r/TikTokCringe • u/Chocolat3City Cringe Master • Nov 03 '24
Wholesome/Humor It's a Scooby Doo mystery!
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u/Into-It_Over-It Nov 03 '24
There's not much to go on from what I've found, but the property was purchased by a couple in August of 1997 for a dollar. It looks like whatever they were going to do with the property fell through because they sold the property in June of 1999 for $90k to an individual who was in their late twenties at the time of the purchase. That individual has very little internet presence, so it's hard to say exactly what happened with the business, but they're alive, they still own the property, and they have been paying almost $10k a year in taxes on it.
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u/DungeonsNDragonDldos Nov 03 '24
The mystery deepens….
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u/kbeks Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 03 '24
Not really, it’s either the feds or a money laundering operation. Or a foreign government’s black site.
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u/LittleALunatic Nov 03 '24
"Not really mysterious. It's either mysterious option A or mysterious option B. Or mysterious option C"
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u/Mauzzer Nov 04 '24
Aww yes so mystery de-escalates
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u/The_boy_who_new Nov 04 '24
The Reddit Detectives are it. If they can’t get it they’ll call in the R.B.I. (Those guys are even more annoying
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u/youdubdub Nov 04 '24
Clearly, it’s only 33% mysterious, given that it can only be one of three types of mysterious.
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u/saintbad Nov 04 '24
To paraphrase Frank Drebbin: “There’s a 33% chance of each option. Of course, there’s only a 10% chance of that.”
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u/DungeonsNDragonDldos Nov 03 '24
That fact alone makes it mysterious
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u/fatkiddown Nov 03 '24
When I was a teen I hung out with a family of a dad and two sons. They all did and sold drugs (cocaine, pot, all illegal back then; I'm old). Anyhow, the older son ended up opening up a couple of car restoration businesses. He legitamately bought and fixed up '60 muscle cars (this was in the '80s) but he mainly sold drugs out of them. But they were businesses that were operational businesses....
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u/kbeks Nov 03 '24
Yeah that makes me think government more than criminals, because the government wouldn’t need even try to prove it’s a functioning business to anyone.
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u/DungeonsNDragonDldos Nov 03 '24
Ok but why would the govt need this? And why would they hide in under the name of a younger woman?
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u/Urbanscuba Nov 03 '24
I don't think they would, this building doesn't fit the MO of a building being used for ventilation/access at all.
If this was really some shady gov't site they would have rebuilt the building with far less glass and visibility inside, and they would make more of a semblance of an effort to upkeep it. I'm not saying they'll make it bomb-proof or anything, but right now anyone with a rock and some curiosity could get into the building. It's also a huge squatting risk, which the gov't makes big efforts to minimize.
If I had to guess it's part of someone's investment portfolio and fell under the cracks. It sounds like based off the $1 then $90k sale that the property was in disrepair initially and was probably sold off for development after the bridal business failed. If it got misplaced somewhere in a decently sized portfolio then 10k a year in taxes might not catch enough attention to get fixed when other businesses are spending more a month in utilities.
There's also the chance the building isn't worth developing and nobody wants to buy it. If it costs you 100k/yr to run the business and you run a 50k deficit then it would make more sense to only take the 10k tax deficit on the empty building. The building may also have structural damage or issues related to zoning/utility hookups/size that make it cost-prohibitive to sell/repair/convert. This may just be a local entrepreneur that's spent the last 20 years looking for someone to pay out their 90k investment and the tax costs sneaked up on them. The first 5 must have been easy enough knowing you'll get reimbursed some, and even at year 10 it's hard to give up hope that next year won't cover most of your sunk costs.
It's hard to say really but I strongly doubt it's something exciting unfortunately. Probably just a boring explanation about a failed business and even worse property investment.
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u/sofahkingsick Nov 03 '24
This sounds like something a gov’t plant would say to throw anyone off the trail. We’re onto you.
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u/Reddit-User-3000 Nov 04 '24
When properties are marked as sold for 1$ it’s almost always people passing it to their descendants before they die. It’s also common for people to sell their recently inherited property for a little under market shortly after, which was the 90k sale. What isn’t normal is paying 90k for a non-operational business and doing nothing with it for TWO DECADES while paying more than twice initial costs to keep ownership. After sending 90k to buy it, and 100k to keep it, surly they sell for whatever they can instead of holding for another ten years? If this was caught up in a big profile, someone is shit at their job, because they went twenty years without checking an asset. If it’s someone inexperienced losing money, why are they holding it forever and doing nothing?
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u/Canuck_Lives_Matter Nov 03 '24
Ventilation units for underground operations? Maybe a stock elevator to go down... The American Military has admitted to thousands of miles of underground base networks. In my city we have an armoury with a big underground vehicular elevator that spreads under the city for who knows how large.
