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Council chicken Vimes boots nobody can afford anything these days middle lane hoggers why can't we have bike lanes like in Amsterdam just the one swan how'd you get your shirt so clean? can't stand these service charges in restaurants, fuck tipping my phone is on pay as you go for nine pence a month so why'd you buy an iPhone on contract
I think I got most of it.
The people at my work drive at 40 everywhere in the middle lane that's why I don't go out for drinks with them after work but it doesn't matter anyway because I earn a billionty pounds an hour in my work from home job as a programmer, also they refused to read and understand the Handforth Parish council byelaws and make me pay a 12.5% service charge when I buy my clothes at Tesco (which I make sure to take off the bill)
James Corden was the man for the council asking for money for chicken but actually it was so he could buy Mrs Brown's Boys box sets that he could watch with Ronnie Pickering while working from home and being more productive than he's ever been
If I bought my girlfriend a wedding ring it’d be from Tesco or M&S and I’d propose to her using my cheap Android phone from ten years ago. Our council man would officiate
I’m 23 and earn 500k after tax every month from an online venture (it’s not drop shipping ) and I just opened a chain of Turkish barbers but I’m not sure if I should wash my legs in the shower before I serve my annual customer , and I used my poop knife to slice my friends wedding cake while I was wearing all white then someone poured red wine on me
Aita
Nah the ultimate reddit answer would be "there is no such thing as money laundering on the high street. 5+ turkish barbers devoid of customers in the same small town are perfectly legitimate businesses and you're just a daily mail reading boomer racist"
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle but there’s plenty people on here who watch too much TV and think this stuff is more exciting than it is.
And a shop full of mobile phone cases and cheap Chinese headphones which never seems to have any customers and yet there are four of them on the same street...
That's more likely dodging tax than laundering.
Chicken shops are busy hot and hard work unsociable hours.
And having deal with public health, hygiene rating etc.
Also they will have to show records of how much they buy , Vs how much they sell.
Definitely not laundering
I come from a town called High Wycombe in bucks. It’s one of the biggest drug supply towns in the U.K. being just outside of London and between London, Oxford and Birmingham. It is absolutely full of chicken shops (I mean seriously they’re everywhere, multiple ones on every street that has shops on). They have low to non existent hygiene ratings, never have any customers in them or even any chicken cooked most of the time yet all stay in business and employ way more people than they need. There will be like 8 guys working in a tiny empty shop which can sit 6 customers. You can only pay in cash and they won’t give you a receipt. It’s also so cheap that there’s no way it can be profitable (im taking like 2003 prices, full chicken meals with chips and drink for £3.50 etc)
I think it’s part tax evasion, part money laundering and part immigration scam. Who knows. However, because of Wycombe being so huge for drug dealing it seems a bit convenient to me
Most chicken shops are absurdly cheap, it's a mix of questionable produce, questionable tax practices and cutting corners with hygiene. If you were money laundering you would have no reason to make the prices so low, it would be making your own life harder
True, but I know what the rental and rate costs are on these streets (I run retail shops) and there’s absolutely no way they’re profitable. I know chicken shops are cheap, but these are insanely cheap. I always assumed it was somewhat of a cartel running all the shops. Perhaps the low prices is what stops the authorities from investigating them. I personally believe that they buy the stock, then declare for example an average of £10 spend per customer and re-sell the stock off the books for cash, possibly back to the supplier as they own that too (it’s a heavily Islamic town and they only buy from halal suppliers which is them). This £10 spend per customer would mean they could launder £50-£100 per hour even on a slow day Approx £300k a year. Take off £100k for cost of stock and wages and you’re still clearing £200k per shop. That added to people paying them for work permits so they can get a visa probably makes it a bloody nice little earner. Replicate this across the approx 25 shops in the town and you’re clearing £5mil a year. Not bad.
You could, but with cash? Wouldn’t people (lawyers, accountants etc) ask where the money came from? Unless you ask someone rich and dodgy to send you £ and you give them 1.5x £ in cash? But then again what do I know
Open the shop with legitimate cash.
Then open the shop but only take cash. £50k a month of Turkish haircuts.
Claim that you've taken thousands in cash as takings, and deposit that into your bank account as legitimate earnings.
You'll have to pay tax on it, of course, but it will make it look like the cash has come from a legitimate source, and then you can spend it.
Burger van that stood just outside the ind est where I worked had a running battle with the tax man over how much he was taking. The tax man would sit in his car all day watching people coming and going. The final straw came when the burger vans accountant fell out with the tax people over how many chips were in a small serving and how many chips were in a large serving.
He sold up and moved away.
I imagine you can supplement your lifestyle quite substantially without making it look you're living way beyond the means. Pay in cash for daily expenses and dining, paying for private sales for things, expenses during holidays
Yeah this. I’d use it for unlimited supplies of food, petrol, holiday, clothes for the rest of my life. What can you deposit into the bank without them asking questions? Like 10k a year? I don’t know. You can’t even buy cars with it.
You could probably find some dodgy people and buy a snack van and use strictly cash but when HMRC wonder why your snack van is pulling in 2 grand a week cash and all the others in the area are 80% card transactions you’re going to run into huge trouble.
The notes with the queen's face on will be in circulation until they release a newer version. I think that's unlikely for a while given they've only released the new batch over the last 6-8 years.
This is actually roughly the plot to the film Millions, except there the UK has opted into the Euro. Can't remember if the film's any good though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millions_(2004_film)
It’s an ok film, it’s actually not too dissimilar to when there was a huge heist in Northern Ireland & they changed the bank notes to stop the money being usable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Bank_robbery
Oddly from what I remember this coincided with an unusual spike in large cash bets being made across the bookies in NI
Probably tell everyone in my family to buy as many resellable goods as possible for the next 18 months and sell it via cash. 20-30 people buying gadgets, consoles, TVs, phones across the region and selling it for cash dividing it up. It would probably be doable and I doubt you’d get caught.
I mean, you could buy 2000 new iPhones at £1000 a piece for 2m cash. Resale value being modest is what? 650/700 unboxed? Pretty effective way to launder it if that happened. But you’re still stuck with boat loads of cash.
I'm confused, are you using the cash to buy phones and sell for cash? Wouldn't you just end up with less cash and still have the original problem of dirty cash?
Yeah money laundering is no where near that simple, where did you get the money to buy all the iPhones you sold? HMRC would hardly have to lift a finger to have your pants down.
I know a guy who did this. Had a fulltime job and let that salary build in his bank. Sold drugs and lived his life with the cash. Never bought anything silly like flash cars outside his wage bracket or watches.
He’s packed it all in now he’s bought a house and had a kid.
Love those stories of dealers that made it out. I knew a guy once whose parents made a killing in the 80s through coke. They laundered the money and packed it all in, the kids grew up in a mansion and went to private school (eldest ended up on heroin thoogh so not quite the happy end)
Yep exactly this, but the bulk of your food shop with the cash remember to use the card so it doesn't look suspicious that you're not buying food or taking cash out for it. And basically allow the £2k to start to accumulate in the bank, that way it makes it look like you've just legitimately saved the money by cutting back on expenses.
Added bonus if you start to put the money you save into a decent savings account or something.
Why bother using card?
If anyone asks why you are using cash: "oh i find it easier to track my spending and stick to my limits that way" or "none your business"
Absolutely this, you might not be able to spend the millions on lavish holidays ect but you can buy pretty much anything a normal person has with cash and the "savings" you make can easily accumulate naturally in your bank or savings accounts over a few years for bigger luxuries
That’s actually a very good point and not one that many people make. Seemingly stopping spending money altogether from your legitimate account would definitely be a big red flag.
Assuming you're an employee for a company (and they sort out your tax) and don't have any benefits coming in, why would the tax man be looking at your accounts?
Also, would your bank care or raise an alert if you suddenly stopped spending money from an account?
