7 ms·

I've come to realize that viewing the world through the simple lens of laundering causes dumb systems to suddenly make sense. Silly rabbit, you thought these in

I've come to realize that viewing the world through the simple lens of laundering causes dumb systems to suddenly make sense. Silly rabbit, you thought these industries were there for the normal public? Gambling: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/online-gambling-sites-money-laundering-1.7087399 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/online-gambling-sites-money... Casinos themselves: https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/trumps-businesses-have-history-money-laundering-charges-2552684 https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/trumps-businesses-... Commerce: https://www.wired.com/story/wired-awake-180518 https://www.wired.com/story/wired-awake-180518 Crypto: https://financialcrimeacademy.org/cryptocurrency-money-laundering-methods https://financialcrimeacademy.org/cryptocurrency-money-laund... Shell companies: https://newrepublic.com/post/192244/trump-celebrates-destroy-anti-money-laundering-law https://newrepublic.com/post/192244/trump-celebrates-destroy... Real estate: https://www.firstaml.com/resources/5-ways-criminals-launder-money-through-real-estate https://www.firstaml.com/resources/5-ways-criminals-launder-...

nine_k 1y ago
Lotteries, too: https://www.acamstoday.org/lottery-and-money-laundering-a-match-made-in-heaven/ https://www.acamstoday.org/lottery-and-money-laundering-a-ma... I remember reading about a case where criminals bought an entire issue of a local lottery, thus collecting all the prizes, and apparently saw that a reasonable cost to launder their cash.
- agos 1y ago
  this works quite well even at small scale. In my country you can just go to any tobacconist, buy 1000 € worth of scratch cards with cash, and happily keep whatever comes out. And since they're heavily regulated, you can check winning probabilities in advance so you already know the expected return!
- abyssin 1y ago
  A prominent Belgian political figure laundered cash for years using the lottery https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/11/revealed-how-the-alleged-didier-reynders-lottery-laundering-scam-worked-or-didnt https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/11/revealed-how-t...
aeve890 1y ago
Art https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-money-laundering-works-art-world https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-money-laundering-works...
- thelastgallon 1y ago
  > Then there is the case of international terrorism, where bands like ISIS have been noted for their laundering of cultural antiquities. Reminds me of True Lies.
salynchnew 1y ago
This is, unfortunately, a problem that many tech companies have made worse and more accessible as they have removed friction from these systems. Most folks will remember the 2019 temination of lootbox key trading for CS:GO on Steam. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50262447 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50262447 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/research-identifies-suspicious-behaviour-on-steam-marketplace-that-may-suggest-money-laundering https://www.gamesindustry.biz/research-identifies-suspicious... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666281724001264?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266628172... I'm not sure what good ways there are to manage this generally, other than limiting the size or types of financial transactions that can occur within a system.
- reactordev 1y ago
  You can thank Cryptic Studios for the loot box virus...
- selfmodruntime 1y ago
  The same thing is happening right now with cases.
- ETH_start 1y ago
  Trying to stop money laundering via mass surveillance of people's transactions is futile and creates far more losses than gains for society. It is what's responsible for the epidemic of debanking that has emerged over the last decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debanking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debanking "The Financial Conduct Authority reported that banks in the UK were closing nearly one thousand accounts daily, with just over 343,000 closed in 2022, compared to about 45,000 in 2017.[4]" Money transfer is a basic utility and should not be rationed out and gatekept by government regulators.
K0balt 1y ago
Out in the developing world you’ll see all kinds of things that make no sense commercially, because they were really just a way to park a few million dollars in a way that slowly trickles out under the guise of legitimacy. Buildings with rent ROI> 100 years. A motorcycle dealership with 3000 motorcycles in stock, slowly selling them off , many > 10 years old and zero miles…. Etc.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Laser tag.
  - K0balt 1y ago
    Car wash
    - reactordev 1y ago
      Nail Salon
      - sunrunner 1y ago
        Basically every desert parlour in the UK, particular Treatz and Creams.
        HPsquared 1y ago
        I wonder if anyone keeps stats on "number of obvious fronts on the high street over time". Between those and betting shops etc. it'd be interesting to see what proportion of businesses on the high street are truly "legitimate regular businesses for normal people" like cafés, shops etc.
      - catsma21 1y ago
        Fast-food restaurant chain
    - hackable_sand 1y ago
pnw 1y ago
Apparently in Vancouver BC (money laundering capital of North America), they use luxury watches and cars to launder funds as well, in addition to the obvious local casinos and real estate.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
cjbgkagh 1y ago
Overly expensive candy stores that only accept cash and have an excess of staff...
- alwa 1y ago
  Is that laundering or just retail drug sales?
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    Money laundering, visa scams, and probably other criminal activity. The ones I noticed were in an airport so I doubt they were slinging drugs.
  - russelg 1y ago
    In Australia that's typically black market tobacco.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
close04 1y ago
Add to the list almost all high end (dance) clubs, the kind that sell you the $50 bottle of champagne for $5000, "cleaning" thousands for every easily justifiable and anonymous bottle sale with close to 0 effort. Actually, any business that can just add an arbitrarily huge markup for what are otherwise cheap, run of the mill products and services is probably also laundering money. Usually exclusive/luxury places, the ones where in one go they can convert the lowest possible cost into the highest possible clean profit.
Traubenfuchs 1y ago
In Austria we have an infinite amount of middle eastern barbershops and „phone shops“ with about zero customers. Quick calculations on minimum wages, rent, other costs and the required amount of sales show that they can not be profitable.
sunrunner 1y ago
If something in the world doesn’t make sense, figure out who’s profiting from it. That’s something that a friend mentioned to me a few years ago, haven’t forgotten it since, and now everything does make sense when viewed from the right context.
- sunrunner 1y ago
  And for a specific example: In my local neighbourhood there are a couple of commercial spaces that keep seeming to become new businesses, go through the expected few months of rebranding and outfitting, stay for a couple more months, then shut down. Only to become new businesses doing the same thing. Repeat ad nauseum. Which would be fine, except it’s always the same owners. I’m not sure what the grift is, but I’m sure there’s one. Perhaps its simply taking advantage of business loans. Perhaps something more involved with contractors and business expenses charged differently on paper. I’m not sure, but I’m sure I’m curious. In the same way that buying a company and taking out business loans for expenses isn’t itself fraudulent, but can be done for that purpose, I can’t help but feel like there’s something going on.
  - wombatpm 1y ago
    Crappy contractors change business names like hats. I had one that was on his third name by the time I finished with him.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  The expression goes back to the Roman Republic. Coined by former consul Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla, who 'gained fame for formulating the question "Cui bono?" ("Who benefits?") as a principle of criminal investigation.' https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
  - sunrunner 1y ago
    So "Follow the Money" has a much earlier origin and wasn't just a catchy phrase from various TV drama series? Figures.
PaulHoule 1y ago
If you read The Guardian or even The Economist or other UK sources you see there is a drumbeat of concern about "bad businesses" which range from http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2025/04/do-charity-bookshops-drive-out-other.html http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2025/04/do-charity-bookshop... which legally evade taxes and https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-london-candy-shops-gift-shop-unpaid-tax https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-london-candy-shop... which illegally evade taxes not to mention https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90-of-hand-carwashes-in-uk-employing-workers-illegally-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90... and https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/grooming/a65829331/high-street-barbershop-boom/ https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/grooming/a65829331/high-str... and these are frequently accused of being involved in all sort of crime not least money laundering.
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  > which legally evade taxes and If it's legal I think it's "avoidance".
philwelch 1y ago
Art is another really good example.
ChuckMcM 1y ago
You’re not wrong. Just enough “legit” to create reasonable doubt.

