Man Realizes He Ate Pierogi In A Mafia Front Restaurant For Half A Year, People Start Sharing Similar Experiences
There is something captivating about mafia movies, series, or other forms of mafia-themed entertainment. It shows the taboo side of life, one that many of us don’t see due to its illegal nature. But these shows and movies (and everything else) are more or less based on reality.
And people on Tumblr have been sharing some stories of said reality. In specific, they’ve been discussing crime fronts, mostly in restaurants, and what has been their experience with them, how they grew suspicious or how they ended up finding out, and whatnot.
More info: Tumblr
Restaurants are so commonplace that we don’t really notice if it could be a part of an underworld operation
Image credits: Strangely-Brown (not the actual photo)
So, some time ago, Tumblr user Prokopetz shared something surreal that happened to him. For about 6 months, he’d been frequenting a restaurant with some out-of-this-world pierogi. Strangely enough, the place was pretty empty most times, with the most people ever seen by Prokopetz being 5 (him included). Also, the staff there often referred to him as Mr. Prokopetz, as in by actual name, which he always thought was a gimmick.
Until one day he went down there and saw that it was closed indefinitely. A tad bit later, he also found out that owners had been arrested. And then it hit him that this was not an ordinary restaurant—it was a crime front for the Ukrainian mafia.
Well, people on Tumblr have been sharing their experiences of culinary establishments that they suspected or knew belonged to a criminal organization
Image credits: prokopetz
Image credits: prokopetz
Well, turns out, this apparently has happened more often than one might think. A number of Tumblonians (name suggested by striped_frog, but, really, what do you call Tumblr users, anyway?) shared their crime front stories, which for the most part were restaurants, but were certainly not limited to that.
Image credits: prokopetz
Image credits: prokopetz
Tumblr user toloveviceforitself shared how they lived in a town that was full of half-empty restaurants that never went out of business just like that because import and exports were its “thing”.
And it might be a tad bit weird to think that, but it’s not uncommon to run into a crime-lord-run joint, as pointed out by a number of other people
Image credits: toloveviceforitself
Another Tumblonian, cat–77, told about a corner store and deli that everyone knew about, but nobody really cared as they took care of their own. One night the Tumblr user got harassed on their way home, and word got out. Since they had previously recommended this particular deli to someone, the people from the deli “took care” of this safety issue in the neighborhood.
Image credits: cat-77
Image credits: friendlytroll
Image credits: jupiterjames
After a handful of crime front restaurant stories, one Tumblonian shared how his local neighborhood Hapkido matrial arts studio was actually a crime front
Image credits: Scott Feldstein (not the actual photo)
A couple of stories later, probably-voldemort entered the chat and changed the whole restaurant dynamic with a pretty detailed story of a crime front in a hapkido martial arts studio in a small and quaint Canadian town that was run by an older Korean gentleman who’d often get visitors, friends from Korea who’d also do a little cameo and teach in the studio.
Well, it all escalated really quickly when the martial arts teacher was teaching a group of students, with parents all watching through one-way glass, being proud of their kids and enjoying the tea there, and suddenly the door slams open, a half a dozen policemen storm the place.
The teacher books it, while everyone else drops to the floor. The teacher was caught, and it turned out the studio was a front for smuggling illegal substances from Korea.
Image credits: probably-voldemort
The lengthy post thread has managed to draw in quite a crowd, garnering over 131,000 notes in total. You can check it all out in the original Tumblr post here.
Image credits: melliabee
But before you go, why not share your thoughts, or better yet, check out some other Tumblr news we have on Bored Panda, including my personal favorite, a post discussing why dragons have eyes on the sides of their heads, as if they were prey, and not predators.
Dated a mafia boss of sorts when I was younger and was too dumb at the time to realize it. Always drove me around in a chauffered car, complete with body guard. Weekend trips to fire island (across country as we lived in Florida), private yacht... Didn't hit me til one day he told me to pack everything I wanted and be ready to leave for Spain in hours, no passport needed. I didn't want to leave everything and everyone like that, so I didn't go. A couple weeks later he was front page news, wanted in connection to crime activities being fronted through a construction company from New York. I sure had fun while it lasted, but grown up me just wonders what would have happened if I'd left for Spain that weekend.