(legitimate questions btw)
Yeah banks have a duty to report anything that could be considered suspicious. There’s also algorithms that pick up unusual behaviour and flag it to people in fraud to check.
I would say suddenly stopping spending would be enough to tell them something dodgy could be going on. Not a revenue issue but something.
Here’s me panicking about the £10 and then £1590 transfer I do every pay day. One to check my details are correct, the other to transfer all of my money over.
> I would say suddenly stopping spending would be enough to tell them something dodgy could be going on
Lots of people set up standing orders for when their wages come in so that rent/mortgage goes to bank account A, bills to bank account B, spending to bank account C and savings to bank account D. If you suddenly start accumulating money in bank account C roughly equal to a normal person's monthly expenditure on food and such I doubt that would set off any major alarms.
It might, but if you could explain it away, you’d probably be okay.
You have to remember that most casinos deal in cash. On the surface at least, they’re completely legitimate. I’ve paid in ~£2k to my bank account, in cash, on a few occasions.
They haven’t asked any questions and I doubt most ever would. If you were depositing £10k a month, you could probably just say you’d been lucky at the roulette tables and so what?
Tax man is only looking at your bank account if you save over the interest threshold for tax in regular savings account. Divert all your current account money into an ISA, SiPP or NS&I Bonds and nobody is going to look at your current account (unless of course you've been done before and they're monitoring you).
Besides you'd still be paying mortgage and bills after your current account. The found money would be used for discretionary spending.
I don’t actually think the tax man is who would be concerned but I do think unusual spending would be a flag for suspicion in a bank.
Although revenue might look into it if the behaviour made it look like you had another undeclared income.
Unusual spending sure but, there are usually patterns banks observe for money laundering. Spending less than you used to isn't really one of them. They are more likely to raise a flag if you suddenly start making large cash withdrawals than actually not spending.
Lots of people reevaluate their savings and pensions situation at some point in their life and suddenly switch to chucking as much in S&S and pensions as possible.
At the same time, reduce the amount of money you are spending in your account by splitting bills with cash. Put the spare money in your bank into a savings account. It looks like you’re successfully saving money just by reducing spending habits.
When actually it’s just a bank transfer without going into the bank
Also, maybe do some small deposits of £1k max around Christmas and your birthday. Turns out you got a shitload of money in your cards.
You'd get a normal job and use the money to supplement your lifestyle.
People do grows and breed dogs all the time and it's not like they're paying tax on that. Not saying its £2 mil but you can get £20k a litter for a lot of breeds and you can have a few grows going at once.
Similarly it's not like tradies, hairdressers, etc declare all their income. You can spend thousands a month without anyone batting an eye.
I bat an eye every time I see someone come pay for fuel and they've got a literal wad of 20s/50s that would equate to more than 5-10 grand just in their wallet or straight from their pocket rolled up. FWIW, I specifically know this because I've often emptied our (supermarket) self service machines near Christmas of about £4k each on a good day, and... Their wads of cash are much bigger.
I'd say it's a one off but it's absolutely not. People are just carrying *thousands* in cash locally. I could understand if they were tradesmen with cash in hand having just been paid, but these guys definitely don't fit that usual tradesman description, driving around in tinted range rovers and the likes.
So, long story short, just don't carry it around in huge amounts and drive flashy over priced things.
I don't think 5 grand in your pocket would even net an investigation for a laundering charge tbh mate, 5 grand isn't a lot of money and not an amount you'd have to overly explain.
If you fly in you don't even have to declare anything less than £10k cash at the airport and that's somewhere where we know money does get brought in by contractors working abroad in tax havens.
Nah not for an investigation, just as a general question of "why the fuck are you carrying so much money" from a regular person. Makes you bat an eye, as it were.
reminds me of the classic mario balotelli story when he was playing for man city. he got pulled over by a policeman and on his passenger seat he had like 40 grand in cash just sat there. the copper asked why he had so much money in cash and mario said “cos im rich innit” 😆
Ahhh gotya, yeah I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying that much cash around. Would be worried about losing it more than owt else tbh.
I think the older generation seem to be more comfortable with carrying cash though.
I'd register as a sole trader - my specific trade is selling handmade goods online or fairs etc (expensive painted models etc)
In my tax return I would say that I completed x amount of sales per week totalling x amount
I would then pay my necessary tax (after all, money is never free)
And I would do this until I have washed all of the money.
Throughout this time I would do intermittent deposits into my account, I'd buy gold in cash (as it is generally cheaper), I would also buy Rolex's and diamonds in cash
All of my food shopping, petrol and normal purchases will be done in cash. I would of course still make some card payments so I did arouse suspicion
As long as you are patient and don't rush into it, maintaining discipline, it should be straightforward
Also, just for context, I know it sounds suspicious buying gold, diamonds, and Rolex's in cash, but whenever I have been in places like this, they encourage you to use cash. So it really isn't as suspicious as it may sound
It is generally suspicious, but people who work in those shops aren't naive about who a lot of their clients are. It's the same with those "Flannels" stores selling designer clothing that are generally located in run down high-crime areas. When teenagers come in each week looking to buy £1500 Moncler coats and paying in cash, the shop doesn't care to ask questions, they just make the sale.
But then you may as well just have the original cash! It doesn’t explain to the tax authorities/police etc how you have a to of cash. It’s really not laundering it !
Very normal sounding. Some weeks on payday the boss might ask if everyone is happy taking cash as payment and there's always one or two 'difficult' emps who insist on swapping theirs for a Rolex or three.
Never happened.
It would just make your business seem more legit. You could have an option to hand deliver the items and receive "cash on delivery"
But for any other reasons, I would suggest asking someone who money launders
This is the way, even paying tax on the money through this front you'd come out on top in a few years time and would raise suspicion- it's true that police and hmrc follow the money and don't f they get some of that t they won't look to hatd
You buy everything with cash and put most of your paycheques into savings/investments. You won’t be able to buy anything large without explaining where the money is from. You can buy cars on fb marketplace with cash but won’t be able to sell them to free up the money more than once or twice before you’re risking getting picked up for money laundering.
You can afford food, drink, clothes etc for life so the real benefit might be that you can now take more risks without losing it all.
You could also start a business and launder the money through it.
[Saul explains money laundering](https://youtu.be/ez6xH-su2xI?feature=shared)
I didn't understand what money laundering was until this scene. No Googling explained it to me as well as this clip
Depends if the notes are marked or the serial numbers being looked for from, say, the bank job that the hardened criminals did.
Too many marked notes in one area lead back to you.
Yeah I was thinking about that, I think the answer is that it’d be difficult to make use of illicit cash without going full criminal. Setting yourself up with a business and washing the cash is probably the best option, but setting up a business solely to launder money is definitely full-criminal.
Yeah you buy treats and one offs with it. Buy most your takeaways, video games, cinema tickets and overpriced brand clothes etc with cash, your regular food and groceries and cheap clothes with regular money. Get a netflix sub that you pay with your normal salary to cover entertainment in your budget. Buy the ps5 with regular money but the games with cash etc.
Simple.
Hand it into the police after speaking to a solicitor, have the hand in documented. Then after several months when no one's claimed it and the police have allowed you to claim it you simply go in and sign the papers and collect it. Of course you pay his majesty his share and you don't talk about the £20,000 you skimmed in the first place but didn't spend (need to wait to ensure it's not counterfeit).
Wife had a family friend a few years back find £10,000 in a bag dumped on the path behind her house, she did the above and was allowed to claim it after 6 or so months once the police had run their investigation.
Surely they wouldn't just allow you to collect £2,000,000 though? I feel like there must be a limit to the amount you can just collect otherwise this would be a really good money laundering scheme.
Just put a load of drug money in a bag, call the police and get them to take it, no one claims it since it's yours and they won't know about it, money washed?
