Writing a screenplay that involves a criminal organization, and wanting their racket to be something a little more unique, and allows them to kinda fly under the radar. Any thoughts?
Literally anything that people need. Diapers, toilet paper, lawn chairs, pillowcases, you knew name it. Not sure where you're from but if you're in any kind of urban area, you can find "black market" goods for just about anything you need. Diapers are a huge one in the hood. Even saving the sales tax but re-selling at the sticker price is worth it to people who need it. And with anything like that, the legitimacy of the marketplace where stolen goods are sold is the kicker. Selling stolen diapers from the back of a diaper truck is an illegal marketplace that is pretty obvious to anybody walking by. That might have been a thing in the 1950s but it less so now, obviously. But what about a corner bodega selling stolen diapers? That's a legal marketplace selling stolen goods, often mixed in with legitimately purchased vendor items. Much more difficult to detect. The best example of that is probably Michael Franzese's infamous gasoline scam in the 1980s NYC. He was in the Genovese family (I think) and was selling gasoline tax free to literally hundreds of legitimate gas stations. The mob made billions upon billions of dollars a few pennies per gallon at a time. It took the Feds years to nail him on it because everything appeared legitimate on the surface.
Metals? Gangs will steal them, either from power lines or take entire church roofs. Or then again, entire pavements have been stolen, sometimes during the middle of the day, when passers-by assume the thieves are legitimate workmen.
Human organs. Copper wire/pipes - there are houses for sale for like $1 in Detroit because the entire house has been stripped to the bone. Used panties/socks. Beanie babies. Pet Rocks. Collectibles like comic books or game worn jerseys, signed rookie hockey cards, etc. If you want something that would be overlooked by most people,own a laundromat and rip off used panties/socks. It's weird, but people will buy that stuff. I doubt anyone would notice a pair going missing here and there, and if they did, the cops wouldn't take the report seriously....I mean....someone STOLE your dirty socks???
Yeah. Copper piping was huge back before they started using PVC for everything. Fiber optic cables, rebar, anything that passed through unionized construction and could be made to disappear and reappear at will. And then all the auto parts too. The carburetors are huge in my area. They'll crawl under your chassis right in your driveway and jack it. My cop buddies tell me that the auto part theft ring is all dependent on the market. Toyotas are the easiest to resell because of their ubiquity. The luxury cars, not so much. The parts are worth more but there's a smaller resale market for them. Crime is fascinating!
Thought about that, but I feel like that's been pretty represented in shows and movies. Not necessarily something people wouldn't think to steal, ya know? Pavement is definitely something I haven't heard of, and that's pretty interesting!
Nasal decongestants. Vicks inhalers and Sudafed both contain pseudoephedrine, a stimulant and precursor to methamphetamines. Though it's probably easier to get sufficient quantities of the real thing.
You need a photo ID to buy those here. Goes into a database so you can't hit 25 drugstores in an afternoon. That's nuts. I get it, but still nuts.
Last year, in a village not too far from me, someone stole all the hanging baskets and flowers that a community group had put up to beautify the area. This year, in anticipation of it happening again, the community group put Apple AirTags in the baskets. Sure enough, they got robbed again and the trackers led the police right to the house of a woman that had put them up in and around her house. I doubt flowers would be practical for a black market but it’s a good story. Also, it might work with trees instead. Properly maintained, they can be worth a bunch and the transplant market is getting bigger. Also, if someone is so inclined, plenty of trees in gardens and parks just waiting for a crime spree. But, I don’t think that will fly under the radar very well, people tend to notice when a tree is missing. Oh, and the woman that stole the hanging baskets plead not guilty. Good luck with that.
Yep, most pharmacies I've been to have that policy on a big sign up front. Anyways, for more context to my question, I'm looking for something that might be located in a little shop, or maybe some sort of upscale store in a quieter area of downtown, something that someone would break into in the middle of the night. I know that's very vague, but it's cause I'm stuck, lol. Whatever I make this will be a vital part of a criminal enterprise's rise to power.