You got driven round by a chauffer and a bodyguard and went on private yachts, wouldn't need a passport to travel overseas, and thought it was normal?
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Not really front-related, but some mafia guy from New Jersey paid for my cousin's funeral. Apparently this dude just liked dishing out money for the funerals of kids who died from cancer.
Please accept my deepest condolences on the passing of your dear cousin.
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I've been telling my bf for months that the restaurant next door is up to something sketchy. They have a minimalistic menu, if you go there they take forever and usually get your order wrong, they close randomly when they should be open, and just recently they've started installing beds, although the area isn't zoned for overnight guests...
Sounds like human trafficking! If you can safely tip off the authorities; anonymously maybe, you might help some people (likely women and girls) out of a really horrible situation.
Load More Replies...
D'Angelo's is a franchised chain of sub sandwich restaurants in the US. There's been one in my city for decades now. You'd never see more than 2-3 cars in the parking lot, even during the lunch and dinner rushes. No idea how they stayed in business so long with no customers. They finally closed just recently. It was my daughter's and my ongoing joke that the place was run by money launderers who finally got busted.
I'm convinced at least half the Smoothie Kings in my city are fronts for money laundering.
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Not an eatery story, but a funeral parlor in a major eastern USA city, only a couple blocks away from police HQ. My sister lived upstairs and parked her car out front. It was the safest place in the city, she said, because nobody was going to f*ck around with anything or anyone near the mob undertakers.
I worked in a restaurant in Sausalito a while back that was owned by a guy with a vowel at the end of his name who spent 5 years in jail for lying to a Grand Jury. He had to get a partner, a guy with a clean record, to have a liquor license. That guy bought in for $1million and once told me it was the biggest mistake he had ever made since he was stuck. He also pointed out that all the cash given out as change (in those pre-plastic days) was crisp, new bills, almost as if they were freshly laundered. I left after I was cheated out of overtime pay and the owner told me, "Go ahead. Try to collect. See what happens." I decided I liked having functional kneecaps so I never went to the labor board.
If you were to say which specific vowel the owner's name ended with, I wonder how easy it might be to guess which completely legitimate business organization (generally, not necessarily the specific "franchise") he was affiliated with...
Load More Replies...
I was living in London in 2006, at a hostel, and we were a large group of people from all over the world. Among us was a very pretty French girl. Once, during one of our nights out we were approached by a young Russian man in his 20's. He was adamant to hook up with her, so he joined our group and later suggested to "continue the party elsewhere". He took us to a private club in Picadilly, and it became obvious the place was either his or his family's, as the staff kept calling him by his name. At one point, the man started being aggressive and our French friend turned him down flat. The man threw a hissy fit, I mean, a proper temper tantrum, at which point a very large bouncer/bodyguard come out of nowhere, calmed him down and told us to get out. About half a year later I read in the news the place had been raided by the police. Pretty sure that day we were saved from being victims of the spoiled kid of a Russian mobster...
I lived in NC for quite a while and always wondered how so many barber shops and nail studios can survive next to one another in relatively small town. Only recently I’ve learnt that vast majority of them are drug fronts
1) A lot of Chinese buffet restaurants are money laundering fronts. My Chinese friend said they ALL are, but I'm willing to bet she was exaggerating. Buffets specifically because you don't need to be as precise in balancing the books vis inventory in vs food served. 2) If you haven't heard Rob Reiner tell his story about eating at a restaurant when John Gotti came in, you should check it out! Hilarious.
We have an "aquarium store" that looks disgusting and is well over 20 years old, no one goes into it but it's still open...