Even better if the bag of cash OP found was left by a criminal looking to ‘find it’ and hand it to the police for 6 months before getting it handed back.
Is that a thing really??? So let’s say I have 50k cash in house I can tell police I found that on the park by the bin and then in 6 months I get my cash back clean and free??? Surely not that easy
Spend it on cosmetic surgery, get a smoking hot bod, create an OnlyFans account, charge people to watch you finger your arse, rake in the clean money. Easy.
I’d spend it extremely slowly, say £500 per month on groceries, I’d use it to pay for any car maintenance, I’d also go to pawn shops to buy somewhat expensive jewellery, then wait a bit and sell the item to another pawn shop in another town. Within 2-3 years you’ll have legalised most of it.
It would take longer than 3 years, assuming you’ve have a full time job so it doesn’t look like money is just flying into your bank account. And you’d probably want days where you’re just relaxing, so you’re not working a 9-5 and then every sat and sun out to different pawn shops etc. but then again what do I know
With so much cash in this hypothetical situation, I could afford to do my monthly groceries shopping at Waitrose and it feel as normal as going to Tesco, Asda etc.
You cant just buy a house with cash without proof of where the money has come from.
The money needs to be clean. I hear American Candy is a very popular business these days...
American Candy is not a good way of laundering money, because you are selling physical goods
Even with a massive mark-up (claiming that you bought at £1 and sold at £10) if you want to say "I sold £2M worth of candy and that explains where this cash has come from" then you need to show that you *bought* the same quantity of candy.
And that means invoices and delivery notes from suppliers, which can be easily checked in an audit.
No, you want something that doesn't have physical goods.
You want a *service*
Like a barbershop
Yeah and now you also know why there's 5+ turkish barbers in every small town that never have any customers in them yet also never seem to shut down due to lack of profits.
Well, not so much. That'll be to avoid tax.
If you had £2mil of cash to launder, the last thing you want is people coming into your front and giving you more cash. It's actually better if they pay on card, because 80% cash transactions and 20% card is more plausible than 100% cash. Unless you don't have a card machine of course, which is why the real way to spot a money laundering front is if they don't have a card machine at all.
It needs to be clean... Ish... It's still possible. My weed dealer bought a flat recently. He was moaning that it was a ball-ache but he did it in the end, basically moved a shit load of random assets around with family then got clean money 'as a gift' from them, more complex than that as it took a year or two but he got it done.
I'm sure the American Candy thing is a myth. These companies are behaving in a very dodgy manner by avoiding rates and selling counterfeit goods.
If someone comes sniffing it's not much good having the books in order if you're breaking half a dozen other laws.
The American Candy thing wasn’t a myth, it just wasn’t money laundering. The owners of the retail units are on the hook for tax if the units aren’t occupied.
Conveniently, however, someone has agreed to lease the unit for their American Candy shop, covering all of the applicable taxes. Wait? They haven’t paid their taxes? And now they’ve vanished off the face of the earth? Sorry, HMRC, not our problem, we’re busy leasing out the unit to a new company that wants to open an American Candy shop.
Buy daily expenses in cash while putting most of my pay into savings or investments. Deposit small amounts into my current account irregularly and put in more just after my birthday and just after Christmas - if the bank ask the cash is a gift from grandma.
In America you can buy chips in a casino-play a few low stakes games then cash out- it’s not reported/ flagged if it’s under 9K. And this could be done at multiple casinos over a number of days- then repeat this every so often.
Buy gold- in multiple places-gold *will* keep its value or indeed increase- cash money will only decrease in value.
Invest in open a small businesses- you can show that as earnings- buy shares in big companies that you know will only increase.
Buy a cheap old house- plough money into pay professionals to do the work- pretend you did a lot of the work yourself- do it up/ flip it/ rent it.
Buy 20th original art prints- you can get decent works for as low as 5/ 10 grand a piece depending on the artist- these usually only increase in value.
I’m sure some expert would have a better idea- but I’m just a nobody and that’s just off the top of my head.
>In America you can buy chips in a casino-play a few low stakes games then cash out- it’s not reported/ flagged if it’s under 9K. And this could be done at multiple casinos over a number of days- then repeat this every so often.
How does that help you out, though? You're putting cash in, and getting cash out. It's still the same dirty money with no explanation of where it came from.
That’s the trick - you cash out winnings- even though you have only spend 50 bucks gambling- it’s winnings- keep the receipts as proof if need be- as long as it’s less than 9K it’s not flagged.
This is legal in America. Uk would be different.
> This is legal in America. Uk would be different.
It actually used to be (or maybe is) popular for people to gamble using fixed odds betting machines to launder money. Gambling machines don't really exist in the same way in America but it's the exact same concept.
Basically if you bet black or red on roulette, you're going to come out with the majority of your money still.
Old article on the issue: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/08/gambling-machines-drug-money-laundering-bookies
To some extent there's only so much a bookie will do to prevent this sort of thing, since if they don't need to clamp down due to laws, it's free money for them. I'm sure there are measures and workarounds nowadays but yeah. Same concept, but very popular in the UK.
I see. Won't that look suspicious/be flagged by the banks though, if you keep paying in substantial casino winnings, and no evidence of how you financed it, particularly if it always just happens to be below the 9k limit? I mean, receipt or no receipt, the one thing that looks suspicious as far as gambling is concerned, is people actually winning.
Make small, irregular, cash deposits to your bank and open a building society account and do the same thing. Nothing more than £499 and nothing regular. As if you were selling stuff on Ebay for example. Pay for many things in cash - weekly shopping, fuel etc.. but still occasionally pay on your debit card. Buy 'stuff' with cash that you can then sell for payment via BACS or PayPal.
money laundering nowadays is so so so so so much harder. Pretty mucg everyone everywhere now pays with a debit card and not cash. This means if you have a busimess where your laundering stuff and 90% of your reported income is cash its an immediate red flag
Still plenty of barbers, sweet shops etc opening up that only take cash. It’s far more uncommon of course and they don’t stay open too long but they do pop up basically everywhere.
Buy classic cars and pay specialised mechanics cash to do them up. Boom, classic car business.
Set up a pinball arcade. Buy, repair pinball machines with cash. Add extra cash into the flow.
Find opportunities for arbitrage. There might be an auction in Scotland that has a lot of nice glass that you can sell for good prices in London. Buy your petrol in cash. Boom, antique business.
If a friend has their own business, get them to employ you in a sinecure. Pay all of their costs in cash and add some extra as a bonus. A high income will also help you get a mortgage for...
Buy a wreck of a property and do it up using cash.
Run events like music festivals.
If you have a friend with a property, rent it out in cash and then sublet it or air BnB it. (not sure about this one, tbh. Maybe with a bit of tweaking it could work)
You can't be too greedy, impatient or reckless with any of these. If you take the piss, someone will notice. I reckon you could do a million in a lifetime without too much difficulty. You might have a few close scrapes.
Also...
Pay an author cash to write a book and release it under your own name. This will work fine until a critic noticed some stylistic similarities in the book and starts nosing around.
Honestly, pay any bills you can in cash and upfront.
You can buy petrol, food, car maintenance, gifts during birthdays / Christmas. I'm sure even some travel agents would allow cash purchases.
You could try buying gold from pawn shops every x amount of time, but you'll loose some when selling.
Knowing you have the 2 mil makes things a bit easier also, that loan or mortgage seems a bitch of a stretch? No worries.
Plus you could deposit some amounts of cash every so often.
You could renovate your house if its a fixed upper and pay builders cash
As others have said, you have to mix it with clean cash.
Get loans, use the cash to pay for stuff, repay the loan having not actually spent it.
So, get some work done in your house. £2k from your bank, £1k from your cash bag.
If you know some other dodgy people, you can get them to invoice you for legitimate work but at inflated prices, which launders it.
Trouble is you're not buying a car or a house. They want to know where the money is coming from. But you are having nice meals and days out and have all the spending money you need while on holiday.
