How money laundering took over our high streets

LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 18: A logo is displayed outside an American candy store near Piccadilly Circus on July 18, 2023 in London, England. The proliferation of American-style candy stores in Oxford Street and the surrounding area began in 2017 and increased significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic when well-known shop chains closed down leaving buildings empty. Landlords moved them in rent-free hoping they would pay business rates but many have been prosecuted for non-payment. More recently, trading standards and police have targeted many of the shops and confiscated thousands of pounds worth of counterfeit and dangerous goods. Westminster City Council wrote to the landlords in May begging them to do “all that they can” to bring the influx of the stores to an end. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

American candy stores and vape shops are the new face of financial crime, hiding in plain sight, says Marit Rodevand

Walk down almost any British high street today and you’ll see them: neon-lit candy stores selling purportedly “American” sweets, vape shops and barbers with a faded poster of Cristiano Ronaldo taped to the window. Superficially, these look like the new face of post-pandemic retail, catering to shifting consumer demand.

But peel back the stickered windows, and a darker economy hums beneath the till. Recent police operations, which have seen hundreds arrested and thousands of shops raided across the country, make clear something much darker is happening on our high streets.

Take a singular transaction for example. A man walks into a vape shop and buys a £10 disposable vape. The owner then pockets the cash, so as to seem like part of a daily turnover that looks legitimate enough to the outside world.

But instead of declaring the true revenue to HMRC, a chunk of those earnings gets folded into an offshore network of shell companies registered under harmless-sounding names: “Cloud Retail”, “Sweet Candy Imports”. Funds are then shifted repeatedly between those shell companies, sometimes into accounts in low-visibility........

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