I not only ate at plenty of mafia run restaurants, I worked at a few of them. The "empty restaurant" thing is not necessary true either. The busier the restaurant, the easier it is to launder money and remain under the radar., Of course, this was a lot easier in the 80s when most people still paid cash. Today it's a bit harder, but laundromats are still a mostly cash business (unless they have switched to credit cards too, I haven't used one in 30 years)
Laundromats in my area allow you all sorts of payment methods. And they mostly have you create some sort of account (with a password) where you put in the quantity of money you want, and then pay from there. Anyway, I agree about the low clientèle thing not necessarily being an indicator. My hometown is a busy touristic area and we have mafia owned restaurants and coffee shops as well, and it's difficult to distinguish them, if you aren't familiar with the place, or the mafia culture in general. Usually, their places have some symbols on display that helps distinguish between clans. Often religious themed, since it adds to the disguise. So, these are the things to look for.
Load More Replies...
It’s not a surprise most restaurants in Melbourne and Gold Coast I worked at were owned and run by ‘families’ and to be honest, they are the best people to work for and they look after staff so well and you look forward to work at their venues.
We have lots of these here, but it also reminds me of peculiar neighbours I've had. Who never seemed to go to work (pre covid). However, they would have a fancy car for an hour or so, which would then leave. One neighbour I had, kept his alleged wife indoors. Their house only had boxes in it, that you could see through the windows. Periodically really macho guys would arrive, go inside, leave. Dodgy stuff. I'm leaving out the more colourful details.
A restaurant near me had a call for their back door being left open after hours. The police showed up to investigate. They said the place looked like it'd been abandoned. Dirty plates left on tables, tips left at the hostess stand. The kitchen was a disaster. Food left out and uncovered. In the basement they found a bunch of mattress and clothing. The place shut down shortly thereafter. It came out that it was a front for sex trafficking.
I worked at a community pool one summer. Everyday it was jammed with kids. This man that I figured lived around there would come for a dip. He showed kids how you can let all your breath put and lay on the bottom of the pool. Id get home around 10 and I just happened to flip the 1Timer o'clock news on and flop on my bed. I was half awake when this picture was on the screen. It was the guy from the pool. The FBI had been closing in on him and nailed him at some point. He was arrested for murder because he was a hit man for the Goomba's that set up stuff here in San Diego. A hit man. And he was teaching kids of all ages how to Lay on the bottom of the pool. Like dead guys. He should know.
Oh my god I thought it was just me. A couple of years ago I lived in Pittsburgh. I'm not from Pittsburgh and my accent has been called "suburban". I worked at a bank customer service so I often worked very early or very very late. One day I happened to be in the city around 11 in the morning and I see this restaurant is open. Every other time I had passed by whether it was weekends, weekdays evenings, it was always closed. So I was excited to try the food. I walk in and it has a standard sub shop look but it's completely empty. Except for 3 guys, 1 placed at a corner to the side directly in sight of the door and one sitting down at the rear entrance, and 1 in the actual ordering area. I see that it has a standard display, subs, fries etc. I ask for french fries. The guy tells me they are out Which is odd and then I noticed the grill behind him. It's pristine silver, it had obviously never been used. So I gave this really high pitched "Thanks Anyway!" and left
The restaurant in my street that was run by the mafia that got arrested last year is actually blooming 🤣 they have pick-ups for food it's open from 10.30-13.00 a day
Don't worry our legal system already released like half of them.
Load More Replies... 
Definitely NOT funny but my husbands half-brother (same mother) has three half-siblings (same father). One of that half-brothers even got killed by the Polish Mafia. I don't know much about it but I know he had injuries all over his body from cigarette burnings...
In my home city there was a chain of burger restaurants my whole family really liked. The food was great and they had beer on tap, nice decor, friendly staff, and a good takeaway service. Then one day the whole chain shut down right out of nowhere, and we found out that the entire time it had been a front for a biker gang.
I had a few of these in my neighborhood growing up. The ones I go to are a pub and a restaurant both ran by triads within walking distance of each other. I am not bothered by the crowd despite knowing they are all in the mob. The beer is cheap though and they put on live football all the time. The restaurant is so near to my place so that's a no brainer. No wait time for takeout either and they throw in freebies all the time lol. Plus the block these shops are on, are the safest in town.
My husband worked for a pizza joint in a mall for a few months. Loved the pizza, but they didn't sell a lot. After he quit, it turned out that the place was shut down after it was found out that the owner and manager were mafia members.
