Massive career change - becoming a barber

Massive career change - becoming a barber

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Petrus1983

Original Poster:

9,825 posts

170 months

Friday 28th June
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Apologies for going O/T but whose money is being laundered?

Are the barbers shops, car washes, nail salons etc OVER INFLATING their earnings (by pretending drugs money is legitimate trading income, processing it via their books, paying tax and NI on it and then passing it back to the criminals)?

if that's the case surely they wouldn't actually need or want actual paying customers? That would just be more money to launder, wouldn't it?

Let's say a carwash does 50 valets at £10 each, that's £3k a week, £150k a year. If they're fronting as a money laundering operation why bother with the carwash? confused
PRO5T will know more - but Turkey is the 2nd largest heroin producer in the world. Now we've got Turkish barbers and car washes. Maybe they're linked??

https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/1.2_T...

ETA - the car wash isn't there to make money, it's there to 'clean' illegal money. They're not declaring £150k - they're declaring £1.5m.

Countdown

42,160 posts

204 months

Friday 28th June
quotequote all
Petrus1983 said:
PRO5T will know more - but Turkey is the 2nd largest heroin producer in the world. Now we've got Turkish barbers and car washes. Maybe they're linked??

https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/1.2_T...

ETA - the car wash isn't there to make money, it's there to 'clean' illegal money. They're not declaring £150k - they're declaring £1.5m.
But why bother actually having 10 blokes running around washing cars or 2/3 blokes cutting hair all day? Why not open a bookies - surely that's a far easier way of taking in large amounts of cash?


768

15,232 posts

104 months

Friday 28th June
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I'm in a similar boat, the metaphorical one, and wouldn't suggest going back to a career you don't enjoy, life's too short.

But I'd suggest taking up golf or something. This sounds like a lot of hassle for something that could easily make a loss. Every other shop in our local town is a usually empty barber's run by people who only take cash, I suspect you're competing against lower prices with suspiciously low tax payments.

At the end of the day, there's little harm in trying it, other than losing what you're prepared to put into it, but you must have some better ideas for a business than this? hehe

VeeReihenmotor6

2,344 posts

183 months

Friday 28th June
quotequote all
Seems an ok career change to me, considering your past, current financial situ (i.e in a good place) and the fact you live in West Wales where there is little work anyway. My wife is from there, nearest town is Haverfordwest for her and I imagine a barbers would at least have a steady stream of customers & integrate you into the community.

I pay approx £8 for mine to be done with the mobile hair dresser who down my wife and kids at the same time. We're based near Cambridge though. The bill is £80 in total and we do it once a month.


PRO5T

4,969 posts

33 months

Saturday 29th June
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Petrus1983 said:
PRO5T will know more - but Turkey is the 2nd largest heroin producer in the world. Now we've got Turkish barbers and car washes. Maybe they're linked??

https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/1.2_T...

ETA - the car wash isn't there to make money, it's there to 'clean' illegal money. They're not declaring £150k - they're declaring £1.5m.
But why bother actually having 10 blokes running around washing cars or 2/3 blokes cutting hair all day? Why not open a bookies - surely that's a far easier way of taking in large amounts of cash?

A bookies is regulated, a car wash isn't.

What you'll find is that the gang will likely have a lot of fingers in a lot of pies, a couple of car washes, a launderette, a couple of takeaways, a taxi firm, coffee shop...the list goes on.

Some will operate a franchise scheme where trusted members will run the official side of the business and keep some of the profits while washing an awful lot more for the gang.

It might seem easier to just create a shell company but a real trading business can show expenditure and will already have existing directors and shareholders that can carry the can for if or when it gets raided or shut down.

omniflow

2,890 posts

159 months

Tuesday 9th July
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Earthdweller said:
I know quite a few lads doing this, most are ex cops that just enjoy driving and getting out and about and meeting different people/going different places

One lad I know works for a company specialising in medical repatriations of vehicles from across Europe back to the U.K.

It surprisingly more common than you’d think .. fly out to Spain and drive someone’s car/motorhome back

I do some myself but events/vip stuff mostly on an ad-hoc basis
Apologies for the slight thread derail, but I'd be interested to know more about this. We're planning to relocate fairly soon, which will make my current job impractical from a location point of view, but I'd be very keen to do the European stuff - even if it's only a few jobs a year.

Alickadoo

2,303 posts

31 months

Tuesday 9th July
quotequote all
omniflow said:
Earthdweller said:
I know quite a few lads doing this, most are ex cops that just enjoy driving and getting out and about and meeting different people/going different places

One lad I know works for a company specialising in medical repatriations of vehicles from across Europe back to the U.K.

It surprisingly more common than you’d think .. fly out to Spain and drive someone’s car/motorhome back

I do some myself but events/vip stuff mostly on an ad-hoc basis
Apologies for the slight thread derail, but I'd be interested to know more about this. We're planning to relocate fairly soon, which will make my current job impractical from a location point of view, but I'd be very keen to do the European stuff - even if it's only a few jobs a year.
How much does it pay for a day's driving?

Rumdoodle

1,013 posts

28 months

Wednesday 10th July
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Petrus1983 said:
PRO5T will know more - but Turkey is the 2nd largest heroin producer in the world.
It definitely isn't.

Mojooo

13,029 posts

188 months

Saturday 13th July
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There is no way some of these Turkish barbers don't turn a profit - we have loads and they are always busy. Very often they even have 3-5 barbers working at once.

As said above, I suspect what happens is that someone runs the business 'legit; and gets to make some earnings and then the dodgy stuff is added on. I imagine they could run as businesses. The only dubious thing might be how they are funded to start with (i.e. maybe not enough profit in it if you account for set up costs).

Petrus1983

Original Poster:

9,825 posts

170 months

Monday 29th July
quotequote all
School day one is over!

I'm on the course with 4 other lovely guys - one of which is practically the same age as me and doing the same thing re career change. Another lad who's still relatively young has just left the RAF, so a nice mix.

Wow - it's so much more involved than I realised - but I guess it's like learning to use chop sticks. I'd also opted to buy the scissors from the training center - I'm very glad I did as the trainer failed to mention it's absolutely everything I'll need to start a career all all very high quality - and the scissors are gorgeous too - which is something I never thought I'd say about scissors 3 months ago laugh

8 weeks and 4 days to go!

Pizzaeatingking

549 posts

79 months

Monday 29th July
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Petrus1983 said:
School day one is over!

I'm on the course with 4 other lovely guys - one of which is practically the same age as me and doing the same thing re career change. Another lad who's still relatively young has just left the RAF, so a nice mix.

Wow - it's so much more involved than I realised - but I guess it's like learning to use chop sticks. I'd also opted to buy the scissors from the training center - I'm very glad I did as the trainer failed to mention it's absolutely everything I'll need to start a career all all very high quality - and the scissors are gorgeous too - which is something I never thought I'd say about scissors 3 months ago laugh

8 weeks and 4 days to go!
Only input I have in terms of barbers is I go to the place I go because I get a warm welcome, good laugh and tidy hair cut. The hair cut is probably as important as the other two points tbh biglaugh

But as someone who went through a total career change a few years back now, good luck with it all, I haven't looked back since I made the change myself. Hard work, steep learning curve but I'm much happier now.