nine_k 1y ago

Lotteries, too: https://www.acamstoday.org/lottery-and-money-laundering-a-match-made-in-heaven/ https://www.acamstoday.org/lottery-and-money-laundering-a-ma... I remember reading about a case where criminals bought an entire issue of a local lottery, thus collecting all the prizes, and apparently saw that a reasonable cost to launder their cash.

agos 1y ago
this works quite well even at small scale. In my country you can just go to any tobacconist, buy 1000 € worth of scratch cards with cash, and happily keep whatever comes out. And since they're heavily regulated, you can check winning probabilities in advance so you already know the expected return!
abyssin 1y ago
A prominent Belgian political figure laundered cash for years using the lottery https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/11/revealed-how-the-alleged-didier-reynders-lottery-laundering-scam-worked-or-didnt https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/11/revealed-how-t...

aeve890 1y ago

Art https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-money-laundering-works-art-world https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-money-laundering-works...

thelastgallon 1y ago
> Then there is the case of international terrorism, where bands like ISIS have been noted for their laundering of cultural antiquities. Reminds me of True Lies.

salynchnew 1y ago

This is, unfortunately, a problem that many tech companies have made worse and more accessible as they have removed friction from these systems. Most folks will remember the 2019 temination of lootbox key trading for CS:GO on Steam. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50262447 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50262447 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/research-identifies-suspicious-behaviour-on-steam-marketplace-that-may-suggest-money-laundering https://www.gamesindustry.biz/research-identifies-suspicious... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666281724001264?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266628172... I'm not sure what good ways there are to manage this generally, other than limiting the size or types of financial transactions that can occur within a system.

reactordev 1y ago
You can thank Cryptic Studios for the loot box virus...
selfmodruntime 1y ago
The same thing is happening right now with cases.
ETH_start 1y ago
Trying to stop money laundering via mass surveillance of people's transactions is futile and creates far more losses than gains for society. It is what's responsible for the epidemic of debanking that has emerged over the last decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debanking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debanking "The Financial Conduct Authority reported that banks in the UK were closing nearly one thousand accounts daily, with just over 343,000 closed in 2022, compared to about 45,000 in 2017.[4]" Money transfer is a basic utility and should not be rationed out and gatekept by government regulators.