I'm not surprised the food was good. I can't help to picture the outcome should you mess up the meal and some 300 pound goon wants to have a word with you about the rigatoni
I think some of these stories, and the comments, are a bit of a stretch. Some places are just a bit odd, not busy but keep afloat, have “foreign” sounding owners. Doesn’t mean they’re all run by the mafia. There are some dodgy AF places that are involved in dodgy stuff though, but some are just lowlife criminals rather than Don Corleone.
Lived in a small town back in the 80s. There was this corner rip (convenience store) which had very little on the shelves and sometimes shady clientele, The owner drove an expensive flashy car. Did not take the cops long to determine it was a not well concealed money laundry for drugs. Iirc they let him operate for a while until they were able to get a big haul when the raids took place.
Where I grew up in Canada, one of the older hotels in my town were rumored to be owned by the Hell's Angels. We were regulars in the restaurant, and it was a nice atmosphere.
Lived in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx for a few years and right around the corner was an Italian restaurant that I would pass by every day. I've never seen more than 2-3 guys sitting at the tables in the whole restaurant. The place had capacity for at least 50 people.
I think a crime front that everybody could immediately identify as a crime front is very lousy crime front indeed especially if idea is laundry* money and stay under radar.. *) education from online courses held by mr M. Bryde and mr S.Goodman
Not every venture that is improbable to support itself is a crime front. Some are just someone's hobby - if your big dream was to have a restaurant, and you have enough money not to need any profits, why not go for it? But even if it IS just a front: Whoever works the kitchen will not be in that for the money, so often you can expect passionate cooking instead of half-a??ed convenience products.
There is a Chinese restaurant in London that a bunch of my friends like because it's cheap and has big portions. Was chatting with mates when step-mother (who is Chinese and works in the same area of London) walks in, and we talked about where we were going. Erm, yeah, that restaurant is Triad (Chinese mafia) owned and run. It's really obvious when you know it is.
I come from a pretty small town in rural England. There was a restaurant that we loved for a few years because the food was really good but also insanely cheap. Went there all the time, ir was my family's go-to venue for every celebration, or just because we felt like it. Never many other customers, and we used to joke about it being a front. When it closed down with no warning or explanation, we concluded that we must have been right.
I live in a town just short of 20.000 inhabitants. We have 7 italian restaurants.
There was a famous Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, near Fisherman’s Wharf we went only twice (too expensive). The place was beautifully done, very classy. Just after we had eaten at another place nearby, the Chinese restaurant was ground zero for a major Chinese gang warfare shootout, lots of customers and staff were wiped out. Turns out the owners were high ranking gang members. Crazy times
There are a couple of places in my town I think are fronts. Like a couple of massage places where they didn't know how to do massages, especially the one where the owner-operator hustled me out when an older man she seemed to know well came in. And there's this restaurant where I've never seen anyone sit down and eat. They've been there at least ten years (I've lived here that long), and they do a pretty good takeout business and I've bought takeout there and it was good... but real estate is expensive here. How can these people stay in business for a decade or more, with no business except for packing up some basic Cantonese dinners?
One of the best Mexican drive-thrus in a city I used to live was part of El Chapo's ring. I went there frequently because they were open at odd hours, which happened to match up to my rotating shift work. I always got food via the drive-thru, and didn't know that anything was up until I saw a news article about $800K being taken from them. (Granted, their breakfast burritos were so good and there was always a line of vehicles, so I would be totally convinced that it was just burrito money X-D)
The first line: Don't feel bad if your unobservant folks, I once didn't notice that a restaurant that was specifically created to fool police, the IRS and regular people wasn't a normal restaurant. Seriously, sure you can tell sometimes, but literally the whole point is that you can't tell, you've probably been to many places without knowing.
Most re-upholstery stores here in my city are just someones side-hustle or craft project - appointment only, but nothing you can really use to launder money.
Load More Replies... You will really hope someone else cares if you become a victim to human trafficking.