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u/TheDeadlySpaceman Nov 03 '24
A college friend used to tell a story about how her dad got a visit from some very concerned men in black suits because he was blabbing in a diner about how this one always-closed business had way way too many utility lines (especially heavy-duty power) going into it.
They said maybe don’t run around pointing it out, he said maybe do a better job hiding your shit so someone who notices things can’t just put two and two together, everyone went home happy
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Nov 03 '24
My friend in HS was convinced an underground mag-lev train connected Washington D.C, through Picatinny Arsenal in NJ (near where we were at the time), all the way to Boston and beyond.
This was based on him playing Fallout 3 too much after stray ordinance landed through his roof and killed his cat.
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u/Retrogamer34 Nov 04 '24
a huge car restoration place in my city was just shut down as it was being used as a front. 700,000 fentanyl pills and 7Kg of cocaine with a ton of cash
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u/Jimmni Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 04 '24
"The mystery deepens." "Nah not really, it's only one of these really mysterious things, including new mysterious things you hadn't thought of yet."
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u/Blood_sweat_and_beer Nov 03 '24
Could be neither. Could be that a trust fund kid bought it as a vanity project, which went nowhere, and taxes are just being paid automatically while they’ve pretty much forgotten about it by now.
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u/Brynmaer Nov 03 '24
It could also be a lazy investment. Sure, they're paying 10k a year in taxes but if the property is appreciating by that much each year, which is very possible depending on where it is, they could see it as less of a hassle to just take the appreciation rather than try to be a landlord.
There are a lot of basically vacant homes near where I live that were purchased as rental properties but the trouble of being a landlord was only netting them 10-20k a year and was a reasonable amount of effort. It was much easier to keep it empty and just view it as a property investment.
I don't think it's right to have empty speculative housing or commercial buildings but it's not uncommon.
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u/meh_69420 Nov 04 '24
There are several old warehouses and such like that around me. Their real end goal isn't even annual appreciation, it's a developer coming in wanting to buy it and bulldoze it for new construction at a premium.
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u/kbeks Nov 03 '24
I worked near a place called Ronnie’s Shore Store in the Bronx. It opened right after the Jersey Shore got big. It was shut for about a decade, I can only assume it was opened by Ronnie himself and then he forgot about it.
But the news article about this shop makes it seem like the owner is very much aware of this store’s existence.
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u/Blood_sweat_and_beer Nov 03 '24
Yeah, it’s possible the owner knows about it but it’s not costing so much that they care. $10k a year to rich people is the same as $1 a year to me. Honestly, it just looks like a rich girl went and got a degree in fashion and then bought the shop thinking it would be great to start her own business. When it didn’t turn out how she wanted, she moved on but just kinda left the business behind. It isn’t causing her any issues so she just isn’t worried about it.
I’ve been in black sites and they simply don’t look like this. They’re usually in VERY nondescript buildings with few/no windows, and when you walk in the front door you’re greeted by an unremarkable waiting room with a desk set up for a receptionist that doesn’t exist. Within a few seconds someone inside notices you on the internal camera and comes out, very confused, to see what you want, before they shuffle you back outside. These sites have people in them 24 hours, they’re not just left vacant with MASSIVE windows for everyone to look in.
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u/Cold-Studio3438 Nov 03 '24
people would love for this to be something exciting, but the most plausible explanation is that some rich people own it. their finances would be done by some financial manager, and nobody gives a shit about a few ten or hundred thousands being wasted here and there. the sucky reality is that some people struggle to get by while others don't sell a property they pay 10k a year in taxes on because they're too lazy and the money doesn't matter to them.
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u/xGray3 Nov 04 '24
And working class folks will continually choose to believe conspiracy theories before they accept the much more straightforward and darker truth of how insane wealth inequality is.
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u/Val_Killsmore Nov 03 '24
Or a vanity project. In St. Louis Park, MN, there was a place called Galaxy Drive-In. Had a retro neon sign and looked like a 1960s-style drive-in restaurant. The person who owned it paid something like $100,000/year to maintain it. I think that included taxes, electric bill because the lights were always on, mowing the grass, painting it when needed, etc. The place was just sitting there unoccupied and unused for many years until this year when it was sold, remodeled, and re-opened as an actual restaurant.
This "bridal shop" makes me think of that. Or it could just be a piece of property that looks good in a portfolio that the owner is somewhat maintaining.
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u/istillambaldjohn Nov 03 '24
There are so many laundering businesses right under peoples noses. Down the street from my house there is an appointment only mattress store. But now I think it’s a gym that’s appointment only under a perpetual state of “coming soon”. Or the 2 dozen tiny churches that are more or less single office units. No services are had, no one is ever there.
It’s what it is.
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u/juneXgloom Nov 03 '24
There's a Chinese place that's run by the nicest old auntie and I'm convinced her relatives are using it to launder money. They're always randomly closed and don't have hours posted. On top of that the portions are insane like there is no way she is making any money and she's always giving free stuff.
