| Comment | I struggle to see how this would work. For a business that buys and sells goods, the tax man would want to see evidence of them importing goods from America. There would need to be customs declarations for that. So there would be a paper trail of the goods bought.
The money laundering side of things would be pretty difficult to pull off - and pretty risky as well, because it would be easily discover-able.
What's probably closer to the truth is that they are offered cheap rent by landlords, because landlords would otherwise be liable for double council tax. They open the business. As they're declaring a small income, they're then entitled to the small business bonus and reduced rates.
Then they import some products, and claim to sell those. But at the same time buy counterfeit products and don't include them in the sales figures. They make a moderate profit as a result.
But as a front for £100,000s of money-laundering, despite every man and his dog in Glasgow 'knowing' what they're up to? I have my doubts. No drugs gang or serious criminal would be so stupid. |
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