Load More Replies... Dated a mafia boss of sorts when I was younger and was too dumb at the time to realize it. Always drove me around in a chauffered car, complete with body guard. Weekend trips to fire island (across country as we lived in Florida), private yacht... Didn't hit me til one day he told me to pack everything I wanted and be ready to leave for Spain in hours, no passport needed. I didn't want to leave everything and everyone like that, so I didn't go. A couple weeks later he was front page news, wanted in connection to crime activities being fronted through a construction company from New York. I sure had fun while it lasted, but grown up me just wonders what would have happened if I'd left for Spain that weekend.
You got driven round by a chauffer and a bodyguard and went on private yachts, wouldn't need a passport to travel overseas, and thought it was normal?
Load More Replies... Not really front-related, but some mafia guy from New Jersey paid for my cousin's funeral. Apparently this dude just liked dishing out money for the funerals of kids who died from cancer.
Please accept my deepest condolences on the passing of your dear cousin.
Load More Replies... I've been telling my bf for months that the restaurant next door is up to something sketchy. They have a minimalistic menu, if you go there they take forever and usually get your order wrong, they close randomly when they should be open, and just recently they've started installing beds, although the area isn't zoned for overnight guests...
Sounds like human trafficking! If you can safely tip off the authorities; anonymously maybe, you might help some people (likely women and girls) out of a really horrible situation.
Load More Replies... D'Angelo's is a franchised chain of sub sandwich restaurants in the US. There's been one in my city for decades now. You'd never see more than 2-3 cars in the parking lot, even during the lunch and dinner rushes. No idea how they stayed in business so long with no customers. They finally closed just recently. It was my daughter's and my ongoing joke that the place was run by money launderers who finally got busted.
I'm convinced at least half the Smoothie Kings in my city are fronts for money laundering.
Load More Replies... Not an eatery story, but a funeral parlor in a major eastern USA city, only a couple blocks away from police HQ. My sister lived upstairs and parked her car out front. It was the safest place in the city, she said, because nobody was going to f*ck around with anything or anyone near the mob undertakers.
I worked in a restaurant in Sausalito a while back that was owned by a guy with a vowel at the end of his name who spent 5 years in jail for lying to a Grand Jury. He had to get a partner, a guy with a clean record, to have a liquor license. That guy bought in for $1million and once told me it was the biggest mistake he had ever made since he was stuck. He also pointed out that all the cash given out as change (in those pre-plastic days) was crisp, new bills, almost as if they were freshly laundered. I left after I was cheated out of overtime pay and the owner told me, "Go ahead. Try to collect. See what happens." I decided I liked having functional kneecaps so I never went to the labor board.
If you were to say which specific vowel the owner's name ended with, I wonder how easy it might be to guess which completely legitimate business organization (generally, not necessarily the specific "franchise") he was affiliated with...
Load More Replies... I was living in London in 2006, at a hostel, and we were a large group of people from all over the world. Among us was a very pretty French girl. Once, during one of our nights out we were approached by a young Russian man in his 20's. He was adamant to hook up with her, so he joined our group and later suggested to "continue the party elsewhere". He took us to a private club in Picadilly, and it became obvious the place was either his or his family's, as the staff kept calling him by his name. At one point, the man started being aggressive and our French friend turned him down flat. The man threw a hissy fit, I mean, a proper temper tantrum, at which point a very large bouncer/bodyguard come out of nowhere, calmed him down and told us to get out. About half a year later I read in the news the place had been raided by the police. Pretty sure that day we were saved from being victims of the spoiled kid of a Russian mobster...
I lived in NC for quite a while and always wondered how so many barber shops and nail studios can survive next to one another in relatively small town. Only recently I’ve learnt that vast majority of them are drug fronts
1) A lot of Chinese buffet restaurants are money laundering fronts. My Chinese friend said they ALL are, but I'm willing to bet she was exaggerating. Buffets specifically because you don't need to be as precise in balancing the books vis inventory in vs food served. 2) If you haven't heard Rob Reiner tell his story about eating at a restaurant when John Gotti came in, you should check it out! Hilarious.
We have an "aquarium store" that looks disgusting and is well over 20 years old, no one goes into it but it's still open...
