedia and found this article, which reminded me of this post. The transfers were small, equivalent to about 12,000 to 24,000 Philippine pesos (500 to 1,000 US$), and would be handed over each night at a Wendy's or a karaoke bar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bojinka#Financing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bojinka#Financing