FollowMeOutTheMatrix | 140 points
I've got something new to contribute. Please have a look.
I believed this pizza-places-operating-as-child-sex-rings business pretty quickly for one reason, and it's something most of you probably haven't come across.
I read the book The Sinatra Club: My Life in The New York Mafia by Sal Polisi.
Sal Polisi was a mobster in the 70's who eventually became fairly well known in the Mafia for his crazy antics (He became known as Crazy Sally, Sally Ubatz) and for creating a secret club, The Sinatra Club, where against their capo's wishes, people from all the different families met to gamble and plot crimes.
So he knows a little something about secret meetings with shady figures with whom he committed many crimes.
But before that endeavor, he had a different racket going on. He had a pizza place that he only operated to use as a front.
Check this quote out from page 297:
"Our sports book was our strongest gambling business now, and Dom said he was going to concentrate on that. He'd also began to invest a lot of money in operations he had going in Florida, and not long after that he got in with the Pizza Connection syndicate that hit on using pizza joints as the perfect front. The were both the money laundry and the distribution points for the supply of drugs that generated the cash that needed laundering."
Replace "drugs" with "child sex" and you see how relevant this is.
KiA423469420 | 18 points
Front organizations often have quality control issues. They're not focused on customer retention. They're not focused on customer service. None of these things are essential to their basic functioning if they're a front organization. This creates gaps that make them vulnerable.
Pizza places are awesome because pizza is awesome. This is also why pizza places make great fronts. Pizza is so awesome that even bad pizza is still kind of awesome. That means no quality control issues are likely to expose the front. Pizza is also so generic that nobody cares or is greatly scandalized if a pizza place has bad customer service and poor customer retention. It's like, whatever, it's just pizza. You go to another pizza place. That means that erratic business volumes are normal for pizza places and unlikely to expose them as fronts.
And I mean, it's a petty consideration, but pizza is good for the morale of the people in the organization too. Your pizza fronts end up capable of catering to your events and doing some real legitimate business. The awesomeness of pizza is real.
Philario | 17 points
Front organizations often have quality control issues. They're not focused on customer retention. They're not focused on customer service. None of these things are essential to their basic functioning if they're a front organization. This creates gaps that make them vulnerable.
Wow! I wonder what Comcast, Chrysler and Dell are fronts for!
KiA423469420 | 3 points
Dell has pissed me off a few times enough that it made me wonder. I've got nothing on them. I think they're just a corporation big enough to power through the occasional screwup by sheer momentum. It happens.
Chrysler, I've never dealt with. I've never even driven a Chrysler car. What's their issue?
Comcast is a big media corporation. They're politically connected and politically corrected. They're playing in an unfair market and they're very interested in keeping it unfair. They're not a conventional front unless being a front for huge amounts of money counts in your book.
Philario | 2 points
I just thought of Dell for no real reason. They make cheap machines and sell at cheap prices. You get what you pay for.
I'm in the car biz (Mercedes, BMW, Ford/Linc, Lexus). Chrysler simply has a bad reputation when it comes to reliability and in some cases safety. Even though I work for a dealer that owns a Ford franchise Charger > Taurus.
Comcast, yeah you nailed it.
FollowMeOutTheMatrix | 5 points
https://books.google.com/books?id=GuMBj3yqIK0C&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=sal+polisi+pizza+front&source=bl&ots=8EFpvAyu_n&sig=RpyhCpC0wV1AfgGL7R3QXVhM9U8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw27PA1q3QAhVX2mMKHfKWAlYQ6AEISTAN#v=onepage&q=sal%20polisi%20pizza%20front&f=false
[deleted] | 4 points
Yep- 1st thing I thought of...as an avid reader of old mafia stories...pizza joints are IDEAL money laundering centers for several reasons.
[deleted] | 2 points
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[deleted] | 3 points
He's obviously trying to say that IF ppl wanted to have a secret crime organization/ring (really of ANY type) pizza places are ideal front companies to do so. Therefore on the surface the use of pizza places makes sense.
PilsnerAlesson | 2 points
You guys should also investigate other types of businesses, that y'know... might actually have more to do with children. You might be surprised at what you find. Boutique/online driven, more than the huge chains. Also think of what might lend itself well to the proprietors being around images of underdressed children.
Not saying to stop investigating this pizza angle, but there are way more out there that might yield quicker progress.
TimIsColdInMaine | 29 points | Nov 16 2016 17:42:04
I think this brings up a great point that too many are overlooking. I think that there are too many people focusing on pizza as if thats the symbology, that pizza itself indicates something nefarious.
Similar to your example, I think it is far more likely that it is only because it is so ubiquitous, that it is easy to be a front. Pizza is everywhere. Everyone likes Pizza. Easy cash business to wash money. Pretty much the perfect front for anything. Drugs, pedo, anything.
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