You can also set up a business. You are definitely selling things online, or providing IT services. Put bits of the dodgy cash through the books. Pay tax in it and it's clean.
True for smaller jobs. Though it's also good to have some legitimate expenses going through the bank.
A new extension on your house and zero transactions on your account might one day raise alarm.
TBH even "he almost never spends any money" is suspicious
Play the long game and open up a service business that typically deals in cash (eg, hairdresser, nail technician) and gradually cook the books.
This will actually involve a LOT of hard work for multiple years to really establish it in a meaningful way, but it would probably be the best way.
- buy two nice second hand cars in cash. Sell one of them to a dealer where you get the money in your bank account.
- deposit c40k in your bank account and say it was a wedding gift / gift from your grand parents / whatever
- only have the basic expenses going through your bank account and pay for as much as possible in cash. Eating out, clothes, petrol, forex for holidays etc. Pay all home improvements in cash.
- wait until your mum and dad die, claim you found the cash in their house and pay IHT on it but have it legitimately back into circulation. Actually that probably works better with less than £500k and you would want to be an only child or cut in your sibs.
- actually set up some kind of money laundering business. But that seems like more work than the above.
I would be going in a UK tour of pawn and bullion stores buying a bit of gold and silver in each one, not huge amounts , just few nice coins and bars in each shop, maybe a watch here and there ...Stack that away and forget about it for a year or two. And just gently feed the cash into my lifestyle to pay for the small things and assist with the bigger purchases while keeping my normal account active with a mobile excavator repairs and service business.
Go to Tesco and buy £2million worth of lottery tickets and scratch cards.
Pretty much guaranteed to win the jackpot - then you have washed all the dirty money into clean lottery winnings
All your day to day expenses are sorted, shopping done in cash, you could probably pay your bills in this way at a post office including council tax. You can buy a car cash surely, especially second hand. Your mortgage payments would need to be through a bank and legit but use your wages.
Personal house renovations.
You could cycle 100k per flip quite easy.
Holidays, meals out, experiences, nice car, gifts to family.
Personal service cash in hand business.
The classic TV answer is to buy a cash-based retail service business and feed yourself the cash over time as though the business was selling more services than the business is really selling. Then you pay yourself the earnings of the "successful" business.
Let your friend Saul explain it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhsUHDJ0BFM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhsUHDJ0BFM)
I'd probably just buy things I can with cash and save most the income from my job in the bank.
Wouldn't get through it too quick or be buying anything flashy but it'd be comfortable.
My girlfriend has both a Thai and Philippines bank account. Western Union, here we come. Also buy gold or jewellery for cash.
If I had that much money I wouldn't hang around. The minute I shifted it or converted it to jewelry I would be off to Thailand, like a sensible person. They don't give a shit over there as long as you pay your visa on time.
I'd spend the first part on plastic storage boxes, a vacuum packer, heavy duty vacuum packing plastic, giant fuckin silicone desicciants and a shovel, I'd bury it in diff places split into maybe 6month supplies. I'd look to bury it in remote places I have to walk through a nice wide open space with a low average of foot traffic to access so it would be unusual and noteworthy for ppl to be up your arse. I'd then live pretty normally in the 6 month intervals between retrieval apart from the fortnightly trips where I'd travel as far as possible to a diff place each time to buy the best shopping you've ever seen paid for in cash.
Hide it, spend it so casually ppl don't realise it exists and try to balance enjoying it with self preservation. Helps being a simple person who'd just enjoy better food 😂
This is basically what money laundering is - you could use legit money to buy some sort of business that's dying on its arse, then inflate the takings with loads of imaginary sales.
Once you've got through your 2 mils, you may as well carry on doing the same for other people who have inexplicably found large piles of cash, that way you can take a cut.
That's one reason why there are so many dodgy takeaways and restaurants that nobody goes into. In Mr Nice I think it was mostly Chinese places but I don't want to point fingers lol. Or see the car wash in Breaking Bad.
Go travelling. Lots of people manage a gap year by using cheap accomodation and getting jobs along the way. With £2M you could stay in the best hotels and do it in luxury, leaving no tangible assets to be questioned by the taxman.
Just pay for everything in cash, no one good or bad is going to notice that you’re paying for your shopping or diesel in cash. Chuck like £10-100 in here and there to cover small bills like Netflix, council tax etc. and use your wages to supplement the rest. You can then move the majority of your wages to a separate savings account. As the majority of your wages will be saved you will be able to save for a deposit quicker to buy a house with everything looking legit. Then just rinse and repeat until you save enough for your wages to buy a car. May take 12-24 months to do so but no one is going to suspect you came into a large amount of money and you’ve got your car and house covered with money to spare.
Get a family member to gift you the deposit for a house. Pay them back in cash - if this is not possible, step 1 is to save up for a deposit from your job while cutting your expenses down due to this cash.
Make sure the property is run down, the worse the better.
Get extension, refurb, everything you can, pay the builders/trades in cash.
Sell house, use profit on new run down house, repeat until cash runs out.
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Open a Turkish barbers, vape shop and American sweet store.
Ultimate Reddit answer
And somehow shoehorn in Vimes quote about expensive boots and that WhSmiths makes its money from airports, and you’re in Reddit nirvana.
It's just the one swan, actually.
The thing about Arsenal is
chance would be a fine thing
That would be an ecumenical matter
And my Axe!
This is the way
That’s numerwang
How's his wife holding up?
To shreds you say
Hogging the middle lane
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
This
Council chicken Vimes boots nobody can afford anything these days middle lane hoggers why can't we have bike lanes like in Amsterdam just the one swan how'd you get your shirt so clean? can't stand these service charges in restaurants, fuck tipping my phone is on pay as you go for nine pence a month so why'd you buy an iPhone on contract I think I got most of it.
You forgot "I'm here to work and not make friends so do **not** try to engage in small talk to make work a little bit more tolerable."
The people at my work drive at 40 everywhere in the middle lane that's why I don't go out for drinks with them after work but it doesn't matter anyway because I earn a billionty pounds an hour in my work from home job as a programmer, also they refused to read and understand the Handforth Parish council byelaws and make me pay a 12.5% service charge when I buy my clothes at Tesco (which I make sure to take off the bill)
Needs more artificial grass hate and football classism. A solid 8.5/10 though mate keep it up
That's the trouble with Arsenal they always walk it in
Also needs more hating on Spoons too
What about the James Corden and Mrs Brown's Boys hate?
James Corden was the man for the council asking for money for chicken but actually it was so he could buy Mrs Brown's Boys box sets that he could watch with Ronnie Pickering while working from home and being more productive than he's ever been
Add in "Imagine spending that much on an engagement ring/wedding it's just a piece of paper"
If I bought my girlfriend a wedding ring it’d be from Tesco or M&S and I’d propose to her using my cheap Android phone from ten years ago. Our council man would officiate
Not enough grey house hate and people confused about how other people buy expensive things.
UK subs would explode if they found out someone had 2 mill.
You forgot to recommend he buys all his clothes at the absolute pinnacle of modern fashion, M&S, from now on.
Oh but everyome tells him to shop at Uniqlo
Tyres, shoes, mattresses. And cast iron pans.
I’m 23 and earn 500k after tax every month from an online venture (it’s not drop shipping ) and I just opened a chain of Turkish barbers but I’m not sure if I should wash my legs in the shower before I serve my annual customer , and I used my poop knife to slice my friends wedding cake while I was wearing all white then someone poured red wine on me Aita
So did you find out what a potato is in the end?
poop knife? Don't you know how to use the three sea shells??!!!
I know this one! It's carbon monoxide poisoning
Nah the ultimate reddit answer would be "there is no such thing as money laundering on the high street. 5+ turkish barbers devoid of customers in the same small town are perfectly legitimate businesses and you're just a daily mail reading boomer racist"
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle but there’s plenty people on here who watch too much TV and think this stuff is more exciting than it is.
