I live in London and its not just these candy stores, there are lots of restaurants with almost no customers that stay open with no obvious means of support…it is almost certainly money laundering. I am amazed that the local council allow these stores.
@@charlottefactteller2519 Money laundering is all over the world. But the thing is, in London it is totally in the open. Even people on the streets know what happens there with these businesses. It seems the government and the police gave up with the UK.
These candy shop guys should go into banking, that's where the real money laundering goes on. I laughed out loud when the guy in the audio said £5 million has been lost that could have gone to the entire nation. Jeez, that's incomparable to the tax free billions that are squirreled away by friends of the government.
American here. Just got back from London. Despite being called American candy stores, my friend and I didn’t recognize many of the brands and those places felt so sketch. We talked about how they seemed like fronts.
He did edit in additional commentary from him a bit later. I mean, the guy is walking down the street, gets ambushed by a reporter, asked some inane questions, and then they edit in a few seconds. Yet the tourist is the idiot here?
@@gravityissues5210 i didn't take it as the tourist was the idiot, i mean what other valuable insight would they expect upon asking a random American tourist about a store filled with American candy?
@@Moshimulations Of course they pay tax lol. That’s the whole point of a business front/Laundromat. To pay tax on criminally acquired money so they can buy legal assets. False receipts and invoices for sales that never happen etc. the dirty cash goes through the till and into the bank.
It's probably because they aren't jaded and tired enough to realise it's a waste of time questioning anything certain "minorities" get up to. No one in authority is willing stick their head above the parapet knowing they will be made an example of...
In Düsseldorf, Germany, there are several stores like these. I smh thought the same: Nobody wants to buy sweets for 17€, everything is far too expensive. It's obv a fake business. Interesting video, thanks.
I mean.. I was a frequent customer at 2 or 3 stores like these in Poland. Very expensive from import costs. I missed certain junk food that just wasn't available. Mainly mac n cheese and jelly beats. But could easily spend 100 euros on just junk food from 1 visit. Im sure there's a lot of american expats going for these candy stores
I was just talking to my mates about this for ages. Every time I go to central I see all of these store right next to each other completely empty and once when I went in, the prices are so expensive its insane. Has to be some sort of cover up for either money laundering or drug related.
@@asgdhgsfhrfgfd1170 A lot of that real estate is part of the Crown Estate's portfolio. It's rarely put on the market so I suspect it's just that the rents, although high, are miniscule compared to the profits they are making. You could put 10,000 pounds in the till in one day and have paid the rent for a month. The merchandise just gets reused, so there is no restocking. You could be right in some cases though.
Supporting money laundering underpins our economy. How can we tell these shops to stop when the city is washing the blood from billions around the world using the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and so on. This is a symptom of deeper problems in our country, not a cause.
@@stevehill4615 No, rents would continue to fall until they were affordable, or they would be converted into residential units (there is a massive scarcity of residential property in London now). Just as online retail posed a huge threat to commercial landlords, conveniently these money laundering operations have come into to fill the void and pump rents back up.
@@caio5987 Exactly that! The stock isn't for sale, it's there to be written off and claimed back... I bet their sale receipts would not match actual sales... there was a chip shop near my house in North London that only used cash.... and I every time I bought something, it always got put through the till as 1p....
@@I_am_Spartacus That's if they are just avoiding tax. For money laundering, they exaggerate the till receipts and bank the dodgy cash brought in. It might get taxed but it now appears legit.
I'm so glad this has been highlighted. The Westend in my view has eroded and decayed into a place of cheap and tacky shops. I visit the Westend maybe once a year now, whereas 10 years ago it was more like a few times per month. In addition to these American Candy shops, there's a massive gift shop selling mainly cheap baseball caps and t-shirts amount other things in Coventry St, not only do I think it lowers the tone of Piccadilly but how on earth do they afford these sky-high rents and business rates? If all they sell is clothing and other cheap items typically found on market stalls in places such as Deptford High Street? It was empty when I visited it back in November 2021 and it still looks empty now while viewing it on google maps (Images taken March 2022). These American Candy shops probably price their items highly, because then when it comes to banking their "profits" it won't look unusual?
This is just more evidence that society and the economy is turning to sh1t. I imagine that Oxford street was quite a magical place in the 80's and 90's compared to now.
@@marks-0-0 If they're paying the rent who cares? This is just capitalism all money is dirty do people even know how the UK became rich in the first place? This is such a non issue it's ridiculous
@@marks-0-0 I wouldn't say magical. But certainly before the internet and apps the only place you could make a big impression with Londoners were on the sides of buses and on Oxford Street. A lot of money went into having the biggest, flashiest store fronts.
@@nancyvandermeer4480 "stealing money" how are these shop owners stealing money when they legally renting the space? they are working! they are just laundering the money like British Banks do for the Drug Cartels and Oligarchs. It's the same shit different level don't get mad get glad! London was built on this shit!
I have a friend of Pakistani heritage. We recently walked the high St in our town, nearly every other shop we passed he commented on how he knew the owners and how they made their money. The vast majority make their money from importing Herion. He also has a brother who's a bank manger and a cousin who's a solicitor. They have weekly meetings at his house to discuss the latest ways to defraud the system. He took pride in telling me all this.
@@DafyddBrooks Nothing at all. Why because sadly they don't want to know. The local Police seem to be intimidated by the accusation of racism and also the local council is predominantly run by people who come the country as my friend. Either way you can't win.
There was a shop near me that had unbelievably expensive American candy and food. I went there twice, astonished at the prices, and lack of customers for such a prime location. No prices on any products (which is weird for a retail store). Whilst I do like to try out international food, it all seemed a bit sketchy and now the shop is something else.
@@StoutProper No wonder you steal from them, @ nearly £20 for a candy bar, is a total rip-off. Yeah these places are all right, yeah if one has money to burn. These Establishments do not surprise me, in the nobody zone as CM calls it, in a song called "Missing You" Laters Guinnes. The best pint of Guinness I've ever tasted, is in Dublin. :-) :-)
@@bjtt9841 yeah the Guineas in Ireland is different gravy. I don’t think they care if you steal from them, they’re definitely not there to sell the sweets, you can literally walk in help yourself and just walk out. They probably ring it through as a sale and wash the cash
@@StoutProper You are damn tooting Guinness, it's certainly a money laundering set up. & Yeah, the pints of Guinness in Ireland, are different class. One needs a calculator to keep tabs, on how many pints one has consumed, superb, & loads of Iron as well, yum-yum. Anyway Guinness, I bid you pleasant times ahead, & enjoy, & good luck, sincerely, BJTT. :-) :-)
As much as I like HMV it was a victim to change in technology. Can't really blame anyone for that. 🤣 The problem for HMV is that it didn't innovate or adapt and evolve.
If they are laundering money, we should not be surprised, it is after all a time-honoured British tradition and the reason that off-shore havens were established in many UK territories and flourish to this day.
Dave, money laundering is a British institution par excellence. Now you probably do not know many small islands/nations were created after the centuries long holocaust that black people endured ( slavery ) specifically to transfer and conceal cash. I have no idea why you are one bit surprised.
The UK is itself a tax haven and money laundering centre. Most has come through the London Property market. They are just branching out with more criminality from lower down the food chain. Meanwhile someone is getting paid to continue to turn a blind eye.
They're also likely a front for illegal migration. There's a "London tat" shop in... York, staffed by someone of ME origin who can't speak any English and doesn't know what a 50 pence coin looks like.
@@landz2228 No it's not. It's officially titled "The London Shop" or something like that, the exact same "franchise" you see on every street in London. Selling nothing but big ben statuettes and London magnets etc.
I work in the area and I've been thinking this for years. There's definitely something dodgy going on and I'm rather sick of seeing these generic shops popping up everywhere while some genuine useful businesses can no longer afford the ridiculous rents and rates of central London anymore.
I wouldn't say its the governments fault per say, although they don't help. Of course these kinds of prestigious locations with some of the highest footfall will demand high prices, it's just got to the point that even decent businesses struggle to pay all their overheads and make some profit, then we have these junk sweet shops that look colourful but don't really add much to the area. I don't get it 🤷♂️ but oh well
If they're paying the rent who cares? This is just capitalism all money is dirty do people even know how the UK became rich in the first place? This is such a non issue it's ridiculous
@@jacksevert3099 yeah bro corruption and illegal shit is fine why are you complaining about what goes on in your society. you're either braindead or a shill
The reason is this , under UK laws any foreigners bringing money into this country to invest in certain sectors do not need to declare origin of money . I will leave the rest to you but here's a clue , London is now the biggest money laundering capital on planet earth .
Roddy, same with greece and Cyprus , money is invested there, the local politics pocket huge commissions and refuse to send auditors to interrogate provenance of the influx of cash. The Uk enjoys cash from dictators from across the globe no questions asked. huge interest generated is repurposed in a tax havens. and some of it is to buy arms which are then resold.
When I was younger I was genuinely excited to go up west and visit HMV and Virgin-it was great to go to Oxford News and buy a rare coconut fruit ice lolly. I was horrified the last time I walked down Oxford Street to find these seedy looking candy stores literally everywhere with no customers. Who knows what is going on .
Oxford Street is massively overrated......in fact it's a disgrace tbh. The entire street needs a total rethink, not just in terms of banning all the diesel belching vehicles, but ridding it of 'tat' aswell. It's supposed to be Britain's premier shopping street, but lacks the class and glamour of Regent Street, or the regal splendour of Edinburgh's Princes Street. Oxford Street is just so shabby, has no style, and is trapped in the past quite frankly. Now that Westminster has a Labour council, perhaps they will do something to address all the things I mention above.......oh, and be 'cycle friendly' too - something that Conservative controlled Westminster Council were notorious for not being. Just ask the London Cycling Campaign (LCC).
Oxford St is now a sad mess , not the place I remember growing up when going there was a wonderful experience. Today it looks run down and has lost its lustre…….
I'm more sad for Tottenham Court Road than Oxford Street, which used to be the electronics road like Akihabara of Tokyo, nowadays it's just another street in Central London.
I've been wondering about this for a while. They are everywhere in Glasgow and their sweets are really expensive. They are always empty and in places with high rents. How do they stay open?
Yeah, Sauchiehall Street is really bad for them, open for a while, close down for two weeks, reopen two units down and repeat - I did read something about if your business closes within 18 months you don't need to pay some sort of tax.
