There is something captivating about mafia movies, series, or other forms of mafia-themed entertainment. It shows the taboo side of life, one that many of us don’t see due to its illegal nature. But these shows and movies (and everything else) are more or less based on reality.

And people on Tumblr have been sharing some stories of said reality. In specific, they’ve been discussing crime fronts, mostly in restaurants, and what has been their experience with them, how they grew suspicious or how they ended up finding out, and whatnot.

More info: Tumblr

Restaurants are so commonplace that we don’t really notice if it could be a part of an underworld operation

Image credits: Strangely-Brown (not the actual photo)

So, some time ago, Tumblr user Prokopetz shared something surreal that happened to him. For about 6 months, he’d been frequenting a restaurant with some out-of-this-world pierogi. Strangely enough, the place was pretty empty most times, with the most people ever seen by Prokopetz being 5 (him included). Also, the staff there often referred to him as Mr. Prokopetz, as in by actual name, which he always thought was a gimmick.

Until one day he went down there and saw that it was closed indefinitely. A tad bit later, he also found out that owners had been arrested. And then it hit him that this was not an ordinary restaurant—it was a crime front for the Ukrainian mafia.

Well, people on Tumblr have been sharing their experiences of culinary establishments that they suspected or knew belonged to a criminal organization

Image credits: prokopetz

Image credits: prokopetz

Well, turns out, this apparently has happened more often than one might think. A number of Tumblonians (name suggested by striped_frog, but, really, what do you call Tumblr users, anyway?) shared their crime front stories, which for the most part were restaurants, but were certainly not limited to that.

Image credits: prokopetz

Image credits: prokopetz

Tumblr user toloveviceforitself shared how they lived in a town that was full of half-empty restaurants that never went out of business just like that because import and exports were its “thing”.

And it might be a tad bit weird to think that, but it’s not uncommon to run into a crime-lord-run joint, as pointed out by a number of other people

Image credits: toloveviceforitself

Another Tumblonian, cat–77, told about a corner store and deli that everyone knew about, but nobody really cared as they took care of their own. One night the Tumblr user got harassed on their way home, and word got out. Since they had previously recommended this particular deli to someone, the people from the deli “took care” of this safety issue in the neighborhood.

Image credits: cat-77

Image credits: friendlytroll

Image credits: jupiterjames

After a handful of crime front restaurant stories, one Tumblonian shared how his local neighborhood Hapkido matrial arts studio was actually a crime front

Image credits: Scott Feldstein (not the actual photo)

A couple of stories later, probably-voldemort entered the chat and changed the whole restaurant dynamic with a pretty detailed story of a crime front in a hapkido martial arts studio in a small and quaint Canadian town that was run by an older Korean gentleman who’d often get visitors, friends from Korea who’d also do a little cameo and teach in the studio.

Well, it all escalated really quickly when the martial arts teacher was teaching a group of students, with parents all watching through one-way glass, being proud of their kids and enjoying the tea there, and suddenly the door slams open, a half a dozen policemen storm the place.

The teacher books it, while everyone else drops to the floor. The teacher was caught, and it turned out the studio was a front for smuggling illegal substances from Korea.

Image credits: probably-voldemort

The lengthy post thread has managed to draw in quite a crowd, garnering over 131,000 notes in total. You can check it all out in the original Tumblr post here.

Image credits: melliabee

But before you go, why not share your thoughts, or better yet, check out some other Tumblr news we have on Bored Panda, including my personal favorite, a post discussing why dragons have eyes on the sides of their heads, as if they were prey, and not predators.

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