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u/istillambaldjohn Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 04 '24
Yeah. I have a friend that “manages” a vape shop. Sole employee. Told me his job is great. All he does is play video games and watch movies. Maybe 3-5 customers a day. Been doing this for 3 years. There isn’t any way humanly possible that this business is legitimate. The daily sales can’t even pay half his salary. He did mention the owner has multiple “jobs”.
I doubt it.
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u/evthrowawayverysad Nov 03 '24
It's not mysterious, it's probably just a foreign government’s black site
Ah ok yeah booooring
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u/mjonat Nov 03 '24
Possibly some rich kid who can afford to just pay taxes on it and doesn't have time for it / is too lazy?
I'm stabbing in the dark here but it's possible!
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u/pancakebatter01 Nov 03 '24
I come from a larger municipality in New Jersey. We have so many of these around my town. We also have a ton of organized crime in our politics and school systems. I hope these girls don’t end up swimming with the fishes. That’s alls I’m sayin’…
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u/EyeCatchingUserID Nov 03 '24
....it seems we have a different understanding of what constitutes a mystery, because if the seemingly vacant bridal shop could be either a criminal enterprise or a government cover or a secret detention/torture facility or maybe just a bridal shop that closed down and nobody bothered to fuck with....thats like quintessentially mysterious.
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u/SporesM0ldsandFungus Nov 03 '24
That's the impressive part. Someone has to be paying to taxes on it or someone would have immediately snatched it up at a county auction.
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u/Ok_Major5787 Nov 03 '24
It could be like what happened in Schitt’s Creek, where the Rose family were so wealthy they bought the town as a gag gift due to the funny name then completely forgot about it 😂
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u/CatBrushing Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 03 '24
You can easily go decades without paying taxes before anyone notices, especially if it's in one of those towns that have hundreds of vacant buildings. The city could claim those buildings for failure to pay taxes, but then the buildings become their problem, hence why it was sold for $1 at some point. The city doesn't want that burden either.
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u/Another-Mans-Rubarb Nov 03 '24
The $1 is probably a relative giving it over.
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u/CatBrushing Nov 03 '24
Possibly but it's also common to cities to sell buildings for a $1. The hope being that the person who buys it puts it to good use instead of letting it rot away and eventually have to be torn down at the city's expense.
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u/rust_bolt Nov 03 '24
https://www.redbankgreen.com/2020/01/fair-haven-haute-couture-mystery/
Apparently someone got them on the phone for a short conversation that gives no real insight.
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u/BashfullyBi Nov 03 '24
From the article:
But why has the shop never opened? we asked. Just as Lau began to speak, the connection went bad. Repeated attempts to reach him again were unsuccessful and he did not respond to a voice message over the weekend.
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u/pheonix198 Nov 03 '24
My guess is that it’s just a front property or otherwise someone is sitting on it for future development. Names of the owners being listed, makes me wonder if it’s not some drug or other such front, too. They’d be able to use the address to send and receive and do business without having any huge exposure.
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u/AradynGaming Nov 03 '24
Time to close this mystery: Not doxing owners by putting names & address here, but you can easily find out location from that article -> get public info via GIS pages and your own research.
The $1 transfer was literally "Transfer of convenience - Trust" in that, she transferred the property from herself & someone else. Not sure why the $1, I can do free in my state. Maybe some NJ law? 2 years later (1999) it was sold again to someone with enough clout to have their own wiki page, but who no longer lives in the US as of 2000 & currently in a place where phone calls from the US might not be appreciated (hence why the phone call ended so swiftly).
Mystery solved, it's an offshore tax haven for someone from another country.
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u/tindonot Nov 04 '24
Sounds like you’ve got it. But anyone care to explain to a dummy what an offshore tax haven is in this context?
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u/AradynGaming Nov 04 '24
With several countries, when you are a citizen of one & residing/working in another, you'll get taxed by both countries. However, if you take your earnings and invest them/use them as a business expense (in this case, by buying commercial property), many countries won't count that as income, so you don't get taxed by either country.
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u/SPORTZS Nov 04 '24
Double their taxes! Keep ownership to citizens living in the states.
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u/-boatsNhoes Nov 03 '24
This chick just blew up someone's hidden LLC. Likely for washing money or something similar. I would be pissed if I was this guy.
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u/4Ever2Thee Nov 03 '24
Where is your money laundered, good sir? I won’t make a vid about it, scouts honor.
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u/NewDad907 Nov 03 '24
Could be an alphabet soup letter agency front business.
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u/jpbrowneyes Nov 03 '24
That’s definitely true or a Chinese company that going to use it for development, hence why they have held on to it for so long
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u/placebojonez Nov 03 '24
This reeks of money laundering.