Most of these so called American Candy 🍬 shop's are just a front... Behind most of them it's pure drug Dealing.... I personally knew someone who Had a candy 🍬 shop which was Empty most of the time and when I asked him he blatenly told me it's Just a front!!!
@@Shahzadkhan-dm3cv Just about every Eastern European food shop in Grimsby sells cheap cigarettes. Some are smuggled in and some are dodgy but when they get raided there are literally hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of them. As soon as one is raided people go to the next one and so it continues.
It goes even deeper than the obvious money laundering and tax evasion. The building owners and landlords, which are most likely involved in the organized crimes themselves, benefit from having their spaces occupied by businesses like this. They let a renter come in and pay a super low rent, and sign non disclosure agreements that say they cant disclose the rent cost. The building owner says that the value of each space is some outrageous over valued amount, and gets tax right offs for losses from the spaces that dont rent. They can make more money from the tax right offs than they can from renting them out. This is obviously not right, but certainly no different than our governments have done for years.
It all started with Trocadero! How did Westminster allow one of London’s best attractions “SegaWorld” to turn into a souvenir shop which now is another candy store. Same with Virgin Megastore on the corner of Marble Arch and many more. The government is complicit. It’s all about money.
It isn't just London btw, they are everywhere, even in my wee town of Dunfermline. Also, if a company like BOOTS can't afford to maintain their Oxford Street site then clearly, without any shadow of a doubt this is certainly money laundering. Even the one in my small town's High Street shopping centre is 100% empty AT ALL TIMES yet they can afford rent and rates and are open 7 days a week. Nothing more than criminal fronts and I don't understand how they continue to exist. The local authorities and their banks have a legal obligation to report them as money laundering front operations.
same in liverpool. example we had a large H&M store on church street which relocated further up the street and now it’s a american candy shop it’s always empty how the hell can they afford the rent on this prime location on church street 🤣
there's tonnes of them in Edinburgh now too. I live in a flat above one of them and I never see anyone ever go in there. i was out once and my amazon parcel got dropped in there and the prices were crazy
You need to investigate all the barber shops that are also opening up within yards of each other in the poorer neighbourhoods in the North as well -it used to be sunbed shops
What a joke. But just look at all the fugitives who’ve laundered money in their home country and fled to live outside of the law in the UK too. Pretty sad state of affairs. Good investigation 👍
If they're paying the rent who cares? This is just capitalism all money is dirty do people even know how the UK became rich in the first place? This is such a non issue it's ridiculous
People in the UK are more concerned about the bloke across the road claiming disability benefits while loading fishing gear or golf clubs into a car he got on mobility than they were about the Panama papers.
Some of them fancy shops you see with like one shoe on display in the window and not really selling much is normally owned by a wife of a rich business man to give her something to do.
I live in Paisley Scotalnd and theres ice cream/ desert shops all over the place, theres at least 6 of these all within a mile and they are always empty. Most established businesses have cleared off leaving just charity shops, takes aways and bookies. It all looks very dodgy.
Came back tae the toon a few years ago , nearly gret when ah seen the high st , wi the imagine shops . And the only guy in the street for a while was a busker playing the same 4 bars over and over . Gled ah wiz exiled noo .
@@ianmclaughlin4043 Fur lack o commitment to the swally , ah wiz always a lightweight . They flung me o'er Hadrian's wa' , and hauf the toon came , to reassure the other hauf it happened .
Private Eye Magaizine has been covering this issue for some time, and it also highlighted some foreign owned souvenir shops that were avoiding paying tax and HMRC seemed uninterested when informed.
Honestly you can say the same about any high street store now. All I see is nail salons, vape stores, Turkish barbers, candy stores and mobile phone repair stores.
Seems, after the Afghan war and immigration of Afghans into the UK, this practice became mainstream. A look into the lifestyle of an Afghan in the UK does not add up? They run a small shop on a run down street, yet live like kings. I have one on my street, claims to run a small clothes shop, yet family all drive £60k cars, recently spent £300k on a house renovation (builder mentioned the total cost to me) and they always have plenty of spare cash for luxurious holidays - something does not add up?
Same around here. Afghan takeaway shops and barbers everywhere. One shop got busted for a cannabis grow. That's what the money is coming from - illegal drugs.
I think this is certainly true for phone accessory shops, and increasingly in my city (Exeter) Turkish barbers. We now have whole streets that are composed entirely of the two. There's no way there's enough demand to satiate to overabundant supply, and there appears to be precious little (if any) business going on in any of them.
I so welcome this video as it validates what I have been thinking every single time that I walk by one that is in Greenwich. They charge exhorbinate prices so no one buys anything. They are always fully stocked, mind you, so they look legitimate.
I know where you mean. There are a couple now and they’re hideous, not least because they’re tacky looking places but mostly because they’re clearly a front for nefarious business.
It's the same stock they've had since day 1. But the accounts will show large purchances of new stock and large customer purchases of candy (always in cash).
@@mogznwaz yes but that would take a lot of effort for a relatively small return. This way is much easier and very profitable and almost zero effort as no customers or stocks to restock.
This must be great for major landlords whose rents had been taking a hit due to the rise of online retail. I wouldn't be surprised if powerful people are turning a blind eye and/or are reluctant to make this illegal in order to prop up commercial rents and defend landlordism, in which many of the most powerful people and institutions in the country (private equity funds, politicians, royalty etc.) are invested heavily.
Its always been fairly easy to see which shops in your area are actually owned by drug dealers or traffickers. Basically any shop that is so quiet that you think, "how the hell are they staying open?!" If a small independent shop has low footfall and survives more than a year, its a front.
i had a friend in high school who had a part time job at a music box store. he said no one ever bought anything there and the owner didn't seem bothered when they came to visit the store. didn't mind if he took long lunch breaks either. i remember my friend said he thought it was a front and i didn't know what he meant by that :-)
Also use expensive lawyers and accountants.Although the real accountants and lawyers are often on low key shopping centres with tiny little name plates .Its really fascinating, obviously the real accountancy goes on here with the big name presented with clear paperwork and a fat fee. problems arise when the big name accountants try to take the client out for lunch!
Actually not true most shops like tanning salons and beauty parlours do OK it's these whatever the stans that are defrauding the taxman and reclaim non existent vat etc.
Not necessarily, have you sat outside those shops all days and at all times and no exactly what is going on inside? I own a small takeaway, and we mainly do deliveries. If anyone was to glance at the shop from outside they’d think we’re always dead as there’s hardly any customers ever inside (although we actually do get quite a bit of collection customers, enough to survive off even, but they’re spread throughout the day so there’s no que’s ever) but we do a lot of deliveries, we turn over 5 figures a week. But you wouldn’t know just by looking at the shop from outside. Yes it could be the case that people use shops for money laundering, but it’s not always the case. And another thing people confuse money laundering and tax evasion, people who money launder are not trying to evade tax, they’re actually trying to pay tax in order to legitimise their illicit money lol
Even if you don’t care about the company and their products its sad, that’s what intelligent anti war Russians say about McDonalds leaving Russia and selling of almost 1000 restaurants. Big change and not for the better! 😢
In Australia there are nail salons and massage shops in copious amounts - far more than any demand could meet. I have heard of them being used as fronts for paid immigration sponsoring, among other things. The nail salons have dropped off a bit, but at one time they were just like these candy shops.
Government would need to legislate to close the loopholes and allow local councils to pursue/close them. But they won't because foreign dirty money winds up in their pockets via the City banks and because that would be too much work that would kill off their own loopholes they use to exploit the economy. An absolute mess.
And the government will never allow anything which threatens demand for commercial property. The most powerful interests in the UK are all invested in both commercial and residential real estate, so rents and asset rises are all but guaranteed. Whenever there is a threat to them, the government takes measures to push them back up again.
Whenever you see a shop/store that hasn't enough walk-in traffic to possibly pay the rent for the location yet survives where other more normal businesses fail you can be sure it's connected to some form of money laundering. In a suburban plaza of shops there was a tiny Tea Shop with perhaps three small tables and a small counter in the tiniest footprint within the property. The grocery store, the convenience store, the national drug store franchise, several small restaurants, a boutique and so on *all failed* and closed in due turn but the little Tea Shop stayed in place. Once in a while a stretch limousine could be seen parked in front and other times there might be a random dump truck there. Clearly it was the mob landlord of the development which itself was built as some kind of tax dodge investment. I described this to a friend at work and he recalled a similar place at another older plaza not far away with another weird small specialty shop with no customers that mysteriously stayed while large franchise clients failed and died away and were replaced with new shops. If I could figure out these are syndicate operations surely the local police *could* as well which makes you think they are on the take to look the other way.
@@robert039 At least those once made sense and squeezed into lower level kiosks in suburban malls. That second shop my buddy mentioned was/is selling over-priced tacky bric-a-brac and NOBODY shops there yet they still exist afaik.
@@gwynbetts29 In my local suburban mall every kiosk and shop selling mobile/cell phone accessories and services apart from the giant national ones is run by the same guy. I counted at least ten shopfronts and kiosks one day. A staff member at one of the major branded stores clued me in that price shopping among those independents was useless because it was all the same owner with shared staff and resources. Ironic then that horse trading was not being done.
This is extremely frustrating because if we had a shop selling American foods ( not just candy) at a reasonable price it would definitely do really good business in my area. There are soooo many expats here. The expats have had to turn to online source though now.
Here in Prague there are dozens of candy stores in the historic centre. They’re not American branded but there are several similar rival chains selling expensive sweets and with photography banned.
@@geneytube18 Cadbury has gone down the toilet hasn't it?!! It's very sad. I don't even know where to get good quality milk chocolate any more, perhaps I should just order it directly from Belgium.
@@The_New_Abnormal_World_Order I still like Cadbury creme egg. I had my last one left over from Easter as I was watching the UK coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest.
There is clearly no commercial rationale for these shops, therefore the conclusion must be they have been set up for another reason. A council will never have the resources to pursue the owners ( if they can be found), it should be the matter for a criminal investigation, unlikely to happen though.
I’m not going to lie, I mourned my innocence when I watched this. I love sweets and use these shops to get imported snacks that are hard to find. I assumed that these shops were legitimate because people pay stupidly high prices if they’re tourists or in London. The numbers don’t add up, I could understand a couple of successful shops, but seriously, the entire high street! Definitely laundering money, do any of these shops have a website!? How the hell can they afford the rent.
I noticed that a lot of small budget food shops, all forgeign staff close to established convenience stores , they are not busy enough to pay their rates or overheads , this needs to be investigated
They need A WHOLE TON of people coming up and filming and getting up to all sorts of strange but legal activities around them. Flash mobs might be an idea. Let's do something!
