Calico Rudasil is a feature columnist for Sssh.com, the award-winning porn site for women & couples. With over 18 years’ experience under her belt, writing about and for the adult entertainment industry, Calico qualifies as something of a Web Porn Dinosaur; similar to a tyrannosaurus, only with far more attractive arms and a less pronounced overbite.
As I imagine most people who are as immature and unprepared for retirement as we are have done, my husband and I have spent an unsettling amount of time talking about “get rich quick” schemes over the years.
For the most part, these conversations have been exercises in rank speculation, addressing the risks associated with various hypothetical approaches, usually concluding they wouldn’t work, or aren’t worth the trouble to implement.
Last week, however, my husband forwarded me a link to an article about a scheme which not only sounded promising from a logistical standpoint, but also sounded right up our alley: Getting free money for pretending to be directors of online porn and poker companies.
What else can I say? Deal and/or tap me in!
When Opportunity Knocks, It’s Just Rude To Ask Too Many Questions
According to Reuters, hundreds of online porn and gambling companies have named residents of the Consett area as corporate directors, in many cases allegedly without informing these newly-minted executives what sort of companies they’re running.
“We were all on the dole and it was free money,” said John Mawson, one of the out-of-the-loop corporate honchos interviewed for the Reuters piece. “You didn’t have to do anything. You know, everybody was looking for money at the time.”
Actually, in my experience most people (myself included) are “looking for money” ALL of the time, so Mr. Mawson shouldn’t feel compelled to rationalize on our account his decision to sign on as the director of Thunder Flash Entertainment, an “owner of hardcore porn sites,” as Reuters described the company.
If someone shows up at your door saying “I’d like to give you money for signing this piece of paper – and please don’t trouble yourself too much about what’s written on the paper above the signature line,” you’d be wary, sure, maybe even concerned. But if the numbers next to the $ symbol looked good, I bet you’d sign anyway, even if you weren’t sure what kind of products were being made, or services offered, by Sleazy McSleazeball Ltd., or whatever the name of the company of which you just agreed to become the director might be.
Besides, even a stranger on your doorstep (or in your email inbox) is still a guest, and it’s rude to ask too many questions of one’s guests. What if you were to find out the company you’d just been asked to run makes a kind of porn which the nice man with the contract in his hand isn’t comfortable speaking about openly? Is your need to understand the terms of a legal contract more important than your guest’s possibly quite delicate feelings?
From where I sit, it’s best to error on the side of emotional caution in this sort of scenario. In other words, sign first, ask questions later – most likely when an investigator shows up on your porch where the nice man holding the contract used to be.
If You Can’t Trust A Money-Launderer, Whom Can You Trust?
In its article about this exciting moneymaking opportunity, Reuters seems to go out of its way to make the man behind the plan seem shady, focusing on unfortunate facts about his background instead of highlighting the advantages of his business strategy.
“At the core of the operation is a company formation agent named Simon Dowson,” Reuters reports. “In 2009, the U.S. Secret Service found that a company serviced by Dowson’s business with a Consett director had breached money-laundering laws. A German who confessed to being behind the operation was fined and jailed in the United States.”
These little details may sound bad, but ask yourself: What smart executive hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing by the U.S. Secret Service? This fact shouldn’t be a stain on Mr. Dowson’s resume, it should serve as a confirmation of the efficacy of his plan. After all, why would the Secret Service waste time investigating a failed moneymaking scheme?
Reuters says “money laundering” like it’s a bad thing. Who among us wouldn’t like to have cleaner money? Have you ever held a well-travelled American $20 bill before? Those things are grubbier than a chimney sweep at the end of a double shift!
Besides, consider the sort of people who typically employ money launderers, and you’ll realize they must be a very trustworthy lot. Nobody is more paranoid than a major drug dealer, I think it’s safe to say; so if Pablo Escobar could trust his money-launderers, where does the Secret Service get off being suspect of a guy like Simon Dowson?
What’s Good For The Rural English Goose….
At any rate, my real point here is to selflessly offer my services to Mr. Dowson, now that Reuters has spilled the beans about his Consett operation, leading to finger-wagging articles by every British tabloid in existence.
Simon, I think you should strongly consider moving your operations to the American southwest, for a number of reasons.
First, unlike Consett, we’re allowed to stockpile all sorts of guns here in Arizona, making it a rather dicey proposition for an outfit like Reuters to show up at our houses asking a lot of nosy questions about internet porn and gambling websites.
Second, should you ever find it necessary or desirable to bribe local officials to turn a blind eye to your scheme, you’ll find that no public official comes cheaper than an Arizona public official – just ask the FBI.
As you can see Simon, there’s no good reason not to relocate Thunder Flash, Sleazy McSleazeball and the rest of your “high risk” companies to my home state – and I haven’t even mentioned the biggest reason why Arizona will be fertile ground for your alternative corporate structures: We’re even more broke than Consett.
Calico Rudasil is a Sssh.com (@ssshforwomen) columnist and Sssh will be on Peeperz for fun times again in the near future, meanwhile why not check us out:
