Police investigate ‘Turkish’ barber shops over money laundering

45 comments

1. Every Turkish barber shop in the UK? Doubtful. They all tax evade and money launder. It’s why it’s cash only lol.

2. This is common knowledge. My town is mostly vape shops and Turkish barbers. There are 2 on every street and always 2-3 barbers sat there doing nothing at all. There’s no way they should be able to sustain those businesses with that rent.
   I did try to use one once for my son and he clearly had no hairdressing qualifications or experience whatsoever. It was a complete mess.

3. nah, it’s not about money laundering, it’s about reputation. They are in an arms race against Greggs to see who can fill up the most high streets the quickest. Entire international community is watching to see if Gregg’s Five Year Plan will guarantee 20 Greggs for every town, or if the Turkish Barbers Free Market will end up surpassing them

4. Probably tax avoidance as well, which is why American sweet shops, and shops selling tourist tat in premium retail space took off.

5. Where I live, there are 12 within an area of 1.5 miles. It’s like every empty shop becomes a Turkish barbers. All of them can only do one style of haircut, no matter what you ask for

6. Yet the American sweet shops and Harry Potter shops in London are still there.

7. Always random blokes outside looking at their phones as well

8. I think a lot of people misunderstand what the con is here. The business model is the owner rents chairs to the barbers. That’s the money laundering aspect. Crime gangs take on the lease, rent the chairs out and mix crime cash in with legitimate cash in what is widely known as a high cash industry. This is why they need one on every street corner seemingly, because there’s an accepted market rate for chairs in each area, and even if they don’t have to publicly post income on companies house they will have to report it when doing a tax return so having multiple premises is preferred to renting the chairs out for an obscene amount. 

   Your particular barber being popular and a nice guy has absolutely no bearing on the viability of the business as a front. They may be legit, they may also be making a ludicrous surplus with all the spare cash they don’t have to kick up after the rent effectively gets paid for them. 

9. Mine has always accepted card, it’s never been an issue.

10. Ok so they only just figured it out like 5 years later. Hmmmm

11. Tax evasion – any business who takes cash can so easily not declare it. Meanwhile if there is no paper trail of income they are also claiming benefits from the state.
    No NI to pay but uses health service
    No tax to pay but receives money from UK government

    The HMRC should be pinning this down

12. Not sure any Turkish barber has ever seen a pair of scissors. Just clipper it to an inch of its life. Everyone comes out with the same style. Also why do they have a photo of David Beckham in the window. Has anyone ask for one?

13. The Turkish barbers in my town act like they are fucking Tony soprano, using the empty barbers as a sort of hangout with tables and chairs outside the front with them all sat talking shit and smoking all day.

    One even started on me whilst I was stood at a bus stop because I just so happened to be looking in his direction whilst waiting for a bus to arrive.

    Also heard of many people getting awful cuts from people who seem to not know what they are doing.

14. There is only one haircut.

    You want chop chop?

    Yes please. I’ll take the chop chop.. and hope for the best.

15. Nothing new hear, the Turkish barbers by me also had a brothel above it which got raided.

16. Racists, we all know the best money laundering is done by the Albanians 😂

17. I’m not quite sure the majority of Reddit understands what money laundering means. Granted there are definitely instances of it going on but when it’s a cash only business that’s always busy with actual customers it’s more likely just tax evasion.

18. There is a whole street where I live that is literally full of Turkish barbers. Everyone is cash only and they never really seem to be that busy most days. Expensive flash cars all parked up outside but it’s all completely legit right?

19. I feel like half the high street is a front for money laundering these days. It’s a sad state of affairs.

20. If the government did away with cash, (we’re already moving towards a cashless society), would this cripple crime gangs? Or would they find another way?

21. Whaaaat? I’m sure the men of my town are hairy enough to keep a dozen or so barbers in business all day every day with multiple staff

22. Just make it mandatory for them to give receipts to every customer and keep the copies for 5 years, and watch them closing.

23. I mean yea, you can’t do all your money laundering with the American sweet shops on Oxford Street… I think it’s called “diversifying your portfolio”

24. There is a DVD-RW shop in central London and nobody cares how they survive in this economy. This is mostly lip service.

25. If I were the police I’d ask to inspect the maintenance records on their Floor brooms just in case they claim the Dustmen have already been.

26. Visited my old home town last week and popped in with my stepdad to an actual Turkish barber who’s been part of the community for over 20 years to say hi! & primarily to ask wtf with all the identikit LED adorned vape and energy drink shops that have sprung up. The previous night an old mate gave me the ‘guided tour’ (once I’d got the lowdown on just how many of my old schoolmates had OD’d or committed suicide.). of how many there were, not the whole town , just two very long connected main roads, got to over a dozen before my utter incredulity rendered me unable to keep counting. This is in one of Western Europe’s most economically deprived areas, it’s been dying for decades.
    According to him they are Iraqi Kurds and Iranians washing cash from drug and people trafficking, they’ve recently started leaning on him in case he needs ‘protection’ , which is nice of them.
    So, thin the herd of the undeserving Lumpenproles and replace them with imported slave labour? wins all round. Still, think of the street food.

27. Must be a lucrative business combined with tax evasion. I asked after my regular barber and the guy who turned out to be the owner went on a tirade that he just upped and left. He brings them over from Turkey untrained, pays for their visas then puts them up with free room and board in a flat above a takeaway he owns in the next town over and pays them a flat £800 a month.

    I’m assuming he can afford to keep up this conveyor belt of visa fees while driving the motor he does by paying sweet FA on tax. Or money laundering, who knows.