I’m sure I’ve noticed the same sort of phenomenon in Birmingham but instead of American candy it seems to be deserts and cakes. So many calories but no one’s gaining weight? How can they all be making money?
It's not just London, I'm in Colchester and for a rather small town centre there are 3 of these that have just popped up?! ... and they seem to be open 24/7 in spite of always being empty
Rachel, i think if those were asian shops , everyone would have zoomed in on the inner activities but because the front is american. everyone is cool and calm. with the odd person noticing. and its one thing racism benefits from.
@@PHlopheYeah, people find Americans more trustworthy than ‘Asians’. Gonna cry? Ask yourself why that might be… Btw, my sister has stopped going into town because men kept harassing her and even following her, and guess what, they weren’t American men.
I wondered the same when I saw all these same candy stores popping up on every block in the center shopping area of Amsterdam. I thought, seriously who needs this much candy?! But now it makes sense.
You should come to Amsterdam as the same thing is happening. So many candy stores are opening up that used to be Nutella crepe and waffle stores. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear this exact thing going on in many other major cities.
On my last trip up to London I went into one of these stores to get some treats for my son, and i couldn't believe how much they were charging for this stuff! The prices quoted in this video are not exaggerations - they're genuinely charging ridiculous prices like that. I walked out empty-handed - I couldn't afford to spend that much on SWEETS, just because they're American and a novelty.
Even Sainsburys stock some Amercian Lines (more so since Kraft took over Cadbury) And they have high prices. B and M stores have a few lines, and they are much cheaper BUT the Amercian Sugar Content is way high
Times Square in New York has a similar issue. It was so sad to see it in 2013 full of cheap looking empty souvenir stores when I last visited, compared to 2003 when it was full of flagship stores for all the major brands.
As an American i clicked on this video thinking "man they must really love our candy" just to find a crazy money laundering scheme in the UK lol good watch glad i found it.
One of the more interesting conspiracy theories I've heard was that Brexit was mostly about UK being able to keep it's tax heaven status since EU has been preparing for some time to cut short those kind of practices But hey, that's just a theory
I can't speak for the reasons for Brexit, but you are entirely correct that the EU were planning to bring in more financial regulations to cut down on tax evasion in various forms. Impossible to tell if it was a factor though, but it is interesting timing.
Angelika, watch a documentary called “ The spiders web” Britain’s second empire, it’s about all the money laundering and explains a lot . A question would be re Brexit whom created the EEC or common market? They have turned everything into a private corporation and that includes us.
There's even a few in Leicester Square and Oxford Street has about 40 of them now. I recon in the West End there's easily around 200 candy stores if you include the small ones down backstreets masquerading as newsagents.
As an American who lived in London, it's a shame to see. But surprising to see how blatant these "store owners" are. It's so obviously odd that people know something is definitely up.
Same thing for these vape shops. One opens and closes rather quickly, only to be replaced by a very similar vape shop. And this is in south west London.
As well as being a front (most likely) the business also ''gets sold'' usually within the same family or group and renamed and enjoy a lower tax status as a ''new business'' for another year or so, people having been doing it for years.
cidercik ...............they close down as their visa runs out......should never have been shopkeepers in first place as came as tourists......can earn enough in 1 year to support themselves for a lifetime back home......outcome is they bump landlord off with rent,local council with rates and free electricity...also pay zero tax..........theyre not stupid........all supported by local mosque (who is probably initially bringing them here and giving them interest free loans for start-up.........aim is to bankrupt the west as they love (HATE) us so much.
I walked passed some of these shops. It was so strange - in the fact that they were empty and their were so many of them. All so right next door of one of these store’s that were selling gold chains etc and vape stuff - also completely empty and it didn’t look like they even had a check out desk!!
There's a shop on my local main road that I've long suspected of money laundering. It's one of 2 shops (the other is a legit community chemist) and it opens up every year or so as a new business. Atm it's a barbers all kitted out with a nice sign but I've never once seen it open. They spent weeks in there fitting it out n have never opened the shutters. Before this it was a newsagent type of shop that sold nothing but 2 litre bottles of pop. They had a cigarette counter but it only ever held half a dozen packs. I went in one time to try n buy a pack but they didn't have my brand. This shop did used to open but I never saw anyone go in to buy anything but even if they had, they wouldn't of had what they needed unless they needed a bottle of pop. The weird thing about it is I'm sure the owners are from Afghanistan
I live in Luton, and the shopping centre here has become very suspicious. Costa coffee moved out and was replaced with a shop called "coffee shop". Debenhams moved out and has been replaced with "home store" etc etc. theres even a shop that sells *sweetcorn in a fucking cup* and they called it "yummy cup corn"🤦♂️ These places never have anyone in them, they sell things you'd expect to find at a car boot sale, makes you wonder what the motive is
There are 2 American candy stores in kingston, only a few meters apart. While their prices are extremely high, they seem to be always full of people. Now the prices are high because of the UK sugar tax on imported sweets. I looked into opening a store like this as I'm from Canada and have connections to buy wholesale in North America, the inly problem is the import fees and sugar tax in the UK is CRAZY HIGH. But the 2 stores in kingston seem to be dpong really well and again they are almost always packed with customers so I doubt they are money laundering.
Not just London mate, loads in Glasgow too, and I'll assume the rest of Scotland's, and the UK's, major cities. They'll close one, then open on another site. I can't do the math as to how they legitimately make money consistently (I was an Account Manager representing several international FMCG brands, confectionery, foods, ice cream and others, so I'm fairly familiar with this industry and the machinations of it...). I'd LOVE to get a look at their tax returns, till receipts and Companies House documentation... 👍🏴
You would have to go through a big accountancy firm as well as a big solicitor firm to even get close and then you would be at least two or three tiers away from the real accountants and lawyers never mind the owner.
a lot of smaller shops wont take card payments as they have to pay a small transaction fee to mastercard/visa. its why they if they do, they will charge for it or have a minimum spend. the bigger chain stores will eat the cost.
I wonder how common this is? For some years, I've been noticing high st businesses that make absolutely no mathematical sense, as they're rarely open and don't seem to be selling anything much. I've seen an old shop, newly fitted out, to look like an upmarket florists, that was literally never open, and when you looked closely through the window, you soon realised they were the same flowers in the displays, so they must have been plastic ones, and that nonsense went on for a couple of years.
Turkish barbers and tanning shops are the ones to look out for...never anyone in them but somehow they afford the high Town centre rents/business rates
@@mickbitchum4664 Yes, there does seem to be an overabundance of those these days, though, if they are a scam, then rent isn't an issue for them, as they would typically pay rent to a subsidiary company, which, if you can trace it back, is ultimately owned by the same person/group. As for business rates, they simply fold the company, before the end of the financial year, and have new "tenants" (at least the names of any directors and the company secretary will have changed) in on the Monday morning, to continue business as usual. I used to rent a small workshop on an industrial estate, here in Herts, and there were a number of sizeable companies there who pulled exactly this trick, repeatedly. The biggest, and most notorious one, would regularly change the name on the front of the unit, which was an enormous warehouse complex, so it would look like the place had changed hands, but you'd see exactly the same people turning up for work there, and it was usually a name, or acronym that closely resembled the old one. It was honestly that blatant, and it was a standing joke, as everyone on the estate knew what was going on there. Of course, nothing ever got done about it, to my knowledge, though the small businesses there got the exact opposite treatment and were pursued relentlessly for every last penny (the rates department once got a decimal point wrong, and forced my little venture into the ground paying for it, complete with the usual shaven headed thugs, hammering on your front door at the crack of dawn, demanding money), but that's Hertsmere for you. I do wince, every time I go past one of their signs, proudly announcing "Hertfordshire, the County of Opportunity", and mutter "County of incompetence and corruption more like" under my breath.
Turkish barbers and tanning shops are the ones to look out for...never anyone in them but somehow they afford the high Town centre rents/business rates
Many years ago there was a takeaway that set up shop amongst a University campus and where many students lived in a residential street in Cheltenham. It targeted students by selling hotdogs, and sandwiches made in front of you for rock bottom prices. Strangely it used to be open at unusual times such as all day Sunday and into the early hours in the morning. It was open for a few weeks until there was a huge police raid on it late at night. My housemates told me that were police cars surrounding it with armed officers as they were going past it. Also, on the same street just a few metres away there was a newsagents that was never closed, had overpriced stuff and it was the place where one of my friend's boyfriend who worked in a local drugs community scheme said that they had a lot of young women who had reported first getting into drugs via this shop and the men who owned it. Me and my friend witnessed a drugs deal just outside of this shop and one of the owners of the shop was stood with us who watched this deal intently as he pretended to read a newspaper.
Where I live we've had a spate of "Turkish" barber shops open in our small local high street and I rarely see any customers in them, certainly no where near the numbers needed to make enough income to stay open.
They don't even do it well they open shop right next to each other, if you are going to do something do it well at least. Back in the 60's my grandparents owned a small hot dog restaurant in Chicago and they said at the time if the restaurant looked like it was crap but was around for years it was for money laundering. But you never saw like ten of them on the same freaking street.
I always walk around london for my job, and I’ve been noticing these places are almost always empty yet somehow manage to afford the rent. There’s something very fishy going on which I’ve always thought and almost always the owners don’t seem like nice people
im from canada and living in europe for over a decade. European candy and snack food tastes like shit. chocolate is the only exception. i'll gladly pay 5euro for a pack of twizzlers that cost 1$ at home. every canadian/american i know takes empty suitcases when they travel home so they can load them up with candy/snacks to come back with..
If you're paying 17 quid for some twinkies, there's a little personal responsibility to be addressed. If you're going to London to buy American sweets, there's also some personal responsibility to be addressed. But yeh, clearly dodgy. Oxford Street has always had these pop ups though, it used to be fake perfumes around Christmas time.
This is what happens when you open the floodgates to foreigners.. Criminals the lot of them.. I'm in a town 25,000 people and we've got four shops like this.. No one ever in them but it well known they're fronts for drugs, fake tobacco and fake branded alcohol and money laundering.. Small town and you can't keep secrets especially when no one ever goes in them... Shut them all down and kick the bastards out of Britain..
