Thread: Fictional Business for a story.

My story, hopefully a novel, involves a protagonist who is an immensely wealthy crime lord that uses a legit business as a front for his dark criminal activity. I need some ideas for names for the business, and what kind of business it should be..
Thanks

Kind of business: this is a wide open field. It might depend on location, the type of criminal activity, whether or not you want to create suspicion on the part of the law, how you intend using the legitimate activity to cover the criminality, so many things. I suggest you go away and think about it all some more. And read a few stories. Or newspaper reports. Or go out and do your own digging into this world. Name of business: depends on kind, and how creative you are.

It wants to be a cash business if it is used for money laundering, something like a pizza shop or some other food outlet. A cab company is good, it can also collect and deliver with some impunity. Night clubs are almost a tradition, as are betting shops.

Here in the Philippines, the criminals usually use retail hardware stores as fronts for a variety of reasons: 1. The stores are small-time, thus they can apply for a non-VAT status, lessening their tax expenses. This means not on less taxes, but less examination from the collectors of the BIR (IRS of the Philippines). 2. They can use a warehouse and it would totally make sense. There you can stockpile drugs, weapons, blah, blah. 3. It has no requirement from the bureau of customs, since it doesn't import nor export materials.

Just my two cents.

The small shop sounds like it may be the best idea. Just avoid a name like Godfather's Goods.

Another big one in the US are, or were, Union Halls.

Any cash business works too. Butcher shop, strip club, OTB, bakery. One of the NY mobs used a Kosher Chicken slaughterhouse.

In Juarez, being a border town, all the drug money is laundered through exchange-offices. It's widely known but working-class people use them anyway because since they just want to launder the cash, they care little for profit and so they have better rates than the banks.

People on the border tend to have a border-visa(don't know what it's called exactly) so they often cross to the border-towns on the U.S. side to shop and so on, which is why they often need to exchange their currency. It's perfect. It's all cash, no trouble, and nobody asks questions if large sums of money are delivered or withdrawn.

They do the same all along the U.S. border on both sides but to a lesser extent, and less in the open of course, especially on the U.S. side. In juarez however, nobody cares anymore, it's pretty much a war-zone anyway.

I would suggest a legitimate business that is very similar to the illegal activity. For instance, if your crime lord is a pimp, have him operate out of a strip joint. If he is a drug dealer, have him operate out of a pharmaceutical company. If he is a smuggler, give him a legitimate import-export business. It would make it easier to camouflage the illegal activity by making it look legitimate. For instance a pimp buying sex toys for his prostitutes can always say they are for use by his strippers, but it would not work if he owned a day care center. A smuggler's trucks coming and going at a warehouse does not look suspicious if the smuggler has a legitimate import-export business. There would also be an overlap of skills between the legitimate and the illegal activity. The bouncers that work in the strip joint can also protect the prostitutes from unruly johns - it's the same skill set. People who work the logistics of an import-export warehouse, who can move stuff in and out without losing it, can do the same thing in a smuggling operation.