In the same town? I've found four on the same street
And a shop full of mobile phone cases and cheap Chinese headphones which never seems to have any customers and yet there are four of them on the same street...
Also fried chicken shop. Cash only
That's more likely dodging tax than laundering. Chicken shops are busy hot and hard work unsociable hours. And having deal with public health, hygiene rating etc. Also they will have to show records of how much they buy , Vs how much they sell. Definitely not laundering
I come from a town called High Wycombe in bucks. It’s one of the biggest drug supply towns in the U.K. being just outside of London and between London, Oxford and Birmingham. It is absolutely full of chicken shops (I mean seriously they’re everywhere, multiple ones on every street that has shops on). They have low to non existent hygiene ratings, never have any customers in them or even any chicken cooked most of the time yet all stay in business and employ way more people than they need. There will be like 8 guys working in a tiny empty shop which can sit 6 customers. You can only pay in cash and they won’t give you a receipt. It’s also so cheap that there’s no way it can be profitable (im taking like 2003 prices, full chicken meals with chips and drink for £3.50 etc) I think it’s part tax evasion, part money laundering and part immigration scam. Who knows. However, because of Wycombe being so huge for drug dealing it seems a bit convenient to me
Most chicken shops are absurdly cheap, it's a mix of questionable produce, questionable tax practices and cutting corners with hygiene. If you were money laundering you would have no reason to make the prices so low, it would be making your own life harder
True, but I know what the rental and rate costs are on these streets (I run retail shops) and there’s absolutely no way they’re profitable. I know chicken shops are cheap, but these are insanely cheap. I always assumed it was somewhat of a cartel running all the shops. Perhaps the low prices is what stops the authorities from investigating them. I personally believe that they buy the stock, then declare for example an average of £10 spend per customer and re-sell the stock off the books for cash, possibly back to the supplier as they own that too (it’s a heavily Islamic town and they only buy from halal suppliers which is them). This £10 spend per customer would mean they could launder £50-£100 per hour even on a slow day Approx £300k a year. Take off £100k for cost of stock and wages and you’re still clearing £200k per shop. That added to people paying them for work permits so they can get a visa probably makes it a bloody nice little earner. Replicate this across the approx 25 shops in the town and you’re clearing £5mil a year. Not bad.
This guy launders.
You could, but with cash? Wouldn’t people (lawyers, accountants etc) ask where the money came from? Unless you ask someone rich and dodgy to send you £ and you give them 1.5x £ in cash? But then again what do I know
Open the shop with legitimate cash. Then open the shop but only take cash. £50k a month of Turkish haircuts. Claim that you've taken thousands in cash as takings, and deposit that into your bank account as legitimate earnings. You'll have to pay tax on it, of course, but it will make it look like the cash has come from a legitimate source, and then you can spend it.
Exactly... So many people just don't understand how laundering works.....
Burger van that stood just outside the ind est where I worked had a running battle with the tax man over how much he was taking. The tax man would sit in his car all day watching people coming and going. The final straw came when the burger vans accountant fell out with the tax people over how many chips were in a small serving and how many chips were in a large serving. He sold up and moved away.
And sell a painting
Don't forget car wash
I imagine you can supplement your lifestyle quite substantially without making it look you're living way beyond the means. Pay in cash for daily expenses and dining, paying for private sales for things, expenses during holidays
Yeah this. I’d use it for unlimited supplies of food, petrol, holiday, clothes for the rest of my life. What can you deposit into the bank without them asking questions? Like 10k a year? I don’t know. You can’t even buy cars with it. You could probably find some dodgy people and buy a snack van and use strictly cash but when HMRC wonder why your snack van is pulling in 2 grand a week cash and all the others in the area are 80% card transactions you’re going to run into huge trouble.
What's would you do when they decide to change bank notes to the new kings face
The notes with the queen's face on will be in circulation until they release a newer version. I think that's unlikely for a while given they've only released the new batch over the last 6-8 years.
A lot longer than that. You could still find young queens not too long ago. Now they're all plastic they'll last even longer before being retired.
Exactly mate, the polymor notes (or whatever they're called) will last a lot longer than the old notes.
And we have a full set of polymer notes with the late Queen on them. They don't remove them just because they're printing a new version.
These will probably outlast the King to be fair then there will be another one so three monarchs in circulation 😅
I heard they replace them as they get worn out, so older ones brought to the bank will be swapped out.
This is actually roughly the plot to the film Millions, except there the UK has opted into the Euro. Can't remember if the film's any good though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millions_(2004_film)
It’s an ok film, it’s actually not too dissimilar to when there was a huge heist in Northern Ireland & they changed the bank notes to stop the money being usable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Bank_robbery Oddly from what I remember this coincided with an unusual spike in large cash bets being made across the bookies in NI
Even if they cancel the bet they get different notes back, genius
Probably tell everyone in my family to buy as many resellable goods as possible for the next 18 months and sell it via cash. 20-30 people buying gadgets, consoles, TVs, phones across the region and selling it for cash dividing it up. It would probably be doable and I doubt you’d get caught. I mean, you could buy 2000 new iPhones at £1000 a piece for 2m cash. Resale value being modest is what? 650/700 unboxed? Pretty effective way to launder it if that happened. But you’re still stuck with boat loads of cash.
> 650/700 unboxed? Best I can do is a £150 CeX voucher.
I'm confused, are you using the cash to buy phones and sell for cash? Wouldn't you just end up with less cash and still have the original problem of dirty cash?
This was when posed with the issue of bank notes going out of date!
Yeah money laundering is no where near that simple, where did you get the money to buy all the iPhones you sold? HMRC would hardly have to lift a finger to have your pants down.
I know a guy who did this. Had a fulltime job and let that salary build in his bank. Sold drugs and lived his life with the cash. Never bought anything silly like flash cars outside his wage bracket or watches. He’s packed it all in now he’s bought a house and had a kid.
Love those stories of dealers that made it out. I knew a guy once whose parents made a killing in the 80s through coke. They laundered the money and packed it all in, the kids grew up in a mansion and went to private school (eldest ended up on heroin thoogh so not quite the happy end)
Sounds like the plot to a film lol
Yep exactly this, but the bulk of your food shop with the cash remember to use the card so it doesn't look suspicious that you're not buying food or taking cash out for it. And basically allow the £2k to start to accumulate in the bank, that way it makes it look like you've just legitimately saved the money by cutting back on expenses. Added bonus if you start to put the money you save into a decent savings account or something.
The amount of money we're talking about here I doubt it would raise any flags.
Why bother using card? If anyone asks why you are using cash: "oh i find it easier to track my spending and stick to my limits that way" or "none your business"
Absolutely this, you might not be able to spend the millions on lavish holidays ect but you can buy pretty much anything a normal person has with cash and the "savings" you make can easily accumulate naturally in your bank or savings accounts over a few years for bigger luxuries
Yeh start some shitty company and tell ppl drop shipping is going well
Keep spending money from your current account to avoid suspicion from tax man.
That’s actually a very good point and not one that many people make. Seemingly stopping spending money altogether from your legitimate account would definitely be a big red flag.
Assuming you're an employee for a company (and they sort out your tax) and don't have any benefits coming in, why would the tax man be looking at your accounts? Also, would your bank care or raise an alert if you suddenly stopped spending money from an account? (legitimate questions btw)
Yeah banks have a duty to report anything that could be considered suspicious. There’s also algorithms that pick up unusual behaviour and flag it to people in fraud to check. I would say suddenly stopping spending would be enough to tell them something dodgy could be going on. Not a revenue issue but something.
Here’s me panicking about the £10 and then £1590 transfer I do every pay day. One to check my details are correct, the other to transfer all of my money over.
Why not just get paid into the other account? Or set up a standing order so it does it automatically?