I remember the east section of Oxford Street towards Tottenham Court Road always being home to some questionable businesses (The auction houses were quite prevalent in the 90’s). In the last decade the western part has become more down market. With a mixture of changing shopping habits, the fact that business rates have become extortionate and that Councils have made life so difficult legitimate small business owners. Laundering fronts and charity shops seem to occupy the majority of commercial spaces on high streets in many towns around the UK. I suspect the reason Westminster council have not put much effort in going after these questionable businesses is that they don’t want the embarrassment of having so many vacant properties in what is meant to be Britains premier shopping street.
Are those Scientologists still on the high street? Me and my mum had the displeasure of running into them a few times. They used to be a few of them stopping people on the high street dressed in white and yellow suits and they had a base upstairs from what I think was a restaurant and there was a Christian bookshop on the corner. In Sunderland the Scientologists got into trouble as they were trying to recruit school children on their way to and from school. In Birmingham I also saw evidence of another cult called The Family, who used to be called The Children Of God. But these used far subtler tactics such as leaving religious magazines on the bench near where Scientologists were stopping people on the street. Many cults use this 'let's just leave a pile of our religious books or magazines on this bench' tactic including Jehovahs Witnesses and now Scientologists do it in Sunderland. A lot of these front shops are linked to religious / psycho or political cults. They are also involved in multi level marketing schemes and financial scams. Scientologists have a few business fronts, and both they and The Jehovahs Witnesses have come under fire for harassment, especially the JW who are now busily selling thousands of Kingdom Halls in order to pay for huge legal cases for claims of child abuse and illegal sophisticated spying in Australia. If you ever see those vegan shops be aware that they appear to be linked to new age religious cults and money laundering. These cafés have what's like a library of piles of panthlets and newsletters all preaching 'clean eating', new age healing, far left socialist politics and environmental issues. If you do a Google search on the contact details on this literature you will find that they are all seemed to be linked to the same people and there's a lot of front organisations.
The same thing is happening in the USA as well, but the thing is here in certain states they just legalized slot machines in private owned businesses, so now there are a bunch of candy stores popping up all over the place and every store you walk into has these gaming machines in them, it's insane it's like a mini casino in every store that you walk into.
@@philliptemple4534 Also, to cover the fact that the till "receipts" are huge. "Sure we made £50k last week, have you seen how expensive this stuff is?"
Why would they be so daft as to just replicate the same type of shop? Why not make them different? One sweet shop, another a stationary, or a fish food shop. Just anything to make it look less suss?
You don't need complex temporary leasing to launder money. Unless its so bad that it's visible you're not getting enough customers, no one would know. This is something else.
It could be something far simpler. It could be that the Property managers that own these expensive shopping districts don't want a bunch of vacant shops in the middle of a bad economy so they setup place holder stores to make it look occupied. They stuff it with cheap crap to keep costs down and hire cheap labor to make it look like a business. It's probably more about maintaining high rents for the rest of their occupants, knowing full well that a bunch of vacancies would drive rents down.
That would be less palatable than lowering the rents. We are talking about 25% of all the properties on Oxford St being rented out for nothing if your theory held water. Yes, it would make demand look stronger but involve forgoing far too much rental income.
It is absolutely disgusting that Britain is such a hub for never mind dirty money but filthy money. Quite frankly, it is Westminster Council itself, which should be taken to court. It is obviously wholly complicit in arranging these micro leases, not just failing to do due diligence on prospective tenants, but actively encouraging and involving itself in the horrendous corruption. Whilst I say this with no direct evidence, when you look at the several theoretical ways in which this situation could come about, the only practical way it could actually happen is how I outlined above. Furthermore, it is only a marginally more subtle manifestation of the same governance which has, til very recently at least, allowed Putin's cronies to make comfortable and secure lives for themselves in London, buying sports clubs, sending their children to the smartest schools and airing their laundry in British courts, far from the fear of the ludicrous sham hearings they would get in their native country - and, for a fee, of course, Britain is more than happy to accommodate them. While The Mikado was written 137 years ago, Gilbert and Sullivan's haughty and hypocritical character, Pooh-Bah, is still very much alive: "first lord of the treasury, lord chief justice, commander-in chief, lord high admiral, master of the buckhounds, groom of the back stairs, archbishop of Titipu, chief rabbi and lord mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one.” Whereas Koko had to somehow find a way to persuade him to arrange his nuptials that didn't set up too many unresolvable differences between the various roles contained within that one person, in this situation, he would have an equally thorny, if different problem: he would just have to arrange the "very considerable bribe" to be distributed amongst several people working in concert, rather than with one person in several different capacities. May I further suggest that while a certain senior judiciary position happens to be mentioned in the above-quoted and famous lyrics, in fact I feel that the Courts in Britain is the one remaining institute which still retains a shred of dignity and credibility. Accordingly, I believe anyone accused of being involved in all this shady business, would get a fair trial if the facts were allowed to come out. However therein lies the rub. Just look at how the Kincora Boys' Home scandal continues to be hushed up - there are too many bishops, ministers, chief secretaries and lord high admirals' reputations at stake for the full truth of it ever to surface. Regretfully, what's going on here in Oxford Street seems very much of that order of high level corruption..... As with the wake up call we have received with Russia's latest actions in Ukraine, we collectively, not just in Britain but everyone on the face of the planet needs to ask themselves whether they are prepared to tolerate this blithe and blatant, naked two faced double dealing and hypocrisy which is not just an egregious crime and offence to any right minded person, it is costing you all an absolute fortune. The amount of tax revenue either not received due to corruption or wasted for the same reason, is astounding. I ask again, how bad does it need to be and for how long before change?
I live in London and its not just these candy stores, there are lots of restaurants with almost no customers that stay open with no obvious means of support…it is almost certainly money laundering. I am amazed that the local council allow these stores.
The UK is really really run down.
How can they launder money? The rent on those buildings must be astronomical and they NEVER sell anything!
@@LambsyLamb I don't know how that works, but it's well known for funding Afghanistan terror units. Same as the drugs in Birmingham.
More than money launder they are trafficking persons too !
@@charlottefactteller2519 Money laundering is all over the world.
But the thing is, in London it is totally in the open. Even people on the streets know what happens there with these businesses. It seems the government and the police gave up with the UK.
These candy shop guys should go into banking, that's where the real money laundering goes on. I laughed out loud when the guy in the audio said £5 million has been lost that could have gone to the entire nation. Jeez, that's incomparable to the tax free billions that are squirreled away by friends of the government.
any tax revenue withheld should be investigated
@@molybdomancer195 I agree, but I also believe we need to focus on the big fish first and foremost
@@GreenLarsen Well given that it's the big fish who are investigating it, I don't think there is much chance of that.
Your right there,
And we bail the criminal enterprises out
American here. Just got back from London. Despite being called American candy stores, my friend and I didn’t recognize many of the brands and those places felt so sketch. We talked about how they seemed like fronts.
I can’t believe Lord Matas was behind this
American tourist: "They appear to be full of American candy"
Blimey, I'm glad they managed to catch that guy for his input on the situation...
He did edit in additional commentary from him a bit later. I mean, the guy is walking down the street, gets ambushed by a reporter, asked some inane questions, and then they edit in a few seconds. Yet the tourist is the idiot here?
Really some hard hitting “journalism” 😆
for real what feedback would you even expect?
@@gravityissues5210 i didn't take it as the tourist was the idiot, i mean what other valuable insight would they expect upon asking a random American tourist about a store filled with American candy?
🤣🤣 agreed
These shops are all over every major city centre in the UK. Absolutely 100% criminally funded.
But do they pay tax???
@@mogznwaz They don't.
Guess where their accountants are?
@@justjacqueline2004 where?
@@Moshimulations Of course they pay tax lol. That’s the whole point of a business front/Laundromat. To pay tax on criminally acquired money so they can buy legal assets. False receipts and invoices for sales that never happen etc. the dirty cash goes through the till and into the bank.
Love how it's the youngest interviewees who are the most observant
You've just summed up the overall problem with the British media
It's probably because they aren't jaded and tired enough to realise it's a waste of time questioning anything certain "minorities" get up to. No one in authority is willing stick their head above the parapet knowing they will be made an example of...
young people are not stupid
just raised around bullshit
@@capturedflame The problem with Britian is self hating Brits, like yourself.
In Düsseldorf, Germany, there are several stores like these. I smh thought the same: Nobody wants to buy sweets for 17€, everything is far too expensive. It's obv a fake business. Interesting video, thanks.
Omg I was just about to comment that!
They sell Cheetos for like 11€
Same in Sydney, Australia
That's just real prices in canada
@unknown In Cologne as well...mostly Chinese. The streets in the High Str. have been taken over by shit-selling Chinese shops.
I mean.. I was a frequent customer at 2 or 3 stores like these in Poland. Very expensive from import costs. I missed certain junk food that just wasn't available. Mainly mac n cheese and jelly beats. But could easily spend 100 euros on just junk food from 1 visit. Im sure there's a lot of american expats going for these candy stores
I'm glad someone made a video about this, good stuff!
I was just talking to my mates about this for ages. Every time I go to central I see all of these store right next to each other completely empty and once when I went in, the prices are so expensive its insane. Has to be some sort of cover up for either money laundering or drug related.
They sell heroine an legal high even magic machroms
As said, Heroin money
@@asgdhgsfhrfgfd1170 A lot of that real estate is part of the Crown Estate's portfolio. It's rarely put on the market so I suspect it's just that the rents, although high, are miniscule compared to the profits they are making. You could put 10,000 pounds in the till in one day and have paid the rent for a month. The merchandise just gets reused, so there is no restocking. You could be right in some cases though.
Big brother UK government sure seems incompetent. But they'll come to your house and arrest you over a mean tweet or no covid mask. What a joke.
@@jimmyjung9510 I don’t think you’re aware of how much rents are for prime Oxford street retail space. Upwards of 60k a month.
Supporting money laundering underpins our economy. How can we tell these shops to stop when the city is washing the blood from billions around the world using the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and so on. This is a symptom of deeper problems in our country, not a cause.
Spot on!
The other problem is if you removed these shops what would you have in their place (boarded up, charity shops)?
@@stevehill4615 No, rents would continue to fall until they were affordable, or they would be converted into residential units (there is a massive scarcity of residential property in London now). Just as online retail posed a huge threat to commercial landlords, conveniently these money laundering operations have come into to fill the void and pump rents back up.
Loving the inconsistent pricing of products as well, sounds like they're just making up numbers as they go
Yep. Dodgy as
It’s priced high on purpose so they don’t have to provide a legit receipt since no one would buy it
@@caio5987 It's not just that, the prices vary wildly
@@caio5987 Exactly that! The stock isn't for sale, it's there to be written off and claimed back... I bet their sale receipts would not match actual sales... there was a chip shop near my house in North London that only used cash.... and I every time I bought something, it always got put through the till as 1p....