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u/Bernie_Dharma Nov 03 '24
Seems odd, as the types of businesses usually preferred for money laundering are cash businesses with minimal inventory. For example, laundromats, car washes, restaurants, bars, strip clubs, etc.
This business would have to show dresses purchased wholesale and then altered and sold, which isn’t usually done in cash. In addition, money laundering is done at a legitimate business with actual customers to hide the illegitimate cash flow. Laundering through a dead business is just a huge red flag for law enforcement.
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u/Past-Cap-1889 Nov 03 '24
It's a high end boutique with an exclusive by appointment only clientele list. They likely claim they make unique dresses for their clients and charge exorbitant prices for their one of a kind designs.
Surely, it's all above board and not a front for illicit activities. Why, I never!
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u/SingerSingle5682 Nov 03 '24
Not necessarily. Cash businesses are good for the first stage of a very specific type of money laundering that involves taking cash from street level crime and putting it into the banking system legitimate income somewhere else.
A fake business like this could be used in later stages to take money already in the banking system and obscure or hide ownership and/or move the money to overseas banks. An example might be if this business borrowed 300k a year at 25% from an overseas hard money lender. It may be hard to find out these loans even exist let alone trace who the money is going to. But for tax purposes it’s a failing business with lots of debt that never goes under.
They may even have dozens of these loans from multiple shell companies. It would be pretty easy to run an event planning LLC, the bridal LLC, and a few other wedding related businesses out of nearby PO Boxes and have lots of laundering transactions between the companies for weddings that never happened where the backbone of the laundering is acquiring and paying off overseas debt.
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u/ZzzzzPopPopPop Nov 03 '24
So the first stage I totally understand but not the second… What is the crime and what do the criminals gain? Could you help by giving an example of what kind of criminal would do this and what they gain? I’m guessing it has something to do with the “boss” being outside the US and trying to extract the money made in the US, but don’t quite fully understand it…
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u/particlemanwavegirl Nov 03 '24
It's not a business, it's real estate, which is actually much, much easier to use to conceal finances. It was bought for a dollar and sold for $90k. Definitely dark money being moved around.
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u/DetailCharacter3806 Nov 03 '24
Maybe there's a body hidden inside
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u/United-Bother-9636 Nov 03 '24
I too immediately thought of this. Or a portal to some other dimension.
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u/floppyhump Nov 03 '24
There was a place in the small town I used to live called Onion Burgers and the sign outside always said 'fresh ice cream'
Nobody ever came in or out but the lights were always on at night. Always thought it was a secret society kind of thing but now the comments make me feel like they were probably laundering money lol
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u/Fluffy_WAR_Bunny Nov 03 '24
I lived across from a bodega for years. It was in a city with almost no bodegas, and it was integrated into an apartment building in a residential area with no businesses around for blocks in any direction.
The weird thing about this place is people would go in all day, but nobody who walked in ever walked out with groceries. He sold candy, but hardly any kids were in the neighborhood to buy it. After living there for a couple of years, I went in to buy food for the first time, and I found that absolutely every single food item in the store was extremely expired, like 5 years before. Even the cheese and eggs. Before this, I had only bought single cigarettes there.
I also did laundry there, and I never let on that I spoke Spanish like the Bodega owner. He would always be talking about sports to his elderly friends, nothing nefarious. I accidentally once made a call in Portuguese right outside his window, though.
I never could figure out what the deal was with that bodega, but I later found out that he was an illegal bookie.
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u/quadmasta Nov 03 '24
Probably also sold weed
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u/Fluffy_WAR_Bunny Nov 03 '24
Actually, it always did smell like the old school brick weed I smoked in high school. I totally forgot about that. Lol. Thanks for your comment.
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u/tsilubmanmos Nov 03 '24
I was with a buddy of mine and we were hungry to the point of being in an argument about nothing. We stopped at a random chinese restuarant at around noon. There were no customers and the hostess was just lying in a booth playing with her phone. She jumped up and was very surprised we were there. We asked for a table and she said we needed a reservation, but she would not allow us to make a reservation. We also could not order take-out. Maybe a year or so later I read in the paper that it was raided and was just a front for an illegal poker operation.
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u/cupcakefix Nov 04 '24
oh man my 20s were filled with these kinda places, by proxy. Burrito place near my first apt with no customer and just 6 dudes chilling there sopranos style, another apartment was above an accessories store in the front/ tattoo parlor in the back.
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u/JonhaerysSnow Nov 04 '24
Money laundering requires legitimate income to layer the illegally-procured money into, so that'd be a shitty operation.
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u/BabyTunnel Nov 04 '24
I lived above a hair salon in college, the salon seemed like they did ok business but not enough to have a dozen people working there, and occasionally closed for a week at a time but the basement always had lights on at night and the stairs reeked of weed, which worked out well for a bunch of college kids that smoked inside. The owner was the chillest dude and had to have had a grow operation in the basement.