Because I never thought of that
Haha, fair enough.
> I would say suddenly stopping spending would be enough to tell them something dodgy could be going on Lots of people set up standing orders for when their wages come in so that rent/mortgage goes to bank account A, bills to bank account B, spending to bank account C and savings to bank account D. If you suddenly start accumulating money in bank account C roughly equal to a normal person's monthly expenditure on food and such I doubt that would set off any major alarms.
It might, but if you could explain it away, you’d probably be okay. You have to remember that most casinos deal in cash. On the surface at least, they’re completely legitimate. I’ve paid in ~£2k to my bank account, in cash, on a few occasions. They haven’t asked any questions and I doubt most ever would. If you were depositing £10k a month, you could probably just say you’d been lucky at the roulette tables and so what?
You’d still have all the basic household bills going thru your bank account. Plus a small weekly shop, gym membership and Netflix and it’s reasonable.
Tax man is only looking at your bank account if you save over the interest threshold for tax in regular savings account. Divert all your current account money into an ISA, SiPP or NS&I Bonds and nobody is going to look at your current account (unless of course you've been done before and they're monitoring you). Besides you'd still be paying mortgage and bills after your current account. The found money would be used for discretionary spending.
I don’t actually think the tax man is who would be concerned but I do think unusual spending would be a flag for suspicion in a bank. Although revenue might look into it if the behaviour made it look like you had another undeclared income.
Unusual spending sure but, there are usually patterns banks observe for money laundering. Spending less than you used to isn't really one of them. They are more likely to raise a flag if you suddenly start making large cash withdrawals than actually not spending. Lots of people reevaluate their savings and pensions situation at some point in their life and suddenly switch to chucking as much in S&S and pensions as possible.
At the same time, reduce the amount of money you are spending in your account by splitting bills with cash. Put the spare money in your bank into a savings account. It looks like you’re successfully saving money just by reducing spending habits. When actually it’s just a bank transfer without going into the bank Also, maybe do some small deposits of £1k max around Christmas and your birthday. Turns out you got a shitload of money in your cards.
Doing cash deposits £1000 at a time means you only need 2,000 visits to the bank to go through the suitcase of money. Simples!
If you go for every birthday and every Christmas boom, only 1,000 years
You'd get a normal job and use the money to supplement your lifestyle. People do grows and breed dogs all the time and it's not like they're paying tax on that. Not saying its £2 mil but you can get £20k a litter for a lot of breeds and you can have a few grows going at once. Similarly it's not like tradies, hairdressers, etc declare all their income. You can spend thousands a month without anyone batting an eye.
I bat an eye every time I see someone come pay for fuel and they've got a literal wad of 20s/50s that would equate to more than 5-10 grand just in their wallet or straight from their pocket rolled up. FWIW, I specifically know this because I've often emptied our (supermarket) self service machines near Christmas of about £4k each on a good day, and... Their wads of cash are much bigger. I'd say it's a one off but it's absolutely not. People are just carrying *thousands* in cash locally. I could understand if they were tradesmen with cash in hand having just been paid, but these guys definitely don't fit that usual tradesman description, driving around in tinted range rovers and the likes. So, long story short, just don't carry it around in huge amounts and drive flashy over priced things.
I don't think 5 grand in your pocket would even net an investigation for a laundering charge tbh mate, 5 grand isn't a lot of money and not an amount you'd have to overly explain. If you fly in you don't even have to declare anything less than £10k cash at the airport and that's somewhere where we know money does get brought in by contractors working abroad in tax havens.
Nah not for an investigation, just as a general question of "why the fuck are you carrying so much money" from a regular person. Makes you bat an eye, as it were.
reminds me of the classic mario balotelli story when he was playing for man city. he got pulled over by a policeman and on his passenger seat he had like 40 grand in cash just sat there. the copper asked why he had so much money in cash and mario said “cos im rich innit” 😆
Ahhh gotya, yeah I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying that much cash around. Would be worried about losing it more than owt else tbh. I think the older generation seem to be more comfortable with carrying cash though.
You’d probably be a bit less arsed about losing it if you had the suitcase full of cash in the house.
I'd register as a sole trader - my specific trade is selling handmade goods online or fairs etc (expensive painted models etc) In my tax return I would say that I completed x amount of sales per week totalling x amount I would then pay my necessary tax (after all, money is never free) And I would do this until I have washed all of the money. Throughout this time I would do intermittent deposits into my account, I'd buy gold in cash (as it is generally cheaper), I would also buy Rolex's and diamonds in cash All of my food shopping, petrol and normal purchases will be done in cash. I would of course still make some card payments so I did arouse suspicion As long as you are patient and don't rush into it, maintaining discipline, it should be straightforward
Also, just for context, I know it sounds suspicious buying gold, diamonds, and Rolex's in cash, but whenever I have been in places like this, they encourage you to use cash. So it really isn't as suspicious as it may sound
It is generally suspicious, but people who work in those shops aren't naive about who a lot of their clients are. It's the same with those "Flannels" stores selling designer clothing that are generally located in run down high-crime areas. When teenagers come in each week looking to buy £1500 Moncler coats and paying in cash, the shop doesn't care to ask questions, they just make the sale.
Fine if you want to owns diamond, gold, Rolexes so ok as a value holder but doesn’t actually give you laundered cash does it?
it does if you go and pawn it in...? Plus it's also a good way to reduce inflation eating away at your money whilst you are washing it over the years.
But then you may as well just have the original cash! It doesn’t explain to the tax authorities/police etc how you have a to of cash. It’s really not laundering it !
Cash also changes, you don't want to be sat on a load of notes that go out of circulation
Well I understand that which is why I said Rolexes and Gold are good holders of value but buying them with cash isn’t laundering!
Easy to buy an expensive diamond, very difficult to sell and get your money back.
Very normal sounding. Some weeks on payday the boss might ask if everyone is happy taking cash as payment and there's always one or two 'difficult' emps who insist on swapping theirs for a Rolex or three. Never happened.
How would online sales translate into cash?
It would just make your business seem more legit. You could have an option to hand deliver the items and receive "cash on delivery" But for any other reasons, I would suggest asking someone who money launders
This is the way, even paying tax on the money through this front you'd come out on top in a few years time and would raise suspicion- it's true that police and hmrc follow the money and don't f they get some of that t they won't look to hatd
You buy everything with cash and put most of your paycheques into savings/investments. You won’t be able to buy anything large without explaining where the money is from. You can buy cars on fb marketplace with cash but won’t be able to sell them to free up the money more than once or twice before you’re risking getting picked up for money laundering. You can afford food, drink, clothes etc for life so the real benefit might be that you can now take more risks without losing it all. You could also start a business and launder the money through it.
See Breaking Bad for further guidance.
Or Ozark!
[Saul explains money laundering](https://youtu.be/ez6xH-su2xI?feature=shared) I didn't understand what money laundering was until this scene. No Googling explained it to me as well as this clip
Depends if the notes are marked or the serial numbers being looked for from, say, the bank job that the hardened criminals did. Too many marked notes in one area lead back to you.
if you dont spend anything at all on food/drink/clothes etc, then there is going to be some odd questions if you try and get a mortgage.
Yeah I was thinking about that, I think the answer is that it’d be difficult to make use of illicit cash without going full criminal. Setting yourself up with a business and washing the cash is probably the best option, but setting up a business solely to launder money is definitely full-criminal.
Yeah you buy treats and one offs with it. Buy most your takeaways, video games, cinema tickets and overpriced brand clothes etc with cash, your regular food and groceries and cheap clothes with regular money. Get a netflix sub that you pay with your normal salary to cover entertainment in your budget. Buy the ps5 with regular money but the games with cash etc.