I not only ate at plenty of mafia run restaurants, I worked at a few of them. The "empty restaurant" thing is not necessary true either. The busier the restaurant, the easier it is to launder money and remain under the radar., Of course, this was a lot easier in the 80s when most people still paid cash. Today it's a bit harder, but laundromats are still a mostly cash business (unless they have switched to credit cards too, I haven't used one in 30 years)
Laundromats in my area allow you all sorts of payment methods. And they mostly have you create some sort of account (with a password) where you put in the quantity of money you want, and then pay from there. Anyway, I agree about the low clientèle thing not necessarily being an indicator. My hometown is a busy touristic area and we have mafia owned restaurants and coffee shops as well, and it's difficult to distinguish them, if you aren't familiar with the place, or the mafia culture in general. Usually, their places have some symbols on display that helps distinguish between clans. Often religious themed, since it adds to the disguise. So, these are the things to look for.
Load More Replies... It’s not a surprise most restaurants in Melbourne and Gold Coast I worked at were owned and run by ‘families’ and to be honest, they are the best people to work for and they look after staff so well and you look forward to work at their venues.
We have lots of these here, but it also reminds me of peculiar neighbours I've had. Who never seemed to go to work (pre covid). However, they would have a fancy car for an hour or so, which would then leave. One neighbour I had, kept his alleged wife indoors. Their house only had boxes in it, that you could see through the windows. Periodically really macho guys would arrive, go inside, leave. Dodgy stuff. I'm leaving out the more colourful details.
A restaurant near me had a call for their back door being left open after hours. The police showed up to investigate. They said the place looked like it'd been abandoned. Dirty plates left on tables, tips left at the hostess stand. The kitchen was a disaster. Food left out and uncovered. In the basement they found a bunch of mattress and clothing. The place shut down shortly thereafter. It came out that it was a front for sex trafficking.
I worked at a community pool one summer. Everyday it was jammed with kids. This man that I figured lived around there would come for a dip. He showed kids how you can let all your breath put and lay on the bottom of the pool. Id get home around 10 and I just happened to flip the 1Timer o'clock news on and flop on my bed. I was half awake when this picture was on the screen. It was the guy from the pool. The FBI had been closing in on him and nailed him at some point. He was arrested for murder because he was a hit man for the Goomba's that set up stuff here in San Diego. A hit man. And he was teaching kids of all ages how to Lay on the bottom of the pool. Like dead guys. He should know.
Oh my god I thought it was just me. A couple of years ago I lived in Pittsburgh. I'm not from Pittsburgh and my accent has been called "suburban". I worked at a bank customer service so I often worked very early or very very late. One day I happened to be in the city around 11 in the morning and I see this restaurant is open. Every other time I had passed by whether it was weekends, weekdays evenings, it was always closed. So I was excited to try the food. I walk in and it has a standard sub shop look but it's completely empty. Except for 3 guys, 1 placed at a corner to the side directly in sight of the door and one sitting down at the rear entrance, and 1 in the actual ordering area. I see that it has a standard display, subs, fries etc. I ask for french fries. The guy tells me they are out Which is odd and then I noticed the grill behind him. It's pristine silver, it had obviously never been used. So I gave this really high pitched "Thanks Anyway!" and left
The restaurant in my street that was run by the mafia that got arrested last year is actually blooming 🤣 they have pick-ups for food it's open from 10.30-13.00 a day
Don't worry our legal system already released like half of them.
Load More Replies... Definitely NOT funny but my husbands half-brother (same mother) has three half-siblings (same father). One of that half-brothers even got killed by the Polish Mafia. I don't know much about it but I know he had injuries all over his body from cigarette burnings...
In my home city there was a chain of burger restaurants my whole family really liked. The food was great and they had beer on tap, nice decor, friendly staff, and a good takeaway service. Then one day the whole chain shut down right out of nowhere, and we found out that the entire time it had been a front for a biker gang.
I had a few of these in my neighborhood growing up. The ones I go to are a pub and a restaurant both ran by triads within walking distance of each other. I am not bothered by the crowd despite knowing they are all in the mob. The beer is cheap though and they put on live football all the time. The restaurant is so near to my place so that's a no brainer. No wait time for takeout either and they throw in freebies all the time lol. Plus the block these shops are on, are the safest in town.