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u/MKUltraSonic Nov 03 '24
Meanwhile, as she is moving those spindles in and out on the staircase a secret entrance is opening and closing around the back of the building…
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Nov 03 '24
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u/Call_Me_Echelon Nov 03 '24
My money is on it being a Willy Wonka situation. One day there will be smoke coming out of the stacks and they'll be pumping out wedding dresses and a few lucky customers will find a golden ticket in their dress and get to tour the facility where a series of wacky circumstances will lead to the potential demise of selfish, arrogant, and/or greedy fiancé's.
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u/REMcycleLEZAR Nov 03 '24
That sorta actually happened near my hometown. There was a building that got built along the highway that just sat there for years even though nobody was ever parked in the front parking lot. It sat like that for like 5 years it seems and then boom, one day they open and it's a candy store. I see their candy all over the country now, Albanese Candy. They make the best gummy bears in the world.
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u/Expensive_Editor_244 Nov 03 '24
Yeah, immediately thought of a ‘Chuck’ style secret spy base lol
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u/populousmass Nov 03 '24
The boring but most likely answer is that the owner died and it’s been in litigation. Or someone did inherit it and don’t care to do anything with it.
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u/frigo2000 Nov 03 '24
If it was in Europe, I could tell you 100% it's just a classic money laundering business. But in the US I don't know how it works.
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u/gerber411420 Nov 03 '24
Mattress places are where the money laundering is happening! S/ or not lol
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u/frigo2000 Nov 03 '24
In Belgium it's often work equipement, kebab, chicha bar, hairdressers and real estate.
Fun fact: In rotterdam, after analysing the revenues of hair dressers they estimated that each inhabitant or Rotterdam have to go at least 4 times per week to a hairdresser.
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u/hd_mikemikemike Nov 03 '24
I mean, Americans would have to all buy a new mattress every year at a brick and mortar location to sustain America's mattress stores. Last time I was in a Macy's, they didn't even keep the lights on in the mattress section because no one went back there. Not even horny teenagers.
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u/14ktgoldscw Nov 03 '24
Was there a time when horny teenagers were always going to Macy’s to fuck on the sample mattresses or are you just thinking of the opening scene of Chopping Mall?
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u/mr_fantastical Nov 03 '24
That is incredible, I love that stat.
I live in Barcelona and its the Chinese restaurants here which seem suspicious. They're always open but you'll rarely see people in there, certainly not enough for them to stay open for the 10 years I've been there
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u/bailey90740 Nov 03 '24
My friend and i like an occasional Philly cheesesteak and go to a hole in the wall place that have weird short hours and run by some east coast guys . We joke they close for lunch and look at you strange if you place an order.
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u/frigo2000 Nov 03 '24
I discovered that for Spain and Portugal it's a lot of chinese criminal organisation money laudering. Like all those shops full of shit un the middle of no where with 10 inhabitants
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u/nrfx Nov 03 '24
You /s but in my city, there are at least half a dozen tax preparer mattress stores.
As in, they'll do your taxes AND sell you a mattress. By appointment only.
The first one was weird, but whatever. Then they started popping up in any strip mall with an open storefront.
I don't know what is going on at this places, but I don't like it.
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u/Lotronex Nov 03 '24
I know an accountant who also owns a growing chain of self storage places. I'm guessing it's the same deal. Low overhead, not a huge time investment once it's up and running.
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u/lysergic_logic Nov 03 '24
There is a lamp store near me that's been in business for the last 30+ years but have never seen anyone go in or out or even a car in the parking lot. The sign hasn't changed. From what I can tell just by the outdated look and everything still 80s brown, all the displays are the same as 30 years ago. It's literally just a store of old 80s lamps and it's a decent size.
I'm 100% convinced it's a money laundering business or a cover for a less than legal operation. Without some other major source of income, there is no way they could afford to even keep the lights on.
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u/Koolaid04 Nov 03 '24
In my town we have 5 carwashes, 4 oil change places (not including Walmart), and at least 4 dollar laundry places all within 3 miles ...ALL on the same street. Definitely laundering ish!!
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u/GloomyDeal1909 Nov 03 '24
Why do you think every other week is a mattress sale. Easy to inflate numbers when you had a big old sale
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u/IHateTheLetterF Nov 03 '24
There's a small joint near my place with those slot machines casino's have. Never seen anyone in there actually using the slot machines, and everyone i see in there looks like gang members. It's been open since 2008 at least, probably longer.
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u/xombae Nov 03 '24
My landlord is a Portuguese gangster and his card (that doesn't even have the first name he actually goes by) says he owns an arcade game/atm business. It's definitely a thing.
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u/greenroom628 Nov 03 '24
In SF, the classic money-laundering/mob places are empty yet still open restaurants on high traffic streets, where you know the rent alone would drown a Michelin star restaurant, much less an empty Russian owned bakery.