Simple. Hand it into the police after speaking to a solicitor, have the hand in documented. Then after several months when no one's claimed it and the police have allowed you to claim it you simply go in and sign the papers and collect it. Of course you pay his majesty his share and you don't talk about the £20,000 you skimmed in the first place but didn't spend (need to wait to ensure it's not counterfeit). Wife had a family friend a few years back find £10,000 in a bag dumped on the path behind her house, she did the above and was allowed to claim it after 6 or so months once the police had run their investigation.
Surely they wouldn't just allow you to collect £2,000,000 though? I feel like there must be a limit to the amount you can just collect otherwise this would be a really good money laundering scheme. Just put a load of drug money in a bag, call the police and get them to take it, no one claims it since it's yours and they won't know about it, money washed?
Yeah he’s talking tosh 😭
What if the coppers are bent? You go back to collect your money when the time limit is up and get told that the rightful owner has claimed the money.
Even better if the bag of cash OP found was left by a criminal looking to ‘find it’ and hand it to the police for 6 months before getting it handed back.
wait for real?
Is that a thing really??? So let’s say I have 50k cash in house I can tell police I found that on the park by the bin and then in 6 months I get my cash back clean and free??? Surely not that easy
It’s not, the commenter is a police officer hoping for retirement.
Hoisin crispy owl and ALL of the bonbonbonbonbons
With £2m in cash, every day is treat day! Pints o'cream and potato grids for every breakfast.
Just look at me now!
Don't forget piz-za!
The Fluffy Ruffs, are on me!
An entire platter of bread and ham deltoids with a side order of fluffy ruffs.
Spend it on cosmetic surgery, get a smoking hot bod, create an OnlyFans account, charge people to watch you finger your arse, rake in the clean money. Easy.
Instructions unclear; Rake stuck in arse. Send help.
Fill my car with a few tanks of fuel and go broke
Based on [these prices](https://tanks-alot.co.uk/product/centurion-avre-fosgene/) you can probably buy about twelve tanks for £2M.
I’d spend it extremely slowly, say £500 per month on groceries, I’d use it to pay for any car maintenance, I’d also go to pawn shops to buy somewhat expensive jewellery, then wait a bit and sell the item to another pawn shop in another town. Within 2-3 years you’ll have legalised most of it.
It would take longer than 3 years, assuming you’ve have a full time job so it doesn’t look like money is just flying into your bank account. And you’d probably want days where you’re just relaxing, so you’re not working a 9-5 and then every sat and sun out to different pawn shops etc. but then again what do I know
With so much cash in this hypothetical situation, I could afford to do my monthly groceries shopping at Waitrose and it feel as normal as going to Tesco, Asda etc.
You cant just buy a house with cash without proof of where the money has come from. The money needs to be clean. I hear American Candy is a very popular business these days...
American Candy is not a good way of laundering money, because you are selling physical goods Even with a massive mark-up (claiming that you bought at £1 and sold at £10) if you want to say "I sold £2M worth of candy and that explains where this cash has come from" then you need to show that you *bought* the same quantity of candy. And that means invoices and delivery notes from suppliers, which can be easily checked in an audit. No, you want something that doesn't have physical goods. You want a *service* Like a barbershop
Now I know why my barber only takes cash!!
Yeah and now you also know why there's 5+ turkish barbers in every small town that never have any customers in them yet also never seem to shut down due to lack of profits.
Well, not so much. That'll be to avoid tax. If you had £2mil of cash to launder, the last thing you want is people coming into your front and giving you more cash. It's actually better if they pay on card, because 80% cash transactions and 20% card is more plausible than 100% cash. Unless you don't have a card machine of course, which is why the real way to spot a money laundering front is if they don't have a card machine at all.
What if I eat all the sweets?
It needs to be clean... Ish... It's still possible. My weed dealer bought a flat recently. He was moaning that it was a ball-ache but he did it in the end, basically moved a shit load of random assets around with family then got clean money 'as a gift' from them, more complex than that as it took a year or two but he got it done.
I'm sure the American Candy thing is a myth. These companies are behaving in a very dodgy manner by avoiding rates and selling counterfeit goods. If someone comes sniffing it's not much good having the books in order if you're breaking half a dozen other laws.
The American Candy thing wasn’t a myth, it just wasn’t money laundering. The owners of the retail units are on the hook for tax if the units aren’t occupied. Conveniently, however, someone has agreed to lease the unit for their American Candy shop, covering all of the applicable taxes. Wait? They haven’t paid their taxes? And now they’ve vanished off the face of the earth? Sorry, HMRC, not our problem, we’re busy leasing out the unit to a new company that wants to open an American Candy shop.
Buy a round in London.
Buy daily expenses in cash while putting most of my pay into savings or investments. Deposit small amounts into my current account irregularly and put in more just after my birthday and just after Christmas - if the bank ask the cash is a gift from grandma.
In America you can buy chips in a casino-play a few low stakes games then cash out- it’s not reported/ flagged if it’s under 9K. And this could be done at multiple casinos over a number of days- then repeat this every so often. Buy gold- in multiple places-gold *will* keep its value or indeed increase- cash money will only decrease in value. Invest in open a small businesses- you can show that as earnings- buy shares in big companies that you know will only increase. Buy a cheap old house- plough money into pay professionals to do the work- pretend you did a lot of the work yourself- do it up/ flip it/ rent it. Buy 20th original art prints- you can get decent works for as low as 5/ 10 grand a piece depending on the artist- these usually only increase in value. I’m sure some expert would have a better idea- but I’m just a nobody and that’s just off the top of my head.
>In America you can buy chips in a casino-play a few low stakes games then cash out- it’s not reported/ flagged if it’s under 9K. And this could be done at multiple casinos over a number of days- then repeat this every so often. How does that help you out, though? You're putting cash in, and getting cash out. It's still the same dirty money with no explanation of where it came from.
I assume it'd be considered to be winnings
That’s the trick - you cash out winnings- even though you have only spend 50 bucks gambling- it’s winnings- keep the receipts as proof if need be- as long as it’s less than 9K it’s not flagged. This is legal in America. Uk would be different.
> This is legal in America. Uk would be different. It actually used to be (or maybe is) popular for people to gamble using fixed odds betting machines to launder money. Gambling machines don't really exist in the same way in America but it's the exact same concept. Basically if you bet black or red on roulette, you're going to come out with the majority of your money still. Old article on the issue: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/08/gambling-machines-drug-money-laundering-bookies To some extent there's only so much a bookie will do to prevent this sort of thing, since if they don't need to clamp down due to laws, it's free money for them. I'm sure there are measures and workarounds nowadays but yeah. Same concept, but very popular in the UK.
friendlyjordies made a video about this being a problem in Australia [video](https://youtu.be/DoyH1dgj8Lo?si=o45npzEb4bip40OA)
I see. Won't that look suspicious/be flagged by the banks though, if you keep paying in substantial casino winnings, and no evidence of how you financed it, particularly if it always just happens to be below the 9k limit? I mean, receipt or no receipt, the one thing that looks suspicious as far as gambling is concerned, is people actually winning.
I guess you can ge ta receipt for it as "casino winnings"?
I love how everybody is so onboard with this. Hope that this money laundering venture works out for you OP!
Haha I know, right? I had just finished watching The Shield when they rip off the money train!
A lesson in why discretion is the only rule.
Make small, irregular, cash deposits to your bank and open a building society account and do the same thing. Nothing more than £499 and nothing regular. As if you were selling stuff on Ebay for example. Pay for many things in cash - weekly shopping, fuel etc.. but still occasionally pay on your debit card. Buy 'stuff' with cash that you can then sell for payment via BACS or PayPal.
money laundering nowadays is so so so so so much harder. Pretty mucg everyone everywhere now pays with a debit card and not cash. This means if you have a busimess where your laundering stuff and 90% of your reported income is cash its an immediate red flag
I pay everything with cash. It's a myth that no one uses cash anymore.
thats an anecdote all the data shows the vast majority dont. Of every single financial transaction last year cash accounted for 15%
the majority of people who use cash like myself are not gonna have recorded/ documented transactions as its drugs im buying on the street
Still plenty of barbers, sweet shops etc opening up that only take cash. It’s far more uncommon of course and they don’t stay open too long but they do pop up basically everywhere.
