Money laundering for comics
How about that? That certainly is a first time we heard that (or even thought of that). Members of a meth ring got busted this week, nothing new there. The proceeds of the drug sales were invested into 100 boxes of first-edition collectible comic books. Investigators say one title alone is worth $3,500 and the total collection of comics is worth half a million dollars. “It appeared they were working on a startup company for high-end comic books”, the D.A. mentioned. Probably the intention was to sell these books, make a profit and pretend to be a succesful comic book merchant instead of a meth dealer. We have seen that M.O. but so far mainly in different art worlds.
Money laundering through art is seen more often (or even quite common?). You start with a small collection which you sell for an extremely high price (what is the value of art anyway?). Of course indirectly you buy your own art. In the company books it shows as a nice profit, but it actually is your own meth money that you now can represent as legitimate business income. You need a couple of strawmen who drop by and buy your stuff at insane prices. Nothing that a streetsmart dealer won’t be able to arrange.
The meth was most likely manufactured in Mexico, and each month’s shipments had a street value of about $2 million. These guys had a lot of reading to do….
