Turkish Barbers

If they wanted to get every single dodgy shop in the country, it’s so rife, they’d need to draft in about thirty other Police forces from other countries to help them do it.

Anything from newsagents, vape shops, barbers, tanning shops, dessert shops, fast food takeaways, restaurants and on and on and on…

As far as then being ‘Turkish’ barbers n’all, I know of them branding themselves as such but being Albanians or Kurdish.
 
inbetween said:
To be fair I don't subscribe that most of these barbers are all money laundering fronts because christ that's a lot of drugs and money laundering. Most of the drug problems we've heard of involve the local scrotes and not Turkish folk.

The people that work in them don't strike me as criminals, I go to one and they're just young lads who clearly came over looking for a better life. Their only main fault is probably not putting everything through the till so to speak.

They're no different to your local Chinese chippy who accepts cash only but does accept bank transfers under the table (my local does!) if you can't be bothered to go to the cash machine.
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On the issue of ‘not putting everything through the till’, are you happy to pay more tax then, simply because people who should be paying tax don’t want to?
 
My barbers are Moroccan but he had some good old fashioned french words describing the new barber that just opened around the corner. He told me that they are "dodgy mate"
 
The whole 'cash or card' situation is fucked up.
I take both but at least half of my customers insist on paying cash and back it up with the old, ''Cash is king.' line. they think they're doing me a 'nudge nudge, wink wink' favour which really mean i'll help you avoid tax.
Other traders i know have signs saying they don't take card because the fees are too high and taking cards would push prices up. That's bollocks or they are getting a rotten deal of the card companies.
 
Why is this in the political section ?

The allegation is that they are a front for money laundering.
They have simply replaced tanning salons.
 
can tell who is listening to fatty Ferrari this morning.

Here's the rub - I live in a small town in N Yorkshire we have a couple of Kurdish barber shops that have opened since Covid shut down 3 traditional barber shops forever. They do a good trade and tend to close about 5.30pm at the latest. They come from a culture where alcohol isn't widely consumed and the barbers is a sort of male only meeting point where guys can chew the fat without their wives being there. I am old enough to remember the same accusations being laid at the door of West Indian barbers in the 60's and 70's ( remember Desmond's?) "They don't keep regular hours what are they up to?" - " Its all a front for Yardy gangs to peddle weed"

Funny thing is for such a small town we have 5 traditional newsagents that I can think of who keep irregular hours ( evening papers, late bread, milk and fags sales are probably what is keeping them hanging on ) yet no-one thinks they could be a front for villainy.

I called LBC just after half eight to put these very points to the Tory who isn't a Tory ie Ferrari and was told by his producer "that isn't the angle we are looking for today thanks"
 
stonerblue said:
The whole 'cash or card' situation is fucked up.
I take both but at least half of my customers insist on paying cash and back it up with the old, ''Cash is king.' line. they think they're doing me a 'nudge nudge, wink wink' favour which really mean i'll help you avoid tax.
Other traders i know have signs saying they don't take card because the fees are too high and taking cards would push prices up. That's bollocks or they are getting a rotten deal of the card companies.
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They are getting a rotten deal. Card companies can charge anything between 1 and 5% on a transaction and if you are operating on very slim margins thats a chunk of your profits gone.

I discussed this with my local garage and they said its simple. If you go in and say they blow compressed air through your windscreen washer pipes to clear a blockage £25 cash is an easy deal. However if you go in and have discs and pads all around then that goes through the books and you pay VAT. Why? Because they pay VAT on the parts so analysis of the books would ask the question -

"you paid VAT on the parts - where did you fit them and where is the VAT paid customer invoice for fitting them?"

They said the odd cheap part could be "hidden" in another job (not sure how) but at the end of the day is it worth their bother to get in real trouble over £50?
 
Blue Mist said:
Why is this in the political section ?

The allegation is that they are a front for money laundering.
They have simply replaced tanning salons.
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Labour are clamping down on them unlike the Tories who let these laundering places thrive.
 
BobKowalski said:
Turkish barbers and vape shops? Pfft. You want money laundering then the City of London is the place. Estimates of around 40% of the worlds dirty money gets washed through the City. They don’t call it the Laundromat for nothing.
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Indeed. Any action that addresses crime is welcome but also highlights the wider problem. I think they said something like £1 million seized in assets? This is less than 1/1000 of the size of the money laundering issue in the London property market alone.

Arguably this initiative has a more obvious beneficial impact on people's everyday lives but does nothing to address the structural/macro level issues we have in the country which are killing us. These are obviously much harder to address but I can't help feeling that the political will only exists to police/address the proportion of the economy that the vast majority operate in and accept that the super rich are untouchable. Even ignoring the morality, the problem with this is that the trend of increased concentration of wealth in the hands of the super rich is not sustainable.
 
bluethrunthru said:
They are getting a rotten deal. Card companies can charge anything between 1 and 5% on a transaction and if you are operating on very slim margins thats a chunk of your profits gone.

I discussed this with my local garage and they said its simple. If you go in and say they blow compressed air through your windscreen washer pipes to clear a blockage £25 cash is an easy deal. However if you go in and have discs and pads all around then that goes through the books and you pay VAT. Why? Because they pay VAT on the parts so analysis of the books would ask the question -

"you paid VAT on the parts - where did you fit them and where is the VAT paid customer invoice for fitting them?"

They said the odd cheap part could be "hidden" in another job (not sure how) but at the end of the day is it worth their bother to get in real trouble over £50?
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I'm charged 17p for ever tenner spent. I think that's acceptable given the services the offer like invoicing, mobile paments and protections.
i pa vat on stock and deliveree charges but am not vat registered. When i do tax return i do not have to do seperate vat return.
 
BobKowalski said:
Turkish barbers and vape shops? Pfft. You want money laundering then the City of London is the place. Estimates of around 40% of the worlds dirty money gets washed through the City. They don’t call it the Laundromat for nothing.
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Absolutely, and the barbers and vape shops are a big part of it. I've always thought the large amount of massage places and Chinese medicine shops that are springing up are probably fronts for knocking shops or laundering too.
The thing is, in the laundering process income is declared and tax paid, so a handy revenue stream for govt coffers.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
Absolutely, and the barbers and vape shops are a big part of it. I've always thought the large amount of massage places and Chinese medicine shops that are springing up are probably fronts for knocking shops or laundering too.
The thing is, in the laundering process income is declared and tax paid, so a handy revenue stream for govt coffers.
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Oh you :-)

Handy revenue stream. You can do better than that Mazzer.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
Absolutely, and the barbers and vape shops are a big part of it. I've always thought the large amount of massage places and Chinese medicine shops that are springing up are probably fronts for knocking shops or laundering too.
The thing is, in the laundering process income is declared and tax paid, so a handy revenue stream for govt coffers.
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You think that massage parlours might be a front for knocking shops?

I wish I was as streetwise as you.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
I'm sure that some may not be, but tbh I don't think there are that many bad backs and sports injuries ;-)
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In my professional experience (which is fairly significant) even in some of the minority of prima facie legitimate units, the operatives frequently go off on a ‘frolic of their own’ in the privacy of the rooms they operate in.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
In my professional experience (which is fairly significant) even in some of the minority of prima facie legitimate units, the operatives frequently go off on a ‘frolic of their own’ in the privacy of the rooms they operate in.
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My own working lunches are rather more modest sadly.
 
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