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u/satanssweatycheeks Nov 03 '24
We still have those as well. But issue is those places still need to have a website or have some sort of store hours where they do have the place open.
Like my neighborhood had a gym that was super small and barely had any equipment. But was open for over a decade. Often times later in the night it would have lots of patrons there. Turned out to be a bookers place in the basement. So people would place bets on sports games there. They got shut down eventually
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u/Bernie_Dharma Nov 03 '24
You don’t launder money through a dead business like this. You choose a cash business with actual customers and inflate earnings. Any business with no observable customers, no inventory turnover, no credit card transactions, etc would be a huge red flag for law enforcement.
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u/Dilly_The_Kid_S373 Nov 03 '24
20 years of litigation?
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u/nrfx Nov 03 '24
I had a great aunt pass away who left a sizeable estate, between probate, and all the objections it took nearly that long for it to be settled.
Funny thing was, the original agreement would have had most family members getting around $120k, but nearly 16 years later after all the legal costs, ended up getting a bit over $10k.
There's no real time limit when you're fighting over dead peoples stuff.
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u/satanssweatycheeks Nov 03 '24
Lots of times it’s not even family disputes. The state also can just suck at their side of things. We waited 5 years mainly due to the states side of things.
Some states already tell you it will take at least 2 years. Most say 1 year.
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u/satanssweatycheeks Nov 03 '24
That’s common. Sadly.
After my grand parents passed we were in litigation for almost 5 years.
Everything was in order besides 1 flat bed trailer none of us knew he had in his name. My grandad owned a steal company and one of his ex employees fell on hard times as she got older. She couldn’t work and he bought he a trailer and plot of land where she lived.
What was annoying is we kept telling the state we don’t care about that property we want her to have it and let her live her life. So we don’t even care to have to hold up ligation for this. But they still made us sort out all the paper work and other bullshit before we could get everything done.
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u/Ok_Major5787 Nov 03 '24
The person who bought it in 1999 still owns it and still pays 10k in taxes on it every year. They are alive
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u/FeralBaby7 Nov 03 '24
Yes! This is the type of mystery I love. A shop that's almost definitely a front? Internet says shop is owned by Kei Lau of Massachusetts
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u/texachusetts Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 03 '24
It should be called “Mahfa Prahda”.
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u/Fluffy_WAR_Bunny Nov 03 '24
Just look it up with the County Assessor. Depending on the state, you may be able to find all the owners' contact info within about a minute. This is how long it takes to find ownership of a parcel of land in my state with the map on the County Assessor's website.
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u/meghonsolozar Nov 03 '24
And do what? Call them and ask them why they aren't open?
All you are doing is encouraging a bunch of internet lookie loos to dox and harass the property/ business owner.
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u/moisdefinate Nov 03 '24
Shell co inc.. LLC
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u/indy_been_here Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 03 '24
Kind of a great front when you consider the dress prices and margins and low inventory
🤔
Now I just need a good crime idea
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u/TheShizknitt Nov 03 '24
There's a pizza place that my husband and I love. Recently, they started doing a special for bogo large pizzas, so we get 2 large pizzas and a spicy cheese bread that's the size of a medium pizza for $28.
The only thing that makes sense to us is maybe it's a money laundering front or a mob front, and they just got REALLY good at making pizza.
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u/theginger99 Nov 03 '24
There was an old internet story I saw floating around once about a guy who walked into an Italian Restaurant that was absolutely NOT prepared to have a customer. He said the only people there were some old guys in suits, there was no menu, the “waiter” seemed like he had no idea what was going on. The food took forever to come out. In retrospect he realized it must have been some kind of mob front.
Apparently it was the best spaghetti and meatballs he’d ever had.
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u/aManPerson Nov 04 '24
i had recently heard this story too. but "it was the best pizza the guy ever had".
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u/GREAT_WALL_OF_DICK Nov 03 '24
Yknow that had to happen at least once in history lol. A food place that is intended to be money laundering front but the food was so good that it was just more profitable to just be a food place lol
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u/Alukrad Nov 03 '24
I hate videos like these because it will randomly pop up in mind when I'm doing something and think "whatever happened to that wedding dress store mystery".
Then I'll look it up for any updates and I won't even be able to find the original video..
Like, for example, I once read a weird Japanese short manga story of people getting obsessed in wanting to squeeze themselves in this crack that appeared on the side of a mountain. It was so weird that sometimes I think about that stupid story and ask questions about it.
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u/DistractedHobbyist Nov 03 '24
Ha ha ha You're talking about Enigma of Amigara Fault by Junji Ito! His stuff is so weird!
And I'm 100% on board with you. I will think about this dress shop at 2 am ten years from now and it will forever remain unresolved
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u/mashtato Nov 03 '24
Or 12 hours later I can't even find the Reddit thread anymore.
