I found a really niche state patrol office to pay a fix-it ticket. It was on the third story of an off site parking garage for a mall type thing. With only two "visitor" spaces. There were like 4 cops in this tiny office just yucking it up when I walked in. They all did the "oh look busy now!" dance when I surprised them. I think this was one of those "put him on desk duty so he'll still get a paycheck while he gets cleared" type places. Nice enough for cops, but they had that shitty kid just got away with something vibe, bigtime.

There's a road near my house that has over ten barber shops on it. The road is about half a mile long. I'm not sure of the percentage, but they can't all be legit.

When I lived in Daytona a shop opened up that sold nothing but Super-Whippers - $1 plastic whisks. They had two display trees in the front windows, one with black whisks and one with white whisks. They were never open and there was a hand-written sign on the door that said "Closed. If you want a Super-Whipper, they have some at the nail salon next door." The store was in a strip mall less than 200 ft. from three dollar stores and a Publix, all of which sold plastic whisks.

Pretty sure it was a front lol.

There are a ton of gambling places where you never see anyone walking in. It's a public secret these are money laundering operations from some well connected crime syndicate.

Theres a video rental place down the way from me in Vancouver, BC. First, Vancouver is expensive as hell. Our average 1 bdrm is roughly 3k a month. This guy has a prime location, in Vancouver, on a busy street, with a video rental store. Who rents movies these days? Maybe some, but surely not enough to keep him afloat. It's not an adult video store either.

Not sure if this counts since most of them have recently closed down, but for a while there was a large number of American candy stores popping up all over town. Many cash only, same products and same branding across many different stores. Hardly anyone was ever shopping there, and yet they could somehow always afford to pay rent for prime locations. Eventually, several journalists picked up on the topic and found evidence many of them were fronts for money laundering and were tied to organised crime. Not sure if it was directly connected to that increased awareness, but shortly after more of these articles were published, most of the local stores closed.

Matress stores.

Never see anyone in them, never see anyone in the parking lot, and every time i've ever gone in there was one person working there who acted surprised as hell someone came in.

and yet they are always expanding and building more locations

I have a shop near where I live in the middle of a suburb that only sells fans (the wind blowing kind) and they are a DHL pickup point, everytime I am there there is nobody there. The fans are stacked in boxes up to the ceiling and the quantity of them never changes, been that way for over a year now.

There is also always a shady ass person behind the counter, and often a few shady persons in the "back" of the store.

Since they only sell fans they should've called their store OnlyFans come to think about it .

Shady as shit no-tell motel, overpriced as hell for where it's located. Pulls in maybe 5 guests a week, but the owners flashing about in a shiny new car.

Slightly related: I just assume any business that operates on a cash-only basis is commiting tax fraud.

We had a restaurant on the corner that was open 20 hours a week. They closed a few years ago. I miss their fries.

In Barcelona there are a lot of many small cafes, bars, restaurants (located generally in zones where the terrain is very expensive) that got purchased by Chinese families.

Generally these were frequented for coffee, drink + tapas, lunch meal. But after the ownership change they end up frequented mainly for the same stuff but not for the food because it's generally not good.

To me these are front for something else. They always become much worse for eating. Never better. Like there is no intention of improving it. But they still do it smartly because they keep some customers just for the beer and coffee mainly after work.

There's an arcade in the center of town beneath an expensive (yet shitty) apartment complex. The arcade windows are covered but there is a sign that says "Opening Soon". It's been two years and nothing has changed externally. At first I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, but the property is expensive to rent and after 2 year I have my doubts.

What I don't understand though is if you were using the place as a front, wouldn't an arcade be a great place to launder money while your at it?

There is this wig shop in a very popular and pricey area in my town. It's been there since my mom was a child.

The wigs exposed are old fashioned, ugly, never change and we've never seen the shop open. Its super weird. I'm convinced it has to be a cover for something.

I live in Italy, pick one at random, that's it

Cellphone cases stores

Have a furniture store in the small downtown area of my town. The entire building looks cigarette stained. They have brown tint on their windows, and peering inside, all the furniture looks crazy old and probably not something you'd want to buy.

On top of that, they're open "by appointment only" and that's just about the only sign they have other than the name of the business. Never seen anyone go in/out. It's in a major location too, "Main street", there's no way it's a real thing.