@@I_am_Spartacus That's if they are just avoiding tax. For money laundering, they exaggerate the till receipts and bank the dodgy cash brought in. It might get taxed but it now appears legit.
when the countrys leadership constantly escapes accountability, you can really only expect it's populace to act the same
*its
No no no, "rules for thee - not for me". If you're not born into their circles, you can get f***ed.
The Del Boy Trotter & Arthur Daley approach.
lets see how labour council deals with it
Except it's not our populace is it?
I'm so glad this has been highlighted. The Westend in my view has eroded and decayed into a place of cheap and tacky shops. I visit the Westend maybe once a year now, whereas 10 years ago it was more like a few times per month. In addition to these American Candy shops, there's a massive gift shop selling mainly cheap baseball caps and t-shirts amount other things in Coventry St, not only do I think it lowers the tone of Piccadilly but how on earth do they afford these sky-high rents and business rates? If all they sell is clothing and other cheap items typically found on market stalls in places such as Deptford High Street? It was empty when I visited it back in November 2021 and it still looks empty now while viewing it on google maps (Images taken March 2022). These American Candy shops probably price their items highly, because then when it comes to banking their "profits" it won't look unusual?
This is just more evidence that society and the economy is turning to sh1t.
I imagine that Oxford street was quite a magical place in the 80's and 90's compared to now.
@@marks-0-0 If they're paying the rent who cares? This is just capitalism all money is dirty do people even know how the UK became rich in the first place? This is such a non issue it's ridiculous
@@marks-0-0 I wouldn't say magical. But certainly before the internet and apps the only place you could make a big impression with Londoners were on the sides of buses and on Oxford Street. A lot of money went into having the biggest, flashiest store fronts.
Heralding lawlessness just because some in the distant past got rich through nefarious means is absurd.
@@nancyvandermeer4480 "stealing money" how are these shop owners stealing money when they legally renting the space? they are working! they are just laundering the money like British Banks do for the Drug Cartels and Oligarchs. It's the same shit different level don't get mad get glad! London was built on this shit!
I have a friend of Pakistani heritage. We recently walked the high St in our town, nearly every other shop we passed he commented on how he knew the owners and how they made their money. The vast majority make their money from importing Herion. He also has a brother who's a bank manger and a cousin who's a solicitor. They have weekly meetings at his house to discuss the latest ways to defraud the system. He took pride in telling me all this.
Your mate sounds like a typical bullshit talker tbh
Yep. It’s basically a free for all and the vast majority of British people are too naive to understand the exploitation.
@@crabapples1995and the council's dont care because they are getting rent
What have you done to make sure authorities know?
@@DafyddBrooks Nothing at all. Why because sadly they don't want to know. The local Police seem to be intimidated by the accusation of racism and also the local council is predominantly run by people who come the country as my friend. Either way you can't win.
There was a shop near me that had unbelievably expensive American candy and food. I went there twice, astonished at the prices, and lack of customers for such a prime location. No prices on any products (which is weird for a retail store). Whilst I do like to try out international food, it all seemed a bit sketchy and now the shop is something else.
I steal from them regularly, they don’t seem to care at all
@@StoutProper 😅🤣😂🤜🏻🤛🏻
@@StoutProper No wonder you steal from them, @ nearly £20 for a candy bar, is a total rip-off. Yeah these places are all right, yeah if one has money to burn. These Establishments do not surprise me, in the nobody zone as CM calls it, in a song called "Missing You" Laters Guinnes. The best pint of Guinness I've ever tasted, is in Dublin. :-) :-)
@@bjtt9841 yeah the Guineas in Ireland is different gravy. I don’t think they care if you steal from them, they’re definitely not there to sell the sweets, you can literally walk in help yourself and just walk out. They probably ring it through as a sale and wash the cash
@@StoutProper You are damn tooting Guinness, it's certainly a money laundering set up. & Yeah, the pints of Guinness in Ireland, are different class. One needs a calculator to keep tabs, on how many pints one has consumed, superb, & loads of Iron as well, yum-yum. Anyway Guinness, I bid you pleasant times ahead, & enjoy, & good luck, sincerely, BJTT. :-) :-)
That's a tragedy for Oxford Street, and for the wonderful HMV flagship store to be turned into this dross is terrible.
loada dross
Dumbing down is common place.
Cry me a river
As much as I like HMV it was a victim to change in technology. Can't really blame anyone for that. 🤣 The problem for HMV is that it didn't innovate or adapt and evolve.
@@MrPiccolop I agree. It was possible to have great conversations with in-store specialists on music and films,and make new discoveries.
If they are laundering money, we should not be surprised, it is after all a time-honoured British tradition and the reason that off-shore havens were established in many UK territories and flourish to this day.
Dave, money laundering is a British institution par excellence. Now you probably do not know many small islands/nations were created after the centuries long holocaust that black people endured ( slavery ) specifically to transfer and conceal cash. I have no idea why you are one bit surprised.
@@PHlophe Dave Mitchell, 2 days ago " we should not be surprised,..".
I'm surprised you couldn't read that...
The UK is itself a tax haven and money laundering centre. Most has come through the London Property market. They are just branching out with more criminality from lower down the food chain. Meanwhile someone is getting paid to continue to turn a blind eye.
Suprised no ,pissed off yes.
Well said pal.its the british way to launder money and evade taxes lol.
They're also likely a front for illegal migration. There's a "London tat" shop in... York, staffed by someone of ME origin who can't speak any English and doesn't know what a 50 pence coin looks like.
there are so many in york!!! it's so sad to see our highstreets become this way
is london tat a mispelling ?? is york no longer a touristy town, i have good memories of york,
@@landz2228 sadly not a mispell, a large portion of highstreets are now I
@@landz2228 No it's not. It's officially titled "The London Shop" or something like that, the exact same "franchise" you see on every street in London.
Selling nothing but big ben statuettes and London magnets etc.
via an investment visa?
I work in the area and I've been thinking this for years. There's definitely something dodgy going on and I'm rather sick of seeing these generic shops popping up everywhere while some genuine useful businesses can no longer afford the ridiculous rents and rates of central London anymore.
Is that not the governments fault that these “genuine useful companies” can’t afford to let those properties ?
You're mad at the wrong people
I wouldn't say its the governments fault per say, although they don't help. Of course these kinds of prestigious locations with some of the highest footfall will demand high prices, it's just got to the point that even decent businesses struggle to pay all their overheads and make some profit, then we have these junk sweet shops that look colourful but don't really add much to the area. I don't get it 🤷♂️ but oh well
If they're paying the rent who cares? This is just capitalism all money is dirty do people even know how the UK became rich in the first place? This is such a non issue it's ridiculous
@@jacksevert3099 yeah bro corruption and illegal shit is fine why are you complaining about what goes on in your society.
you're either braindead or a shill
The reason is this , under UK laws any foreigners bringing money into this country to invest in certain sectors do not need to declare origin of money .
I will leave the rest to you but here's a clue , London is now the biggest money laundering capital on planet earth .
Londongrad or Londonstan or something similar.
Roddy, same with greece and Cyprus , money is invested there, the local politics pocket huge commissions and refuse to send auditors to interrogate provenance of the influx of cash.
The Uk enjoys cash from dictators from across the globe no questions asked. huge interest generated is repurposed in a tax havens. and some of it is to buy arms which are then resold.
You also get a free passport to stay. Bringing 32 of your close relatives.
Are you sure about this? I am sceptical of your claim.
When I was younger I was genuinely excited to go up west and visit HMV and Virgin-it was great to go to Oxford News and buy a rare coconut fruit ice lolly. I was horrified the last time I walked down Oxford Street to find these seedy looking candy stores literally everywhere with no customers. Who knows what is going on .
I remember those days.
Oxford Street is massively overrated......in fact it's a disgrace tbh. The entire street needs a total rethink, not just in terms of banning all the diesel belching vehicles, but ridding it of 'tat' aswell.
It's supposed to be Britain's premier shopping street, but lacks the class and glamour of Regent Street, or the regal splendour of Edinburgh's Princes Street. Oxford Street is just so shabby, has no style, and is trapped in the past quite frankly.
Now that Westminster has a Labour council, perhaps they will do something to address all the things I mention above.......oh, and be 'cycle friendly' too - something that Conservative controlled Westminster Council were notorious for not being. Just ask the London Cycling Campaign (LCC).
Oxford St is now a sad mess , not the place I remember growing up when going there was a wonderful experience.
Today it looks run down and has lost its lustre…….
I'm more sad for Tottenham Court Road than Oxford Street, which used to be the electronics road like Akihabara of Tokyo, nowadays it's just another street in Central London.
Went to hmv and virgin in Glasgow in the 80s looked forward tae it every week mad days 🥺🤣💙🏴💙🏴
I've been wondering about this for a while. They are everywhere in Glasgow and their sweets are really expensive. They are always empty and in places with high rents. How do they stay open?
Yeah, Sauchiehall Street is really bad for them, open for a while, close down for two weeks, reopen two units down and repeat - I did read something about if your business closes within 18 months you don't need to pay some sort of tax.
@@HostageK1ll3rHD Not aware of that, the liability to tax is not extinguished.
Most of these so called American
Candy 🍬 shop's are just a front...
Behind most of them it's pure drug
Dealing....
I personally knew someone who
Had a candy 🍬 shop which was
Empty most of the time and when
I asked him he blatenly told me it's
Just a front!!!
@@Shahzadkhan-dm3cv Just about every Eastern European food shop in Grimsby sells cheap cigarettes. Some are smuggled in and some are dodgy but when they get raided there are literally hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of them. As soon as one is raided people go to the next one and so it continues.
@@Shahzadkhan-dm3cv what gear are they shifting ¿?
It goes even deeper than the obvious money laundering and tax evasion. The building owners and landlords, which are most likely involved in the organized crimes themselves, benefit from having their spaces occupied by businesses like this. They let a renter come in and pay a super low rent, and sign non disclosure agreements that say they cant disclose the rent cost. The building owner says that the value of each space is some outrageous over valued amount, and gets tax right offs for losses from the spaces that dont rent. They can make more money from the tax right offs than they can from renting them out. This is obviously not right, but certainly no different than our governments have done for years.