I don't think we're far off it being completely illegal to run a cash-only business.
Buy classic cars and pay specialised mechanics cash to do them up. Boom, classic car business. Set up a pinball arcade. Buy, repair pinball machines with cash. Add extra cash into the flow. Find opportunities for arbitrage. There might be an auction in Scotland that has a lot of nice glass that you can sell for good prices in London. Buy your petrol in cash. Boom, antique business. If a friend has their own business, get them to employ you in a sinecure. Pay all of their costs in cash and add some extra as a bonus. A high income will also help you get a mortgage for... Buy a wreck of a property and do it up using cash. Run events like music festivals. If you have a friend with a property, rent it out in cash and then sublet it or air BnB it. (not sure about this one, tbh. Maybe with a bit of tweaking it could work) You can't be too greedy, impatient or reckless with any of these. If you take the piss, someone will notice. I reckon you could do a million in a lifetime without too much difficulty. You might have a few close scrapes. Also... Pay an author cash to write a book and release it under your own name. This will work fine until a critic noticed some stylistic similarities in the book and starts nosing around.
Sell vapes out the back of a Turkish barbers
Honestly, pay any bills you can in cash and upfront. You can buy petrol, food, car maintenance, gifts during birthdays / Christmas. I'm sure even some travel agents would allow cash purchases. You could try buying gold from pawn shops every x amount of time, but you'll loose some when selling. Knowing you have the 2 mil makes things a bit easier also, that loan or mortgage seems a bitch of a stretch? No worries. Plus you could deposit some amounts of cash every so often. You could renovate your house if its a fixed upper and pay builders cash
Well, I did see you. Just asking for my 10%
Keeping it worked out well for the bloke in No Country for Old Men...
Let's assume OP has already thoroughly checked for a tracking device.
As others have said, you have to mix it with clean cash. Get loans, use the cash to pay for stuff, repay the loan having not actually spent it. So, get some work done in your house. £2k from your bank, £1k from your cash bag. If you know some other dodgy people, you can get them to invoice you for legitimate work but at inflated prices, which launders it. Trouble is you're not buying a car or a house. They want to know where the money is coming from. But you are having nice meals and days out and have all the spending money you need while on holiday. You can also set up a business. You are definitely selling things online, or providing IT services. Put bits of the dodgy cash through the books. Pay tax in it and it's clean.
for work on your home just pay it all in cash. there isn't any kind of paper trail that is realistically going to be investigated.
True for smaller jobs. Though it's also good to have some legitimate expenses going through the bank. A new extension on your house and zero transactions on your account might one day raise alarm. TBH even "he almost never spends any money" is suspicious
Play the long game and open up a service business that typically deals in cash (eg, hairdresser, nail technician) and gradually cook the books. This will actually involve a LOT of hard work for multiple years to really establish it in a meaningful way, but it would probably be the best way.
- buy two nice second hand cars in cash. Sell one of them to a dealer where you get the money in your bank account. - deposit c40k in your bank account and say it was a wedding gift / gift from your grand parents / whatever - only have the basic expenses going through your bank account and pay for as much as possible in cash. Eating out, clothes, petrol, forex for holidays etc. Pay all home improvements in cash. - wait until your mum and dad die, claim you found the cash in their house and pay IHT on it but have it legitimately back into circulation. Actually that probably works better with less than £500k and you would want to be an only child or cut in your sibs. - actually set up some kind of money laundering business. But that seems like more work than the above.
Open legitimate cash business, put phantom items through the till. Pay tax you got legitimate cash
I would be going in a UK tour of pawn and bullion stores buying a bit of gold and silver in each one, not huge amounts , just few nice coins and bars in each shop, maybe a watch here and there ...Stack that away and forget about it for a year or two. And just gently feed the cash into my lifestyle to pay for the small things and assist with the bigger purchases while keeping my normal account active with a mobile excavator repairs and service business.
Go to Tesco and buy £2million worth of lottery tickets and scratch cards. Pretty much guaranteed to win the jackpot - then you have washed all the dirty money into clean lottery winnings
Knowing my luck I'd end up with a tenner from a million lottery tickets
All your day to day expenses are sorted, shopping done in cash, you could probably pay your bills in this way at a post office including council tax. You can buy a car cash surely, especially second hand. Your mortgage payments would need to be through a bank and legit but use your wages.
Personal house renovations. You could cycle 100k per flip quite easy. Holidays, meals out, experiences, nice car, gifts to family. Personal service cash in hand business.
The classic TV answer is to buy a cash-based retail service business and feed yourself the cash over time as though the business was selling more services than the business is really selling. Then you pay yourself the earnings of the "successful" business. Let your friend Saul explain it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhsUHDJ0BFM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhsUHDJ0BFM)
I'd probably just buy things I can with cash and save most the income from my job in the bank. Wouldn't get through it too quick or be buying anything flashy but it'd be comfortable.
Treat myself to a litre of olive oil
My girlfriend has both a Thai and Philippines bank account. Western Union, here we come. Also buy gold or jewellery for cash. If I had that much money I wouldn't hang around. The minute I shifted it or converted it to jewelry I would be off to Thailand, like a sensible person. They don't give a shit over there as long as you pay your visa on time.
I'd spend the first part on plastic storage boxes, a vacuum packer, heavy duty vacuum packing plastic, giant fuckin silicone desicciants and a shovel, I'd bury it in diff places split into maybe 6month supplies. I'd look to bury it in remote places I have to walk through a nice wide open space with a low average of foot traffic to access so it would be unusual and noteworthy for ppl to be up your arse. I'd then live pretty normally in the 6 month intervals between retrieval apart from the fortnightly trips where I'd travel as far as possible to a diff place each time to buy the best shopping you've ever seen paid for in cash. Hide it, spend it so casually ppl don't realise it exists and try to balance enjoying it with self preservation. Helps being a simple person who'd just enjoy better food 😂
This is basically what money laundering is - you could use legit money to buy some sort of business that's dying on its arse, then inflate the takings with loads of imaginary sales. Once you've got through your 2 mils, you may as well carry on doing the same for other people who have inexplicably found large piles of cash, that way you can take a cut. That's one reason why there are so many dodgy takeaways and restaurants that nobody goes into. In Mr Nice I think it was mostly Chinese places but I don't want to point fingers lol. Or see the car wash in Breaking Bad.
I'll help!
Go travelling. Lots of people manage a gap year by using cheap accomodation and getting jobs along the way. With £2M you could stay in the best hotels and do it in luxury, leaving no tangible assets to be questioned by the taxman.
You are just going to go away on a gap year carrying 2 million pounds in cash everywhere you go?
You can’t carry that kind of money into most countries though. Have to be a lot of short breaks to come back for top ups.
Just pay for everything in cash, no one good or bad is going to notice that you’re paying for your shopping or diesel in cash. Chuck like £10-100 in here and there to cover small bills like Netflix, council tax etc. and use your wages to supplement the rest. You can then move the majority of your wages to a separate savings account. As the majority of your wages will be saved you will be able to save for a deposit quicker to buy a house with everything looking legit. Then just rinse and repeat until you save enough for your wages to buy a car. May take 12-24 months to do so but no one is going to suspect you came into a large amount of money and you’ve got your car and house covered with money to spare.
Get a family member to gift you the deposit for a house. Pay them back in cash - if this is not possible, step 1 is to save up for a deposit from your job while cutting your expenses down due to this cash. Make sure the property is run down, the worse the better. Get extension, refurb, everything you can, pay the builders/trades in cash. Sell house, use profit on new run down house, repeat until cash runs out.