K0balt 1y ago

Out in the developing world you’ll see all kinds of things that make no sense commercially, because they were really just a way to park a few million dollars in a way that slowly trickles out under the guise of legitimacy. Buildings with rent ROI> 100 years. A motorcycle dealership with 3000 motorcycles in stock, slowly selling them off , many > 10 years old and zero miles…. Etc.

dboreham 1y ago
Laser tag.
- K0balt 1y ago
  Car wash
  - reactordev 1y ago
    Nail Salon
    - sunrunner 1y ago
      Basically every desert parlour in the UK, particular Treatz and Creams.
      - HPsquared 1y ago
        I wonder if anyone keeps stats on "number of obvious fronts on the high street over time". Between those and betting shops etc. it'd be interesting to see what proportion of businesses on the high street are truly "legitimate regular businesses for normal people" like cafés, shops etc.
    - catsma21 1y ago
      Fast-food restaurant chain
  - hackable_sand 1y ago

pnw 1y ago

Apparently in Vancouver BC (money laundering capital of North America), they use luxury watches and cars to launder funds as well, in addition to the obvious local casinos and real estate.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

cjbgkagh 1y ago

Overly expensive candy stores that only accept cash and have an excess of staff...

alwa 1y ago
Is that laundering or just retail drug sales?
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  Money laundering, visa scams, and probably other criminal activity. The ones I noticed were in an airport so I doubt they were slinging drugs.
- russelg 1y ago
  In Australia that's typically black market tobacco.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

close04 1y ago

Add to the list almost all high end (dance) clubs, the kind that sell you the $50 bottle of champagne for $5000, "cleaning" thousands for every easily justifiable and anonymous bottle sale with close to 0 effort. Actually, any business that can just add an arbitrarily huge markup for what are otherwise cheap, run of the mill products and services is probably also laundering money. Usually exclusive/luxury places, the ones where in one go they can convert the lowest possible cost into the highest possible clean profit.

Traubenfuchs 1y ago

In Austria we have an infinite amount of middle eastern barbershops and „phone shops“ with about zero customers. Quick calculations on minimum wages, rent, other costs and the required amount of sales show that they can not be profitable.

sunrunner 1y ago

If something in the world doesn’t make sense, figure out who’s profiting from it. That’s something that a friend mentioned to me a few years ago, haven’t forgotten it since, and now everything does make sense when viewed from the right context.

sunrunner 1y ago
And for a specific example: In my local neighbourhood there are a couple of commercial spaces that keep seeming to become new businesses, go through the expected few months of rebranding and outfitting, stay for a couple more months, then shut down. Only to become new businesses doing the same thing. Repeat ad nauseum. Which would be fine, except it’s always the same owners. I’m not sure what the grift is, but I’m sure there’s one. Perhaps its simply taking advantage of business loans. Perhaps something more involved with contractors and business expenses charged differently on paper. I’m not sure, but I’m sure I’m curious. In the same way that buying a company and taking out business loans for expenses isn’t itself fraudulent, but can be done for that purpose, I can’t help but feel like there’s something going on.
- wombatpm 1y ago
  Crappy contractors change business names like hats. I had one that was on his third name by the time I finished with him.
HPsquared 1y ago
The expression goes back to the Roman Republic. Coined by former consul Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla, who 'gained fame for formulating the question "Cui bono?" ("Who benefits?") as a principle of criminal investigation.' https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono
- sunrunner 1y ago
  So "Follow the Money" has a much earlier origin and wasn't just a catchy phrase from various TV drama series? Figures.

PaulHoule 1y ago

If you read The Guardian or even The Economist or other UK sources you see there is a drumbeat of concern about "bad businesses" which range from http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2025/04/do-charity-bookshops-drive-out-other.html http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2025/04/do-charity-bookshop... which legally evade taxes and https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-london-candy-shops-gift-shop-unpaid-tax https://www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-london-candy-shop... which illegally evade taxes not to mention https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90-of-hand-carwashes-in-uk-employing-workers-illegally-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90... and https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/grooming/a65829331/high-street-barbershop-boom/ https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/grooming/a65829331/high-str... and these are frequently accused of being involved in all sort of crime not least money laundering.

robertlagrant 1y ago
> which legally evade taxes and If it's legal I think it's "avoidance".

philwelch 1y ago

Art is another really good example.

ChuckMcM 1y ago

You’re not wrong. Just enough “legit” to create reasonable doubt.