It all started with Trocadero! How did Westminster allow one of London’s best attractions “SegaWorld” to turn into a souvenir shop which now is another candy store. Same with Virgin Megastore on the corner of Marble Arch and many more. The government is complicit. It’s all about money.
It isn't just London btw, they are everywhere, even in my wee town of Dunfermline. Also, if a company like BOOTS can't afford to maintain their Oxford Street site then clearly, without any shadow of a doubt this is certainly money laundering. Even the one in my small town's High Street shopping centre is 100% empty AT ALL TIMES yet they can afford rent and rates and are open 7 days a week. Nothing more than criminal fronts and I don't understand how they continue to exist. The local authorities and their banks have a legal obligation to report them as money laundering front operations.
Ah but you have to be able to prove it.
Probably linked to Tory party mate, what illegal shit isn't?
same in liverpool. example we had a large H&M store on church street which relocated further up the street and now it’s a american candy shop it’s always empty how the hell can they afford the rent on this prime location on church street 🤣
I can assure you one of the hallmarks of American candy is how cheap it is. They should be arrested for the insane markup alone. 🤣
Its quite pricey to import
there's tonnes of them in Edinburgh now too. I live in a flat above one of them and I never see anyone ever go in there. i was out once and my amazon parcel got dropped in there and the prices were crazy
You need to investigate all the barber shops that are also opening up within yards of each other in the poorer neighbourhoods in the North as well -it used to be sunbed shops
Good point; I see these barber shops everywhere now in the Home Counties. They are always staffed by Turkish guys.
What a joke. But just look at all the fugitives who’ve laundered money in their home country and fled to live outside of the law in the UK too. Pretty sad state of affairs. Good investigation 👍
Not only live but the UK does not care that this is in fact blood money.
Just how prolific do you think this problem is...?
If they're paying the rent who cares? This is just capitalism all money is dirty do people even know how the UK became rich in the first place? This is such a non issue it's ridiculous
@@billjefferson3092 It's waycist to be mean to about the brown people blood money
People in the UK are more concerned about the bloke across the road claiming disability benefits while loading fishing gear or golf clubs into a car he got on mobility than they were about the Panama papers.
I ALWAYS wondered how all the shops up the Tottenham Ct Rd end of Oxford St made any money, when they had huge rents, but were largely empty.
Some of them fancy shops you see with like one shoe on display in the window and not really selling much is normally owned by a wife of a rich business man to give her something to do.
I live in Paisley Scotalnd and theres ice cream/ desert shops all over the place, theres at least 6 of these all within a mile and they are always empty. Most established businesses have cleared off leaving just charity shops, takes aways and bookies. It all looks very dodgy.
Came back tae the toon a few years ago , nearly gret when ah seen the high st , wi the imagine shops . And the only guy in the street for a while was a busker playing the same 4 bars over and over .
Gled ah wiz exiled noo .
Aye it's sad to see the state of the town when you consider how busy it used to be. I've walked though Paisley at times and it is deserted.
Coatbridge exact same barbers and nail bars always empty 🥺💙🏴💙🏴
@@laurencesmith2199 exiled 😅👍🏻💙🏴💙🏴
@@ianmclaughlin4043
Fur lack o commitment to the swally , ah wiz always a lightweight .
They flung me o'er Hadrian's wa' , and hauf the toon came , to reassure the other hauf it happened .
Private Eye Magaizine has been covering this issue for some time, and it also highlighted some foreign owned souvenir shops that were avoiding paying tax and HMRC seemed uninterested when informed.
Always get my Souveniers from Shepherds Bush Market, cheaper and the stalls are run by locals
HMRC is owned by the NSA & GCHQ US national Security
Honestly you can say the same about any high street store now. All I see is nail salons, vape stores, Turkish barbers, candy stores and mobile phone repair stores.
With absolutely nobody in them and not one English worker makes zero sense
Seems, after the Afghan war and immigration of Afghans into the UK, this practice became mainstream. A look into the lifestyle of an Afghan in the UK does not add up? They run a small shop on a run down street, yet live like kings. I have one on my street, claims to run a small clothes shop, yet family all drive £60k cars, recently spent £300k on a house renovation (builder mentioned the total cost to me) and they always have plenty of spare cash for luxurious holidays - something does not add up?
Tell us more!
Lol
Same around here. Afghan takeaway shops and barbers everywhere. One shop got busted for a cannabis grow. That's what the money is coming from - illegal drugs.
What don’t add up is why England and America went to there land and raped and pillaged there people and the spike in opium in USA after the war
I think this is certainly true for phone accessory shops, and increasingly in my city (Exeter) Turkish barbers. We now have whole streets that are composed entirely of the two. There's no way there's enough demand to satiate to overabundant supply, and there appears to be precious little (if any) business going on in any of them.
It won't surprise you to hear that it is most likely for fencing stolen mobile phones and drug trafficking.
Small shops don’t need to pay business rates and barbers don’t need to hold stock. You have three chairs but only one in use.
@@Dazreil - very small shops in poor areas maybe, but it's a small number.
With the amount of 'Turkish' barbers in the UK I wonder how the Turks at home get a haircut.
@@theolderigetthewrongbitget4746 Its a style and method of cutting etc
I so welcome this video as it validates what I have been thinking every single time that I walk by one that is in Greenwich. They charge exhorbinate prices so no one buys anything. They are always fully stocked, mind you, so they look legitimate.
I know where you mean. There are a couple now and they’re hideous, not least because they’re tacky looking places but mostly because they’re clearly a front for nefarious business.
@@rachaelgraceblack So very true Rachael, and at least we now know that our suspicions were spot on.
It's the same stock they've had since day 1. But the accounts will show large purchances of new stock and large customer purchases of candy (always in cash).
Stupid thing is they could run those businesses properly and make money legitimately
@@mogznwaz yes but that would take a lot of effort for a relatively small return. This way is much easier and very profitable and almost zero effort as no customers or stocks to restock.
Always had my suspicions on those shops every time I pass them and there always empty
London Accountant here, we have turned down a few of these "businesses", their financing is dodgy at best.
Who are the people behind the stores? How much money are they declaring as profit?
Are they likely laundering, then?
This must be great for major landlords whose rents had been taking a hit due to the rise of online retail. I wouldn't be surprised if powerful people are turning a blind eye and/or are reluctant to make this illegal in order to prop up commercial rents and defend landlordism, in which many of the most powerful people and institutions in the country (private equity funds, politicians, royalty etc.) are invested heavily.
Money laundering is already illegal.
Its always been fairly easy to see which shops in your area are actually owned by drug dealers or traffickers. Basically any shop that is so quiet that you think, "how the hell are they staying open?!"
If a small independent shop has low footfall and survives more than a year, its a front.
I would add any business that doesn't accept cards. :/
i had a friend in high school who had a part time job at a music box store. he said no one ever bought anything there and the owner didn't seem bothered when they came to visit the store. didn't mind if he took long lunch breaks either. i remember my friend said he thought it was a front and i didn't know what he meant by that :-)
Also use expensive lawyers and accountants.Although the real accountants and lawyers are often on low key shopping centres with tiny little name plates .Its really fascinating, obviously the real accountancy goes on here with the big name presented with clear paperwork and a fat fee. problems arise when the big name accountants try to take the client out for lunch!
Actually not true most shops like tanning salons and beauty parlours do OK it's these whatever the stans that are defrauding the taxman and reclaim non existent vat etc.
Not necessarily, have you sat outside those shops all days and at all times and no exactly what is going on inside? I own a small takeaway, and we mainly do deliveries. If anyone was to glance at the shop from outside they’d think we’re always dead as there’s hardly any customers ever inside (although we actually do get quite a bit of collection customers, enough to survive off even, but they’re spread throughout the day so there’s no que’s ever) but we do a lot of deliveries, we turn over 5 figures a week. But you wouldn’t know just by looking at the shop from outside. Yes it could be the case that people use shops for money laundering, but it’s not always the case. And another thing people confuse money laundering and tax evasion, people who money launder are not trying to evade tax, they’re actually trying to pay tax in order to legitimise their illicit money lol
Wow. I can’t believe HMV Oxford Street is gone, only to be replaced with this shite!
😾🥲 it's a real shame 😔
Even if you don’t care about the company and their products its sad, that’s what intelligent anti war Russians say about McDonalds leaving Russia and selling of almost 1000 restaurants. Big change and not for the better! 😢
Really enjoyed this mini investigation!
The fact that every single product is full stocked should be an immediate red flag
In Australia there are nail salons and massage shops in copious amounts - far more than any demand could meet. I have heard of them being used as fronts for paid immigration sponsoring, among other things. The nail salons have dropped off a bit, but at one time they were just like these candy shops.
Great content as always.
Government would need to legislate to close the loopholes and allow local councils to pursue/close them. But they won't because foreign dirty money winds up in their pockets via the City banks and because that would be too much work that would kill off their own loopholes they use to exploit the economy. An absolute mess.
And the government will never allow anything which threatens demand for commercial property. The most powerful interests in the UK are all invested in both commercial and residential real estate, so rents and asset rises are all but guaranteed. Whenever there is a threat to them, the government takes measures to push them back up again.
I have been saying this for the entire time I've been in London. Thanks for digging into it.
Whenever you see a shop/store that hasn't enough walk-in traffic to possibly pay the rent for the location yet survives where other more normal businesses fail you can be sure it's connected to some form of money laundering.
In a suburban plaza of shops there was a tiny Tea Shop with perhaps three small tables and a small counter in the tiniest footprint within the property. The grocery store, the convenience store, the national drug store franchise, several small restaurants, a boutique and so on *all failed* and closed in due turn but the little Tea Shop stayed in place. Once in a while a stretch limousine could be seen parked in front and other times there might be a random dump truck there. Clearly it was the mob landlord of the development which itself was built as some kind of tax dodge investment.
I described this to a friend at work and he recalled a similar place at another older plaza not far away with another weird small specialty shop with no customers that mysteriously stayed while large franchise clients failed and died away and were replaced with new shops.
If I could figure out these are syndicate operations surely the local police *could* as well which makes you think they are on the take to look the other way.
That’s what I think when I see watch repair or shoe repair shops in the states
@@robert039 At least those once made sense and squeezed into lower level kiosks in suburban malls. That second shop my buddy mentioned was/is selling over-priced tacky bric-a-brac and NOBODY shops there yet they still exist afaik.
...and mobile phone accessories kiosks, Oriental massage parlours, and nail boutiques.