28. Great news, Tax fraud should be a big priority right now, and whilst you’re at it send police to the biggest businesses in the UK aswell ! Offshore banking ! Creative accounting etc

29. I used to go to a Turkish barber untill he retired.
    First time I went in I wanted to style my hair after a couple years of having the missus shave me down to a grade 2.
    Turned out the dude did the flaming cotton stuff, tidied up any beard sat in his chair or in my case just straight ravor shaved the stubble off as part of his standard service.

    I could live with having half the high street being Turkish barbers if even half of them were as good as that guy was.

    Meanwhile my current barber laments that “All I do every day is skinfades, but keeps me in business because they’re back every single week to have it done again”

30. This plus vape shops and investigating mean comments online.

    Police must be swamped.

31. There are a lot of chairs in these barbers, that’s to justify the amounts of cash going through, not to cope with a rush, the Turkish barbers near me never has more than one person in it and they’re stood around watching tv, its been there for 5 years like that, the owner now owns 6 other buildings in the street.

32. A few days ago, I made a comment that got dozens of downvotes about how Turkish and Kurdish barbershops are a major problem in the UK and hotspots for criminal activity—money laundering, tax evasion, drugs, gangs, etc. When I pointed out that there was no way immigrants could afford to run these businesses with so few clients while simultaneously owning luxury cars, expensive jewelry, and Rolex watches, I was called a racist bigot (for the record, I’m a second-generation immigrant).

    I’ve been going to these barbershops for the past 10 years—but not anymore, since they only seem to know one haircut: a skin fade. About 95% of them only accept cash, and if they do have a card reader, they’ll charge you extra just for “making” them pay tax. A lot of them are cool people, sure, but it’s blatantly unfair that they get away with openly disregarding the law while the rest of us work hard, only to have half our earnings taxed—just so the government can send more missiles to Israel to nuke Palestinian toddlers.

    Unfortunately, like always, nothing will come of this.

33. The barber I go to isn’t Turkish he’s English, he has a completely automated online only booking system but somehow doesn’t have the facilities to take card payment.

34. Within 5 min walk of my house, I have 5 Turkish barbers and only one of them accepts contactless and the only one that does, is the only one that puts any effort into haircuts lol.

35. Near where I live there is a cafe and opposite is a turkish barber thats been there for about 5 years. Over the top fancy signs and decorated interior, with hardly any customers. The cafe staff one day decided to take note of customers throughout the day to see how “legit” it was and they counted roughly around 6-10 customers per day for a month… The two guys who work in there both drive blacked out AMG C63 Mercedes too wearing designer clothes and jewellery.

    The government absolutely knows that this is going on all over the country but turn a blind eye because they are getting their cut of the most likely drug money through tax.

36. The actual dodgy “Turkish” businesses, are most likely to be Albanian in truth.

    Albania’s ethnic mafia virtually runs that country and has spread it’s tendrils throughout Europe & Anatolia.

37. Money laundering is when crime cash is given to the barber (or Oxford St sweet shop), and the barber declares the cash as earned from work. Anybody can work out that if a lone barber is taking in more than £2k pw (£40 an hour, 50 hours pw), then either he is superhumanly fast – or other cash is coming in.

38. Ok, some or all Turkish barbers may be fronts for drugs and money laundering, but that is not the reason there are so many.

    The reason there are so many is they are easy to open and run.

    One way to gain a working Visa to the UK is to start a business. A barber shop is relatively cheap, limited stock, cheap premises, and the business plan is easily replicated. Your cousin opens one and shares the business plan.

    I asked my local Turkish barber what the deelio was. And he’s Curdish not Turkish.

39. My two cents; my city has circa 40k population and 87 registered turkish barbers according to companies house.

    Assuming £15 per haircut and average running costs of £100k per year, to break even every male would need to get 2-3 haircuts per month. Something not adding up

40. now do the American Candy shops and Harry Potter shops in London please

41. I think I have a slightly unique perspective on this.

    I dated a Turkish guy for about two years. He was the son of a millionaire who owned huge factories outside Istanbul. He explained that him and all of his friends were over on the Ankara Agreement, letting Turkish people relocate to the UK under the provision that they start a business here.

    I found out that him and most of his friends were running fake “consultancy” companies; marketing or communications and basically sending made up invoices to each other to appear legitimate. They didn’t care about making money since they were all living off their parents funds; most also owned luxury property here. The guy in particular had a listed two bed apartment 5 minutes from Westminster Abbey. He did eventually open a real cafe in West London only after he argued with his parents who then insisted he make a real business (again though, starting with their money).

    Knowing all that, it’s no surprise there’s been an explosion of Turkish barbers and grills across the capital. I think it’s the easiest way to settle here.

42. Our high street is full of barber shops and nail bars. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not an affluent area.
    There’s never anyone in, and I’ve said all along that these shops are a front for money laundering..
    Rent at £1000 per week, 3 blokes who want a minimum of £500 per week. One shop needs a minimum of 250 customers per week, and I bet we’ve 10 of them. No chance.. something dodgy is going on.

43. There are three on one very short high street in my town. Plus one hairdressers. There can’t be that much business. But don’t they need paying customers for the money laundering to work?

44. The one near me is open in the evening and is quite busy.

    Fair play to them as I live in quite a small town and it’s one of the only places that is busy in the evening during the week.

45. I knew one which was a front for people smuggling. We told the police more than once and they refused to do anything because they didn’t have the resources and didn’t want to raid it despite in the evenings seeing Cascades of different people get harboured there. Was infuriating.

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