A handful of restaurants which definitely can't afford the amount of people working there and the interior. They always operate the same way: the food doesn't taste good, expensive interior and (many) more personnel than customers.

Unless they all have a philanthropist millionaire as a sponsor, I suspect they launder money. Apparently this is quite common in Germany because hard cash is still common here. Even large sums of money.

There's a well known 24 hour florist in Melbourne.

Come on now, who needs flowers at 3am?

So I was about to write about a very weird hat shop on the ground floor of an exclusive apartment building in the most hip neighbourhood in my city. They have like 15 hats on display, no customers ever, three bored workers scrolling through their phones all day. But I went to their website, which they do have and it seems most of their business is actually distributing Stetson products and other premium leather goods in this part of Europe, so I guess they can very well afford having one brick-and-mortar display store.

There's a neighborhood restaurant near me that is unreasonably bad. You can't tell the staff apart from people who are just hanging around - and you do need to figure it out cause no one is coming to take your order. They're dirty, disinterested and rude. Food is typically some piece of meat and fries which is served swimming in sauce, and often it's way overdone or cold / raw. They're often missing ingredients. You just get the feeling overall that they're truly not interested in having customers.

There's this building near my old place. It's old, it's somewhat tall, with a great big hall inside, looks like. LOTS of religious paraphernalia and icons about. It's a little creepy.

No one ever comes or goes during the week; only on weekends. And then it's a steady stream. I don't know how they can afford the space they're taking up, but they seem to. I worried it could be a front for gambling or child-trafficking, but they call themselves a church. Definitely seems sus. It's been on Reddit, actually, a few times.

Just kidding, it's the famous Knox Presbyterian with the sayings everyone sends everyone.

Here in Brazil, I guess the Subway franchise. Almost no one inside the shops for years and lack of real promotional campaigns give the sensation that it is a big money washing scheme.

In the city I grew up in, there’s a Chinese restaurant near my home that never gets packed, not even on busy weekends. I’ve also never seen more than 2 customers at a time eating there. And yet, it’s outlasted every single restaurant in the vicinity for 3 decades. That, and there’s always an expensive car or two parked in front.

I used to live in a town with no less than three scuba shops.

It was not on the water.

Yeah. Just about every tech startup with its own pretentious wall paintings and billboards and front-facing flair.

The loudest ones tend to be the ones doing basic shit like not paying property taxes around here.

Mattress Firm

For decades there was a funeral parlor down the street from my house. Right in the middle of a busy residential neighborhood in the city. There's only on-street parking and they had two spots in front of their building reserved for funerals. Only no one ever parked there. No cars, limos, hearses, anything. A neon open sign turned on every day over their door but no one ever came or went.

My parents had a tenant who was an elderly gentleman with few relatives. When he died, my mom called the parlor to arrange the funeral but no one answered. She left a message on their machine but no one ever called back. We weren't fully surprised because we'd been calling it a front for years, but mom was unconvinced until then.

The building got fully renovated a few years ago and we actually saw a funeral taking place, so they've upped their game.

There is a carpet store and restaurant near my house, and in the three years I've lived here I can't recall seeing anyone buy anything or even visit either store a single time.

Once my partner and I actually walked over to check it out and the carpet store was closed and all of the windows were covered. It was like 4 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, so I can't imagine why it would be closed.

There's supposedly a lot of Russian gang activity in my area, so I'm assuming it's just a front for them but I've never really confirmed it.

In the town I live in one of the worst kept secrets is a small hundred year old mixed use 2 or 3 story building. The Laundromat at the bottom with a handful of old washing machines and dryers is always locked and never actually open. Former tenants have publicly stated it's purely a front because the landlord doesn't want to bother with a commercial tenant but because of the zoning it needs a commercial space on the ground level so they maintain a fake laundromat

It's a public secret that "Winkel 137" (EN: "Shop 137") in Rotterdam is a front for illegal activity, most likely drugs. It's never open during normal hours, the shelves are barely stocked, and no one ever really enters the place. It's been there for as long as I can remember though.

If you look at the place in Google maps you can even see some weird ducts coming out of the wall on the above floor, presumably to clear out some of the vapors coming from the shop.

Every single Mattress Firm