@@gwynbetts29 In my local suburban mall every kiosk and shop selling mobile/cell phone accessories and services apart from the giant national ones is run by the same guy. I counted at least ten shopfronts and kiosks one day. A staff member at one of the major branded stores clued me in that price shopping among those independents was useless because it was all the same owner with shared staff and resources.
Ironic then that horse trading was not being done.
This is extremely frustrating because if we had a shop selling American foods ( not just candy) at a reasonable price it would definitely do really good business in my area. There are soooo many expats here. The expats have had to turn to online source though now.
Great video, I think the reporter for this is the poshest chap I have ever witnessed in my life.
That's what turns me off , Byline.
Here in Prague there are dozens of candy stores in the historic centre. They’re not American branded but there are several similar rival chains selling expensive sweets and with photography banned.
the weird thing is, the UK is a good country for candy, american candy is terrible.
@@kanedNunable Yes but not since the Americans bought cadbury.
@@geneytube18 Cadbury has gone down the toilet hasn't it?!! It's very sad. I don't even know where to get good quality milk chocolate any more, perhaps I should just order it directly from Belgium.
Sweets by weight scam
@@The_New_Abnormal_World_Order I still like Cadbury creme egg. I had my last one left over from Easter as I was watching the UK coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest.
There is clearly no commercial rationale for these shops, therefore the conclusion must be they have been set up for another reason. A council will never have the resources to pursue the owners ( if they can be found), it should be the matter for a criminal investigation, unlikely to happen though.
A vacant shop in Oxford street would be bad for tourist image, so any shop will do. Lower rate.
I’m not going to lie, I mourned my innocence when I watched this. I love sweets and use these shops to get imported snacks that are hard to find. I assumed that these shops were legitimate because people pay stupidly high prices if they’re tourists or in London. The numbers don’t add up, I could understand a couple of successful shops, but seriously, the entire high street! Definitely laundering money, do any of these shops have a website!? How the hell can they afford the rent.
I noticed that a lot of small budget food shops, all forgeign staff close to established convenience stores , they are not busy enough to pay their rates or overheads , this needs to be investigated
They need A WHOLE TON of people coming up and filming and getting up to all sorts of strange but legal activities around them. Flash mobs might be an idea. Let's do something!
What they need is an HMRC compliance unit to swoop on them
I’m sure I’ve noticed the same sort of phenomenon in Birmingham but instead of American candy it seems to be deserts and cakes. So many calories but no one’s gaining weight? How can they all be making money?
It's not just London, I'm in Colchester and for a rather small town centre there are 3 of these that have just popped up?! ... and they seem to be open 24/7 in spite of always being empty
Rachel, i think if those were asian shops , everyone would have zoomed in on the inner activities but because the front is american. everyone is cool and calm. with the odd person noticing. and its one thing racism benefits from.
You took the words out of my mouth! Colchester is hella dodgy same for Clacton
@@PHlopheYeah, people find Americans more trustworthy than ‘Asians’. Gonna cry? Ask yourself why that might be… Btw, my sister has stopped going into town because men kept harassing her and even following her, and guess what, they weren’t American men.
I wondered the same when I saw all these same candy stores popping up on every block in the center shopping area of Amsterdam. I thought, seriously who needs this much candy?! But now it makes sense.
You should come to Amsterdam as the same thing is happening. So many candy stores are opening up that used to be Nutella crepe and waffle stores. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear this exact thing going on in many other major cities.
I lived in Lisbon and there loads of tourist shops that are expensive, no customers.
On my last trip up to London I went into one of these stores to get some treats for my son, and i couldn't believe how much they were charging for this stuff! The prices quoted in this video are not exaggerations - they're genuinely charging ridiculous prices like that. I walked out empty-handed - I couldn't afford to spend that much on SWEETS, just because they're American and a novelty.
Even Sainsburys stock some Amercian Lines (more so since Kraft took over Cadbury) And they have high prices. B and M stores have a few lines, and they are much cheaper BUT the Amercian Sugar Content is way high
Maerahn .........home bargains have most of the same sweets these stores are selling and alot lot cheaper.
Tesco has some 'murrican candy
You just steal them, they don't care.
So you are saying that Americans should bring some candy over and sell it to the Brits? :)
But the Police have not noticed!
Police don’t stop crime, that’s a myth.
Times Square in New York has a similar issue. It was so sad to see it in 2013 full of cheap looking empty souvenir stores when I last visited, compared to 2003 when it was full of flagship stores for all the major brands.
As an American i clicked on this video thinking "man they must really love our candy" just to find a crazy money laundering scheme in the UK lol good watch glad i found it.
Those prices are ridiculous, I'm glad I'll never go to Londonstan again! 🏴
One of the more interesting conspiracy theories I've heard was that Brexit was mostly about UK being able to keep it's tax heaven status since EU has been preparing for some time to cut short those kind of practices
But hey, that's just a theory
I can't speak for the reasons for Brexit, but you are entirely correct that the EU were planning to bring in more financial regulations to cut down on tax evasion in various forms. Impossible to tell if it was a factor though, but it is interesting timing.
Angelika, watch a documentary called “ The spiders web” Britain’s second empire, it’s about all the money laundering and explains a lot . A question would be re Brexit whom created the EEC or common market? They have turned everything into a private corporation and that includes us.
The EU hasn’t brought in material new controls in evasion or secrecy, while the UK is doing so.
@@andyhill1268 i second ur recommendation, was a quality vid.
Sorry when you called the UK a tax haven, can you explain what you mean because the UK isn't a tax haven?
There's even a few in Leicester Square and Oxford Street has about 40 of them now. I recon in the West End there's easily around 200 candy stores if you include the small ones down backstreets masquerading as newsagents.
Nice work Byline TV -
more like this please
As an American who lived in London, it's a shame to see. But surprising to see how blatant these "store owners" are. It's so obviously odd that people know something is definitely up.
@Steve Sherman You're right. I, myself, am not ashamed. It's an idiom.
Really interesting video. Please do keep on this!
Same thing for these vape shops. One opens and closes rather quickly, only to be replaced by a very similar vape shop. And this is in south west London.
As well as being a front (most likely) the business also ''gets sold'' usually within the same family or group and renamed and enjoy a lower tax status as a ''new business'' for another year or so, people having been doing it for years.
cidercik ...............they close down as their visa runs out......should never have been shopkeepers in first place as came as tourists......can earn enough in 1 year to support themselves for a lifetime back home......outcome is they bump landlord off with rent,local council with rates and free electricity...also pay zero tax..........theyre not stupid........all supported by local mosque (who is probably initially bringing them here and giving them interest free loans for start-up.........aim is to bankrupt the west as they love (HATE) us so much.
I walked passed some of these shops. It was so strange - in the fact that they were empty and their were so many of them. All so right next door of one of these store’s that were selling gold chains etc and vape stuff - also completely empty and it didn’t look like they even had a check out desk!!
There's a shop on my local main road that I've long suspected of money laundering. It's one of 2 shops (the other is a legit community chemist) and it opens up every year or so as a new business. Atm it's a barbers all kitted out with a nice sign but I've never once seen it open. They spent weeks in there fitting it out n have never opened the shutters. Before this it was a newsagent type of shop that sold nothing but 2 litre bottles of pop. They had a cigarette counter but it only ever held half a dozen packs. I went in one time to try n buy a pack but they didn't have my brand. This shop did used to open but I never saw anyone go in to buy anything but even if they had, they wouldn't of had what they needed unless they needed a bottle of pop. The weird thing about it is I'm sure the owners are from Afghanistan
Come to think of it I think that there was a shop in Bridgwater that sold nothing but bottles of pop as well.
I live in Luton, and the shopping centre here has become very suspicious. Costa coffee moved out and was replaced with a shop called "coffee shop". Debenhams moved out and has been replaced with "home store" etc etc. theres even a shop that sells *sweetcorn in a fucking cup* and they called it "yummy cup corn"🤦♂️ These places never have anyone in them, they sell things you'd expect to find at a car boot sale, makes you wonder what the motive is
Laundered drug and people trafficking money.
i love the sweetcorn place
@@Joseph-os6nl they must've used jedi mind tricks
There are 2 American candy stores in kingston, only a few meters apart. While their prices are extremely high, they seem to be always full of people. Now the prices are high because of the UK sugar tax on imported sweets. I looked into opening a store like this as I'm from Canada and have connections to buy wholesale in North America, the inly problem is the import fees and sugar tax in the UK is CRAZY HIGH. But the 2 stores in kingston seem to be dpong really well and again they are almost always packed with customers so I doubt they are money laundering.
Not just London mate, loads in Glasgow too, and I'll assume the rest of Scotland's, and the UK's, major cities. They'll close one, then open on another site. I can't do the math as to how they legitimately make money consistently (I was an Account Manager representing several international FMCG brands, confectionery, foods, ice cream and others, so I'm fairly familiar with this industry and the machinations of it...). I'd LOVE to get a look at their tax returns, till receipts and Companies House documentation... 👍🏴
You would have to go through a big accountancy firm as well as a big solicitor firm to even get close and then you would be at least two or three tiers away from the real accountants and lawyers never mind the owner.
@@justjacqueline2004 Oh you betcha... 👍🏴
It’s the same with most of the take away shops. Funny they don’t take card payments… only cash.
a lot of smaller shops wont take card payments as they have to pay a small transaction fee to mastercard/visa. its why they if they do, they will charge for it or have a minimum spend. the bigger chain stores will eat the cost.
We have barber shops popping up everywhere. Cash only. 🤔
@@johnnypay I think it’s more to do with tax declarations
I wonder how common this is? For some years, I've been noticing high st businesses that make absolutely no mathematical sense, as they're rarely open and don't seem to be selling anything much. I've seen an old shop, newly fitted out, to look like an upmarket florists, that was literally never open, and when you looked closely through the window, you soon realised they were the same flowers in the displays, so they must have been plastic ones, and that nonsense went on for a couple of years.
Turkish barbers and tanning shops are the ones to look out for...never anyone in them but somehow they afford the high Town centre rents/business rates
@@mickbitchum4664 Yes, there does seem to be an overabundance of those these days, though, if they are a scam, then rent isn't an issue for them, as they would typically pay rent to a subsidiary company, which, if you can trace it back, is ultimately owned by the same person/group. As for business rates, they simply fold the company, before the end of the financial year, and have new "tenants" (at least the names of any directors and the company secretary will have changed) in on the Monday morning, to continue business as usual.