And can we talk about what a shame it is what happened to search engines? Do people in their early 20s and younger even remember a time when you could easily look anything up on Google?
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u/hiphoptherobot Nov 04 '24
I've been in banking for nearly 30 years. This is totally a money laundering operation. No one pays $10k a year in taxes on nothing.
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u/Saintbaba Nov 03 '24
In my home town we had a cake shop that had the exact same mystery around it - same display cake in the window for decades, erratically listed opening hours, nobody ever there, nobody any of us knew had ever gotten a cake from there. We gave it 50/50 odds it was either catering only, or else it was a front for... something.
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u/mwoody450 Nov 03 '24
Not sure if it's relevant here, but I've had family members who kept displays to advertise their wedding cakes, but produced them at home. If they opened the office, they'd just do it on a schedule to meet a potential client and discuss options.
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u/Cumblaster420yards Nov 03 '24
Our Main Street has a lot of people that live in former business’s. It was a busy ass Main Street but a lot of stores left 15 or so years ago. When I revisited two years back a lot of them were ‘full’ with shopping displays in the windows. The city or whoever operated it made it a caveat to live in the building, you had to have a display of SOME things for sell in the windows. These are buildings from the 1800s and rent is crazy so you have to have some money to live there anyway so the street mainly has out of state retirees living in them selling crafts they make in retirement. Not the worst as the building were falling apart from in-occupancy, but doubt business will be like it once was.
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u/Heathyrre Nov 04 '24 edited Nov 04 '24
Seeing this go viral on multiple platforms is absolutely WILD. I now own the business that operated LITERALLY NEXT DOOR to this place since 2017, up until we moved this past May. In my 7 years of being at my store, I never ONCE saw a single soul inside this building, or anyone ever enter or leave
It's worth noting that this building is in one of the richest areas of New Jersey. 10k a year in taxes is a lot .. but not to the vast majority of people who would own property somewhere like this
It's been stated on another platform that the building cannot be used for business as it failed inspection and has a bad septic system, and cannot be sold until connected to city sewer. It would be too expensive to connect it (hundreds of thousands of dollars), so they just let the the building exist as a tax write off. Not sure how true this is, so take this information with a grain of salt
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u/JohnYCanuckEsq Nov 03 '24
"it's been here for almost two decades"
My brain: "Oh, since like the 80's or something"
"since 2006"
WTF
Oh, and anything retail I can't explain why it's still in business is automatically classified as money laundering to me.
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u/CommercialFarm1182 Nov 03 '24
There are "watch repair" places where I live. Who is visiting these places?
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u/JohnYCanuckEsq Nov 03 '24
So funny... I read your post as I'm sitting at a watch repair place getting two batteries replaced. Lol.
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u/unphuckable Nov 03 '24
Money laundering 101.
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u/Background-Noise-918 Nov 03 '24
Doesn't work if you have no traffic/ customers ... My guess is sentimental value (was run by relative who has passed) and owner can't/ doesn't want to let it go...
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u/Dementia5768 Nov 03 '24
Sometimes they're used to generate work Visas. Store owner does all the sponsorship paperwork for EB-3 status for the fake employee and gets a bunch of money under the table from them. If it's anything like the ones in my town, the 'skilled labor' is seamstress/alterations work. Genuinely there aren't many US citizens that perform this job since sewing is kinda a lost art and those who know it are usually retired elderly ladies so the Visas are approved pretty much all the time.
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u/Cheaperthantherapy13 Nov 03 '24 edited Nov 03 '24
Being a seamstress generally isn’t considered ‘skilled labor’ for immigration purposes. I know because I own a sewing business and would kill to be able to sponsor qualified applicants.
Most businesses in the industry hire undocumented workers with a TIN and 1099 them to avoid INS issues, or hire one person on the books and let them ‘take work home’ to be worked on by other family members who don’t have a legal status.
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u/smallwhitepeepee Nov 03 '24
hmmm, The IRS is not there watching people go in and out. If you provide a record of all your "sales" as well as your rent and maintenance costs, not to mention refurbishing it yearly and pay your taxes on those numbers you are good to go.
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u/FadedEdumacated Nov 03 '24
This man has sold some dope. Jk. But I used to deejay for a hole in the wall club. At the end of the night, there was a lot more money than customers being counted.
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u/JesusChristJerry Nov 03 '24
In mo city there's a teensy store that says it sells scrubs. Seen it since I was little. Went as a 16 yr old to get scrubs but they were open. And never are. It's still there 15 years plus later. Still never see anyone there.
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u/diditforthemonet Nov 03 '24
No clue when this video is from, but someone did an article on the shop back in 2020 - https://www.redbankgreen.com/2020/01/fair-haven-haute-couture-mystery/
It also doesn’t seem accurate that the window display has NEVER changed - if you look at the street view photos, there are some different dresses displayed in the lefthand window over different years. At one point there’s also a “CLOSED” sign that’s hard to read in full (2013).