My husband worked for a pizza joint in a mall for a few months. Loved the pizza, but they didn't sell a lot. After he quit, it turned out that the place was shut down after it was found out that the owner and manager were mafia members.
I'm not surprised the food was good. I can't help to picture the outcome should you mess up the meal and some 300 pound goon wants to have a word with you about the rigatoni
I think some of these stories, and the comments, are a bit of a stretch. Some places are just a bit odd, not busy but keep afloat, have “foreign” sounding owners. Doesn’t mean they’re all run by the mafia. There are some dodgy AF places that are involved in dodgy stuff though, but some are just lowlife criminals rather than Don Corleone.
Lived in a small town back in the 80s. There was this corner rip (convenience store) which had very little on the shelves and sometimes shady clientele, The owner drove an expensive flashy car. Did not take the cops long to determine it was a not well concealed money laundry for drugs. Iirc they let him operate for a while until they were able to get a big haul when the raids took place.
Where I grew up in Canada, one of the older hotels in my town were rumored to be owned by the Hell's Angels. We were regulars in the restaurant, and it was a nice atmosphere.
Lived in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx for a few years and right around the corner was an Italian restaurant that I would pass by every day. I've never seen more than 2-3 guys sitting at the tables in the whole restaurant. The place had capacity for at least 50 people.
I think a crime front that everybody could immediately identify as a crime front is very lousy crime front indeed especially if idea is laundry* money and stay under radar.. *) education from online courses held by mr M. Bryde and mr S.Goodman
Not every venture that is improbable to support itself is a crime front. Some are just someone's hobby - if your big dream was to have a restaurant, and you have enough money not to need any profits, why not go for it? But even if it IS just a front: Whoever works the kitchen will not be in that for the money, so often you can expect passionate cooking instead of half-a??ed convenience products.
There is a Chinese restaurant in London that a bunch of my friends like because it's cheap and has big portions. Was chatting with mates when step-mother (who is Chinese and works in the same area of London) walks in, and we talked about where we were going. Erm, yeah, that restaurant is Triad (Chinese mafia) owned and run. It's really obvious when you know it is.
I come from a pretty small town in rural England. There was a restaurant that we loved for a few years because the food was really good but also insanely cheap. Went there all the time, ir was my family's go-to venue for every celebration, or just because we felt like it. Never many other customers, and we used to joke about it being a front. When it closed down with no warning or explanation, we concluded that we must have been right.
I live in a town just short of 20.000 inhabitants. We have 7 italian restaurants.
There was a famous Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, near Fisherman’s Wharf we went only twice (too expensive). The place was beautifully done, very classy. Just after we had eaten at another place nearby, the Chinese restaurant was ground zero for a major Chinese gang warfare shootout, lots of customers and staff were wiped out. Turns out the owners were high ranking gang members. Crazy times
There are a couple of places in my town I think are fronts. Like a couple of massage places where they didn't know how to do massages, especially the one where the owner-operator hustled me out when an older man she seemed to know well came in. And there's this restaurant where I've never seen anyone sit down and eat. They've been there at least ten years (I've lived here that long), and they do a pretty good takeout business and I've bought takeout there and it was good... but real estate is expensive here. How can these people stay in business for a decade or more, with no business except for packing up some basic Cantonese dinners?
One of the best Mexican drive-thrus in a city I used to live was part of El Chapo's ring. I went there frequently because they were open at odd hours, which happened to match up to my rotating shift work. I always got food via the drive-thru, and didn't know that anything was up until I saw a news article about $800K being taken from them. (Granted, their breakfast burritos were so good and there was always a line of vehicles, so I would be totally convinced that it was just burrito money X-D)
The first line: Don't feel bad if your unobservant folks, I once didn't notice that a restaurant that was specifically created to fool police, the IRS and regular people wasn't a normal restaurant. Seriously, sure you can tell sometimes, but literally the whole point is that you can't tell, you've probably been to many places without knowing.
Most re-upholstery stores here in my city are just someones side-hustle or craft project - appointment only, but nothing you can really use to launder money.
Load More Replies... You will really hope someone else cares if you become a victim to human trafficking.
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