I used to rent a small workshop on an industrial estate, here in Herts, and there were a number of sizeable companies there who pulled exactly this trick, repeatedly. The biggest, and most notorious one, would regularly change the name on the front of the unit, which was an enormous warehouse complex, so it would look like the place had changed hands, but you'd see exactly the same people turning up for work there, and it was usually a name, or acronym that closely resembled the old one. It was honestly that blatant, and it was a standing joke, as everyone on the estate knew what was going on there. Of course, nothing ever got done about it, to my knowledge, though the small businesses there got the exact opposite treatment and were pursued relentlessly for every last penny (the rates department once got a decimal point wrong, and forced my little venture into the ground paying for it, complete with the usual shaven headed thugs, hammering on your front door at the crack of dawn, demanding money), but that's Hertsmere for you. I do wince, every time I go past one of their signs, proudly announcing "Hertfordshire, the County of Opportunity", and mutter "County of incompetence and corruption more like" under my breath.
Turkish barbers and tanning shops are the ones to look out for...never anyone in them but somehow they afford the high Town centre rents/business rates
Many years ago there was a takeaway that set up shop amongst a University campus and where many students lived in a residential street in Cheltenham. It targeted students by selling hotdogs, and sandwiches made in front of you for rock bottom prices. Strangely it used to be open at unusual times such as all day Sunday and into the early hours in the morning. It was open for a few weeks until there was a huge police raid on it late at night. My housemates told me that were police cars surrounding it with armed officers as they were going past it.
Also, on the same street just a few metres away there was a newsagents that was never closed, had overpriced stuff and it was the place where one of my friend's boyfriend who worked in a local drugs community scheme said that they had a lot of young women who had reported first getting into drugs via this shop and the men who owned it. Me and my friend witnessed a drugs deal just outside of this shop and one of the owners of the shop was stood with us who watched this deal intently as he pretended to read a newspaper.
This has been going on for years, The hand car wash game is a prime example.
Where I live we've had a spate of "Turkish" barber shops open in our small local high street and I rarely see any customers in them, certainly no where near the numbers needed to make enough income to stay open.
We walked into one of these to show an American friend last week- but as nothing was price labelled, we left. No label = overpriced.
Great coverage, I'm subscribed.
You should look into the massive proliferation of dessert/icecream parlours on just eat.
Listen as an American, once you see too many of one store, assume money laundering. It’s the American way lmao
They don't even do it well they open shop right next to each other, if you are going to do something do it well at least. Back in the 60's my grandparents owned a small hot dog restaurant in Chicago and they said at the time if the restaurant looked like it was crap but was around for years it was for money laundering. But you never saw like ten of them on the same freaking street.
I always walk around london for my job, and I’ve been noticing these places are almost always empty yet somehow manage to afford the rent. There’s something very fishy going on which I’ve always thought and almost always the owners don’t seem like nice people
irony is, US candy is not as good as UK's. My kid lives in US, and I have to take a suitcase of chocolate over for him and his mates every time I go.
im from canada and living in europe for over a decade. European candy and snack food tastes like shit. chocolate is the only exception. i'll gladly pay 5euro for a pack of twizzlers that cost 1$ at home. every canadian/american i know takes empty suitcases when they travel home so they can load them up with candy/snacks to come back with..
@@gerrya4818 "i'll gladly pay 5euro for a pack of twizzlers that cost 1$ at home" Genuinely made me chuckle. Thanks, wannabe yank.
If you're paying 17 quid for some twinkies, there's a little personal responsibility to be addressed. If you're going to London to buy American sweets, there's also some personal responsibility to be addressed. But yeh, clearly dodgy. Oxford Street has always had these pop ups though, it used to be fake perfumes around Christmas time.
This is hilarious. The UK has fallen a long way...
As other comments on here attest these dubious shops are found in numerous other countries…
This is what happens when you open the floodgates to foreigners..
Criminals the lot of them..
I'm in a town 25,000 people and we've got four shops like this..
No one ever in them but it well known they're fronts for drugs, fake tobacco and fake branded alcohol and money laundering..
Small town and you can't keep secrets especially when no one ever goes in them...
Shut them all down and kick the bastards out of Britain..
Here up north, its not candy stores but "phone/mobile stores" doing the same stuff. See them all over and empty but somehow manage to stay open
Are they any different to the hippies who are selling £7 bowl of cereals in shoreditch?
I remember the east section of Oxford Street towards Tottenham Court Road always being home to some questionable businesses (The auction houses were quite prevalent in the 90’s). In the last decade the western part has become more down market.
With a mixture of changing shopping habits, the fact that business rates have become extortionate and that Councils have made life so difficult legitimate small business owners. Laundering fronts and charity shops seem to occupy the majority of commercial spaces on high streets in many towns around the UK.
I suspect the reason Westminster council have not put much effort in going after these questionable businesses is that they don’t want the embarrassment of having so many vacant properties in what is meant to be Britains premier shopping street.
Not really,they do pay rates no matter what the councillor says.
@@justjacqueline2004 you ask Ali that?
This reminds me of crappy newsagents in North Birmingham where I thought they were fronts for drugs.
Are those Scientologists still on the high street? Me and my mum had the displeasure of running into them a few times. They used to be a few of them stopping people on the high street dressed in white and yellow suits and they had a base upstairs from what I think was a restaurant and there was a Christian bookshop on the corner. In Sunderland the Scientologists got into trouble as they were trying to recruit school children on their way to and from school.
In Birmingham I also saw evidence of another cult called The Family, who used to be called The Children Of God. But these used far subtler tactics such as leaving religious magazines on the bench near where Scientologists were stopping people on the street. Many cults use this 'let's just leave a pile of our religious books or magazines on this bench' tactic including Jehovahs Witnesses and now Scientologists do it in Sunderland.
A lot of these front shops are linked to religious / psycho or political cults. They are also involved in multi level marketing schemes and financial scams. Scientologists have a few business fronts, and both they and The Jehovahs Witnesses have come under fire for harassment, especially the JW who are now busily selling thousands of Kingdom Halls in order to pay for huge legal cases for claims of child abuse and illegal sophisticated spying in Australia.
If you ever see those vegan shops be aware that they appear to be linked to new age religious cults and money laundering. These cafés have what's like a library of piles of panthlets and newsletters all preaching 'clean eating', new age healing, far left socialist politics and environmental issues. If you do a Google search on the contact details on this literature you will find that they are all seemed to be linked to the same people and there's a lot of front organisations.
They have like 3 of these up in York, too. They're everywhere
The same thing is happening in the USA as well, but the thing is here in certain states they just legalized slot machines in private owned businesses, so now there are a bunch of candy stores popping up all over the place and every store you walk into has these gaming machines in them, it's insane it's like a mini casino in every store that you walk into.
where in america do you live?
You notice they're never run by Americans or Brits, bit strange for an American candy store in the UK...not one.
yeah they're all illegals
Who would pay £16 for a box of American sugar “cereal”?!
Presumably they buy enough stock for the place to look legit and the storeroom is empty. The high prices are to dissuade anybody from buying.
Phillip.
@@philliptemple4534 Also, to cover the fact that the till "receipts" are huge. "Sure we made £50k last week, have you seen how expensive this stuff is?"
Why would they be so daft as to just replicate the same type of shop? Why not make them different? One sweet shop, another a stationary, or a fish food shop. Just anything to make it look less suss?
They would be more expensive and due to there being no deterrent, unnecessary.
You don't need complex temporary leasing to launder money. Unless its so bad that it's visible you're not getting enough customers, no one would know. This is something else.
Business rates evasion by landlords too in full knowledge of HMRC because they're well connected.
It could be something far simpler. It could be that the Property managers that own these expensive shopping districts don't want a bunch of vacant shops in the middle of a bad economy so they setup place holder stores to make it look occupied. They stuff it with cheap crap to keep costs down and hire cheap labor to make it look like a business. It's probably more about maintaining high rents for the rest of their occupants, knowing full well that a bunch of vacancies would drive rents down.
That would be less palatable than lowering the rents. We are talking about 25% of all the properties on Oxford St being rented out for nothing if your theory held water. Yes, it would make demand look stronger but involve forgoing far too much rental income.
It is absolutely disgusting that Britain is such a hub for never mind dirty money but filthy money. Quite frankly, it is Westminster Council itself, which should be taken to court. It is obviously wholly complicit in arranging these micro leases, not just failing to do due diligence on prospective tenants, but actively encouraging and involving itself in the horrendous corruption. Whilst I say this with no direct evidence, when you look at the several theoretical ways in which this situation could come about, the only practical way it could actually happen is how I outlined above.
Furthermore, it is only a marginally more subtle manifestation of the same governance which has, til very recently at least, allowed Putin's cronies to make comfortable and secure lives for themselves in London, buying sports clubs, sending their children to the smartest schools and airing their laundry in British courts, far from the fear of the ludicrous sham hearings they would get in their native country - and, for a fee, of course, Britain is more than happy to accommodate them. While The Mikado was written 137 years ago, Gilbert and Sullivan's haughty and hypocritical character, Pooh-Bah, is still very much alive: "first lord of the treasury, lord chief justice, commander-in chief, lord high admiral, master of the buckhounds, groom of the back stairs, archbishop of Titipu, chief rabbi and lord mayor, both acting and elect, all rolled into one.” Whereas Koko had to somehow find a way to persuade him to arrange his nuptials that didn't set up too many unresolvable differences between the various roles contained within that one person, in this situation, he would have an equally thorny, if different problem: he would just have to arrange the "very considerable bribe" to be distributed amongst several people working in concert, rather than with one person in several different capacities.
May I further suggest that while a certain senior judiciary position happens to be mentioned in the above-quoted and famous lyrics, in fact I feel that the Courts in Britain is the one remaining institute which still retains a shred of dignity and credibility. Accordingly, I believe anyone accused of being involved in all this shady business, would get a fair trial if the facts were allowed to come out. However therein lies the rub. Just look at how the Kincora Boys' Home scandal continues to be hushed up - there are too many bishops, ministers, chief secretaries and lord high admirals' reputations at stake for the full truth of it ever to surface. Regretfully, what's going on here in Oxford Street seems very much of that order of high level corruption.....
As with the wake up call we have received with Russia's latest actions in Ukraine, we collectively, not just in Britain but everyone on the face of the planet needs to ask themselves whether they are prepared to tolerate this blithe and blatant, naked two faced double dealing and hypocrisy which is not just an egregious crime and offence to any right minded person, it is costing you all an absolute fortune. The amount of tax revenue either not received due to corruption or wasted for the same reason, is astounding. I ask again, how bad does it need to be and for how long before change?