Being built like a football player one expects a man like Slim to have taken too many head shots to have a decent memory, but if he reads something, even for a moment, he can commit it to memory.
“I shouldn’t have to ask this” I stated, “but you did all turn your company phones off after we got the text, right?” They nodded and I continued “Hopefully we have enough gas to get the Hell out of New York before we have to stop. At the first gas stop we will dump the phone Giant bought.”
“That was wiped down and put in the trash in the men’s room” responded Giant. “One less thing to go wrong. If anyone finds it, the browser history is wiped. They will just use it until it runs out of minutes or data.”
“Once you get whatever driving site up you want, hand me the new burner so I can key in the address of our first stop. I remember the name and generally where the place is, but not the street address.”
“If you care to share the name” Slim countered, “I can just do it.”
“Fine. Prime Storage in Glen Allen” I responded. “I prepaid three months. Hopefully, coming back so soon won’t attract attention.”
“Why three months?” asked Giant. “Wouldn’t six months or a year seem more normal?”
“Normal would be to auto-bill a credit card, but, that would have created problems” I answered.
“You mean as long as you’ve been at this you don’t have half a dozen credit cards they know nothing about?” queried Giant.
“Nope. I deal with cash or pre-pay cards from places which don’t report large deposits, or, the token few who make a large deposit over several days by differing amounts all below the cash reporting minimum. Most likely the place Stretch got the prepaid from is one of those” I stated looking up into the mirror at Stretch’s eyes. He nodded confirmation.
I continued, “Most of the big drug money laundering has went on-line via Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, but, the low level street hustles still need a way of cleaning their cash. For a long time you could have a regular credit card which also provided checks. People would write a check then go to a currency exchange or some place like that and plunk down cash which didn’t get reported. Now you use prepaid cards. Laundry is a slow process, especially if you are buying set amount cards of $50-$100. The reporting limit used to be around $5K then it quietly got dropped to $1000. A really good service will take up to $100K in cash and deposit it in odd amounts spread over weeks to your card.”
“The best places” Stretch piped up, “will make it look like you are a bartender or server at a high end restaurant. Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be $300, $450 and $700 respectively. Monday and Tuesday will be nothing or only $20. Wednesday will be a fluctuating amount between $40-$80. It can take 6 months or more to launder $100K that way so some insist you spread it across 4 or 5 cards, each with different names on the account.”
“That’s a lot of trust” Giant stated.
“People who drop that kind of cash aren’t the kind of people you ever want to cross” Slim volunteered. “I’ve used them before too. Still have one of the cards with me. Of course, checking the balance involves an ATM with a surveillance camera so I rarely do. I know what the network is though and can remember my login credentials.”
“Very fortuitous you said that” I responded. They all looked at me. “Hopefully one of you knows someone down south who will handle gold and diamonds, turning them into cash which can be put onto prepaid cards.”
“Just how much do you travel with!” exclaimed Giant.
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