I think anyone with a brain figured out all of those shops were just money laundering fronts years ago. I can only fathom that they aren’t being shut down properly because some higher up MP probably has some sort of financial interest in it all.
The fact this has been happening for 10+ years is crazy (I remember the first opening). And all the time it just keeps expanding.
> In the latest swoop, trading standards and police targeted two shops and confiscated over 7,000 items worth £145,000, including unsafe charging leads. Nearly 4,000 e-cigarettes with double the UK limit of nicotine were also seized.
None of that is unique to these organised pop-up fronts, though I’m happy for them to use any recourse necessary to shut them down.
I think the noted approach is backward. If you’re fighting something that can just disappear and come back you concentrate on the bits they can’t recover.
These businesses can exist because the landlords don’t give a fuck about the area and just want their investment ticking over. Mandate they are responsible if they’re shown to do no due diligence in finding occupants. A residential landlord won’t look twice at you if you couldn’t prove your income the past year, why are this lot letting any name without a corporeal form or history of trading take up residence repeatedly.
Give them 2 strikes and on the second it’s a compulsory purchase and the local council can refit it into public toilets, a dedicated ebike/scooter bay to keep them off the street, or a tourist information hub. Sure you can’t do it to every one in London, but after a few:
– The negligent landlords will buck up their ideas
– The landlords part of the criminal organisations will sell up
Compare Oxford Street’s candy shops in London with the counterfeit shops in the Cheetham Hill / Strangeways area of Manchester. I think that Manchester has the better, no-nonsense approach. Raid them and shut them down.
Private Eye addressed this repeatedly many years ago. (Ten, certainly I’d say). I could swear that in addition to the loss to local revenue and the help to organised crime they identified, they spoke about possible and traceable routes of this cash being funnelled to groups sponsoring certain terrorist actions, radical Islamist in nature. Bugger all seems to have been done.
In most countries if rates are not paid the property is eventually seized and sold.
That’s financial crime being committed in broad day light in plain sight on the busiest streets by very sloppy amateurs and the government is pretty much not doing a thing.
Now imagine all the large scale tax fraud, money laundering that the pros have been doing behind the scenes for decades.
HMRC only comes for the small hard working business.
Money laundering front for either some sort of fraud or drug importation. The fact they shut down and reopen under another LTD company so frequently just makes it harder to catch up with the anonymous owners, it’s also why they don’t have to worry about business rates and they don’t have to publish the accounts. They just need business bank account to deposit cash and a business which can look like it’s taking in lots of money without raising suspicion. transfer the money out to a “supplier over seas” then start again under new names. Be interesting to see who all the owners are. When I looked into it there was a lot of Arab names and alot of director and name changes so not sure it’ll be easy.
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I think anyone with a brain figured out all of those shops were just money laundering fronts years ago. I can only fathom that they aren’t being shut down properly because some higher up MP probably has some sort of financial interest in it all.
The fact this has been happening for 10+ years is crazy (I remember the first opening). And all the time it just keeps expanding.
> In the latest swoop, trading standards and police targeted two shops and confiscated over 7,000 items worth £145,000, including unsafe charging leads. Nearly 4,000 e-cigarettes with double the UK limit of nicotine were also seized.
None of that is unique to these organised pop-up fronts, though I’m happy for them to use any recourse necessary to shut them down.
I think the noted approach is backward. If you’re fighting something that can just disappear and come back you concentrate on the bits they can’t recover.
These businesses can exist because the landlords don’t give a fuck about the area and just want their investment ticking over. Mandate they are responsible if they’re shown to do no due diligence in finding occupants. A residential landlord won’t look twice at you if you couldn’t prove your income the past year, why are this lot letting any name without a corporeal form or history of trading take up residence repeatedly.
Give them 2 strikes and on the second it’s a compulsory purchase and the local council can refit it into public toilets, a dedicated ebike/scooter bay to keep them off the street, or a tourist information hub. Sure you can’t do it to every one in London, but after a few:
– The negligent landlords will buck up their ideas
– The landlords part of the criminal organisations will sell up
Compare Oxford Street’s candy shops in London with the counterfeit shops in the Cheetham Hill / Strangeways area of Manchester. I think that Manchester has the better, no-nonsense approach. Raid them and shut them down.
Private Eye addressed this repeatedly many years ago. (Ten, certainly I’d say). I could swear that in addition to the loss to local revenue and the help to organised crime they identified, they spoke about possible and traceable routes of this cash being funnelled to groups sponsoring certain terrorist actions, radical Islamist in nature. Bugger all seems to have been done.
In most countries if rates are not paid the property is eventually seized and sold.
That’s financial crime being committed in broad day light in plain sight on the busiest streets by very sloppy amateurs and the government is pretty much not doing a thing.
Now imagine all the large scale tax fraud, money laundering that the pros have been doing behind the scenes for decades.
HMRC only comes for the small hard working business.
Money laundering front for either some sort of fraud or drug importation. The fact they shut down and reopen under another LTD company so frequently just makes it harder to catch up with the anonymous owners, it’s also why they don’t have to worry about business rates and they don’t have to publish the accounts. They just need business bank account to deposit cash and a business which can look like it’s taking in lots of money without raising suspicion. transfer the money out to a “supplier over seas” then start again under new names. Be interesting to see who all the owners are. When I looked into it there was a lot of Arab names and alot of director and name changes so not sure it’ll be easy.