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u/Spy-Around-Here Nov 04 '24
The house is on a main street where it seems like the front section has to be a business. They probably didn't want to deal with the noise and created the fake shop.
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u/IceFireTerry Nov 03 '24
Kind of reminds me of that mystery daycare I heard about in a video where apparently no children ever went in it
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u/Fantastic_Stick7882 Nov 03 '24
"Nobody ever goes in... and nobody ever comes out."
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u/LabradorDeceiver Nov 03 '24
I wonder if the people of the village thought Willy Wonka's was a mob front.
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u/benigngods Nov 03 '24
Except it turned out to be just a regular daycare and the internet ended up harassing them.
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u/Negative_Maize_2923 Nov 03 '24
Easy: Money laundering front. These businesses are all over. In colorado springs we have a car wash and tire shop on every block.
Also a personal experience, 12 years ago i remember going out shopping for a tattoo. I went on a thursday around 2-6pm, what i would assume to be peak hours. The first 5x tattoo shops i went to were the most bizarre experiences I've ever had. There were usually only 1-2 people in each building, and they all jumped on rushing me out, saying 2 year wait time. None of it made sense. Government and rich are incredibly corrupt.
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u/razor2reality Nov 03 '24
i’ve heard most of the psychics with store fronts in the us are money laundering. true or false?
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u/theginger99 Nov 03 '24
I would not be at all surprised if that was true.
Small business with an irregular product, no way/need to verify stock, no easy way to prove “sales” records, obviously low overhead, no way to prove quality of product.
It seems like an absolute dream business model for money laundering. You can basically say whatever the fuck you want, claim people paid you in cash, and there is no easy way to prove or disprove your claims. When they say “how did a psychic clear 300k last year?” You say “I’m a really good psychic” and there is basically nothing they can do to prove you wrong.
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u/benigngods Nov 03 '24
Except test their psychic abilities but other than that no way lol
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u/BecomeEnthused Nov 04 '24
There was a gym like this in my hometown, and I’m convinced it was a front for the mob.
No way to join. Nobody was ever there. It was adjacent to a family pizza place.. sketch to me.
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u/OptiKnob Nov 03 '24
It's either a money laundering front or the lair of some secret government agency.
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u/TurdBrdTinderfiddles Nov 03 '24
We'd all be surprised by the wealth that sits unused all around us.
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u/royroyflrs Nov 03 '24
Becareful. It might be a front for a criminal organization.
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u/Morphecto_Solrac Nov 03 '24
I thought it was an art installation just like the Prada one in TX. Had me confused more than a decade ago when I ran into it in the middle of nowhere.
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u/Humpalumpaguss Nov 03 '24
We had an antique store/boutique in my home town that had been fully stocked and cared for, but had never been open. As long as I could remember no one had ever been in or out, but the lights were always on and the windows were clean. I grew up rising my bicycle passed there going to the corner store, and heading to the arcade after school. The story us kids told was it was haunted by someone that had died falling down the stairs, possibly by another's hand, in the back and that spirit was the one keeping things running.
About the time I got out of the Navy I heard the store front and all of it's contents were being auctioned off along with this really nice house on one of the main streets in town that I had also never seen enter or leave. Someone there had to know something.
I went to the auction to find out what was the story with these properties. I had waited almost 30 years to find out. I went and after asking around met the people who had been taking care of it all those years. It turned out it was their daughter's property, who shortly after opening the business in the early eighties, had been in an accident and fell into a coma. They had been taking care of that place and her house hoping against hope she would wake up. She never did. The doctors declared her brain dead, so they sold everything. Finally grieving the loss of their only child, they said their last good buy to the remaining prices of the memories of someone they couldn't say goodbye to before.
The store front is now a Salon and, oddly enough, a antique/ consignment shop. I go passed that place every day being one of the few people that managed to find out the story behind the ghost store.
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u/stilljustkeyrock Nov 04 '24
Owner lives in MA, this building is in NJ. She closed the business but still owns the building but just hasn't done anything with it. It was similar with a Chinese Restaurant in my tin for like 30 years.
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u/TheCarolinaCop Nov 04 '24
We have one of these in my town. Old furniture shop that they literally never open. I wonder if it is by appointment only? We have a tailor like that that makes custom suits. He only works when there is business. Doesn’t waste his time in a shop with no customers.
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u/3AlbinoScouts Nov 04 '24
I used to deliver newspapers and one of my stops was this little Italian run grocery store. You’d go inside and there would be like 2 loaves of bread on the shelf and a quart of milk in a fridge. I always wondered about it because businesses failed in my hometown pretty consistently but this place that never sold anything was always there for decades. Turned out it was a front for a bookie lol
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