What makes something valuable is usually scarcity, uniqueness. What about collectibles like baseball/hockey cards? Pokemon cards? Rare comic books? BUT.......those rare things are usually KNOWN - people who collect those things know who owns "Action Comics #1" right? It's not something you could steal and then sell because EVERYONE would know it for a stolen item. Even the less valuable things, you can't have more than....a few hundred of them or suspicions would rise too fast. Two options - steal something like a $100,000 comic book and instead of selling it, use it as a form of payment. See the movie "The Accountant" for an example of this. OR...fake something. A fake Mona Lisa painting has value - not as much as the genuine article but it DOES have value. Although....I think you'd be better off with counterfeit goods like handbags, shoes, jeans, bomber jackets, whatever. Ideally what you want is a collector that buys whatever, let's say limited edition sneakers endorsed by Magic Johnson. As long as the collector keeps the item under lock + key and doesn't tell anyone about his collection....how would anyone find out they're counterfeit?
Catalytic converters for the metal washing machines, also for the metal, there’s a lot of copper in a washing machine motor computers/ computer chips avocados ( although that’s high risk as a lot of avocado importers are involved with the Mexican cartels) razor blades… being small and easily portable yet expensive they are a high value target for shoplifters on a lower level it’s my experience that people will steal anything, when I was a convenience store manager we had a serious problem with people stealing coffee
Watched a Perry Mason episode that involved a gang of 3; it could be upscaled as you wish. Person 1 would check out bookstores for 2nd editions of certain rare books and/or libraries. He/she then buys or steals them. Person 2 then uses correct inks and paper erasures to make a fake 1st edition. Person 3 then sells it for a thousand percent markup.
I thought of another one on the train today. Instead of paper or plastic tickets, many people scan a contactless credit or debit card when they enter the train system, then scan out when they leave, at which point they are charged for how far the two stations are apart. But people can still fare dodge. To prevent this, occasionally there's a ticket inspector. He'll check tickets, and scan credit or debit cards to ensure the passenger has tapped in. But it occurred to me that criminals could get someone dressed in an official-looking uniform. As they go down the train, they scan cards to ensure they have tapped-in. In reality, they are charging those cards a small amount each. I wonder how long they could get away with that; many people wouldn't notice being scammed like that.
That's similar to the self-check out at grocery stores now, where people can scam it if they want, but the shrink is still cheaper than the labor it would take to make it secure. There business model quite literally says, well, let them steal a little because it will cost us more money to engineer a theft-proof system!
Lest anybody think this is made up (I mean, how would you get rid of a washing machine? They're bulky!) ... here's a news story I read once and never forgotten, because it's so ridiculous: Man steals washing machine ... with clothes still in it ... and tries to sell it on the side of the road. It was an open-and-shut case. He failed to make a clean getaway. The police didn't have to put him through the wringer.
I'd assume he would sell to a landlord or a property management company. It's not exactly the type of thing you can sell by the roadside....
True. I can't think of many things you could sell by the roadside, except maybe water, lemonade, watermelons, and/or touristy knick-knacks. (You know, when the tourists make a pit stop for about 15 minutes).
Those soda fountain machines are extremely expensive. I don't think most thieves realize this. You'd need a few guys and some sort of cart to move the goods. Those big ones are worth well over $10k. Some of the slushie machines are closer to $15k. Others cross $20k, but I'm sure they're unwieldy. Maybe if you had a swarm of thieves in one of those raids they love doing nowadays, they could pull it off. Even some of the smaller setups are worth $6000 if they're newer. I was looking at getting one, but it's so much cash. Maybe now that I've put the idea out there the black market will fill up with soda machines and I can finally afford one, haha.
If you're talking about the modern Coke and Pepsi machines you find in restaurants and convenient stores, those are "free" for the businesses who use them so no black market resale value on those. They're like commercial printers... you spend so much in consumable product the machines all have free to very-low-cost leases. If you're talking the classic fountain machines that people collect or repurpose commercially, different story.
Or you could open some type of museum of older businesses and have a soda set-up, complete with a soda jerk to make the drinks.
