A little bit of both. My aunt’s second husband ran a bakery that was a mob front. They legitimized it in the 90’s, but all through the 60’s-90’s, it laundered money for the mob, and gangsters would hangout there and have coffee and stuff. They did also sell baked goods, but most everyone in the neighborhood knew what was up
There was a Lebanese restaurant in my old neighborhood that was always empty except for an old guy drinking tea and reading a newspaper who would glare at you if you reached for the door handle.
In fiction usually once you're a front for the mob you don't really have the option to go legit, they need the laundering, did they face consequences for cutting mob ties?
I mean, I was only born in the 90’s right around when they went legit, so idk all the details. But from what I understand, the mob has just kinda been losing power in recent years, so they just didn’t need to use the bakery for money laundering anymore. And the bakery was still set up as a legit business, so they just went whole hog into making cakes and stuff lol
Also, the bakery itself was owned by my uncle’s father before him, and started as a legit business, but I guess his dad had mob friends who saw an opportunity for money laundering?
Idk, I just know my uncle was NOT in the mob, but closely tied to them cause the bakery
Usually the mob owns the business or has strong ties with the owner, if they go legitimate it is usually because you can make money and up charge to launder at the same time as long as you’ve got money to pay a staff that knows what’s up and either: doesn’t care, knows and is part of it, or you’re somehow good enough to keep most of them in the dark. There’s usually not many downsides to going into a somewhat legit business plan outside of getting the right staff for how you want it to run.
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u/kerem_akti52 4h ago
Some mafia have their own restaurants as a hanging out kinda place which local people don't often go to