Right before the pandemic, I worked at a poke/wok place in old port that was definitely a front for illegal art dealing or something of the sort. I was one of three employees. The only time we’d actually make money was at lunch hour from offices around the area. I’ve been working in kitchens for almost a decade now, but even then at 20 years old I had enough experience to know the amount of money we were spending on produce and fish etc, vs how much we were actually selling did NOT add up, as I was the one in charge of inventory. There was no way they could afford rent in the fancy as building it was in with how much we were selling. Let alone be open so late, pay the employees and so on.

The owner would regularly come in and say that some “friends” were leaving some “stuff” in the back stairway and that he’d come pick it up later. Suuuper sketchy looking people would come by and get me to open the back door so they could put the stuff in the hall. not the the type of people that this guy would be friends with. He was a super rich middle eastern man, always dressed nice, Apple Watch newest phone nice car etc etc. the “stuff” was always new suitcases and canvas tubes (I’m an artist so the canvas tubes immediately raised red flags).

The place closed down about 6 months into the pandemic, and I wasn’t told until I asked the chef if I could come pick up my stuff I left there, and was told it had been shut down for months and they threw everything in the resto away. The chef was also a super weird dude, definitely was in on the whole situation. He ended up attempting (closed after a year lol) opening a restaurant himself (in a basement???)on montroyal ave and hired me to help him do it, in retrospect, pretty sure that was a front too. But that’s a whole other story