Chapter 94

"Nice clothes!", as soon as he entered the door, Alberto evaluated the clothes on Lanse: "I like the style of this suit. You can introduce its tailor to me."

He took the initiative to walk out of the desk and shook hands with Lanse: "The local tailors in the Federation don't even know how to make a beautiful suit!"

Many federal people don't like to wear clothes that are too tight, so they are becoming more and more loose in clothing design, especially men's clothing.

The tailors here have two extremes: one is purely imitating the style of their ancestors, tight enough to make people almost unable to breathe.

The other is to make clothes into a square, without lines, loose and baggy.

Alberto is not a local federal person; he doesn't like this style.

After Lanse chatted for a few words, he sat on the sofa.

"Have you paid attention to the market of alcoholic beverages recently?", he handed Lanse a cigar: "Sumuli Island pure handmade cigar, I asked someone to watch it being made."

Lanse took it and sniffed it. The smell was very rich and carried a hint of sweetness.

Alberto took out the tools he used to smoke cigars and unwrapped one for Lanse. He looked very enthusiastic now.

Lanse handed the cigar in his hand over, watching him cut and roast it: "Is the alcohol market in New Jincheng so good now?"

Alberto nodded: "Better than imagined, and you know... I have a bigger boss above me. He told me that the Prohibition Alliance now has great political influence throughout the Federation."

"Various regions have seen increased production capacity and decreased crime rates due to prohibition, so Congress intends to forcibly implement a comprehensive prohibition order throughout the Federation."

"This is also one of the transactions between the President's re-election and those people."

Before this, the prohibition order was not implemented comprehensively, but participated in spontaneously by regions.

Some people from the abstinence alliance and the church, plus the lobbying team behind them, will go to persuade each state to join the Prohibition Alliance.

They are not sure whether doing so really helps the city's development and social progress.

But now it seems that it is indeed effective.

Didn't the media in New Jincheng say so?

Our production capacity is increasing, work efficiency is increasing, crime rate is decreasing, what other reason is there not to support its comprehensive implementation?

The Holy Federation is about to arrive under the prohibition order. Whoever stops the prohibition order is the enemy of the Federation!

Suddenly involving the President, this gave Lanse a very wonderful feeling.

Eating beef that costs less than a dollar, but worrying about the cabinet's heart.

"Let's talk about the alcoholic beverage market in New Jincheng."

Alberto handed the cigar to Lanse, Lanse took a puff, and nodded in his expectant gaze: "Very good taste."

Then the two looked at each other for a few seconds, and Lanse couldn't help asking: "You wouldn't want me to say something like front taste or back taste, would you?"

"This is too difficult for me!"

Alberto looked disappointed: "I thought you would say more nice things. The price of each one is over one dollar and fifty cents."

Lanse looked at the cigar in his hand again, and took another puff, then felt it: "When you said it was worth more than one dollar and fifty cents, I suddenly felt the taste was indeed better!"

"Giving it to you is a waste, Lanse!"

He said this and laughed, and lit one himself: "Now the prohibition order in this state has just begun to be implemented, and this aspect is caught very strictly, so alcohol from outside cannot come in."

"They expect that the action of strictly catching violations of the prohibition order will continue until January 1st. We don't know what the subsequent situation will be, so now only the inventory alcohol in the entire New Jincheng can be used."

"November, December, more than sixty days, how much alcoholic beverage can this city consume?"

"The gold-label Napo whiskey in your hand, the current market price is about eleven dollars."

Tens of thousands of bottles of wine sound like a lot, looking at it from one person's perspective, but this city has a permanent population of 1.1 million, plus a large amount of floating population brought by shipping every day.

The City Hall gave an uncertain number through investigation: this city lives with 1.25 million people, including those who live for a short time and those who plan to leave.

Not including illegal immigrants. As everyone knows, illegal immigrants are not people on paper.

If you count them, this is a city with a population of nearly 1.5 million.

The consumption of alcoholic beverages by a population of 1.5 million is amazing, and the economic development of New Jincheng is very good. People are not poor, and federal people also have the habit of consuming alcoholic beverages.

Lanse didn't expect that the wine in his hand could rise so fast. If calculated at eleven dollars, more than 40,000 bottles of wine would be more than 460,000.

Business with no cost is always the most profitable. No wonder those capitalists and political families who started with no-cost business would legislate to prohibit later people from doing it.

Alberto looked at Lanse, meeting his gaze: "Someone wants the wine in your hand."

Lanse held the cigar with three fingers: "So you told others that I have a large batch of wine in my hand?"

No expression could be seen on his face, no anger or dissatisfaction, just as calm as before, but Alberto knew that it was not calm under the calm surface.

He hurriedly shook his head to avoid misunderstanding: "No one knows you have wine in your hand. Two days ago, when I attended a family gathering, the big boss talked about this matter. I said I had a way to get a batch of wine, and he was very interested."

"Big boss?", Lanse showed a curious look: "I thought...", he had a regretful expression of "I didn't expect you to be just a small pawn."

This made Alberto couldn't help laughing: "Come on, this is the Federation, not our hometown."

"Sumuli people, Pati people, Gelai people, Rixi people, and you Imperial people, and many people from all over the world."

"The environment of the Federation is very complex. Don't say you don't know, so we must unite to have space for survival."

"If you care a little bit about the five major families in New Jincheng, you will know that one of them is the Sumuli family, the Pasreto family."

"Paul Pasreto is my big boss."

Lanse didn't speak, so he had to continue: "Mr. Pasreto means to acquire all the gold-label Napo whiskey in your hand at eleven dollars. He can give you cash, bearer stocks, bonds, or anything else."

"If you want to pay taxes, he can also transfer money to you.", speaking of this, Alberto couldn't help laughing loudly.

Even if the Investigation Bureau doesn't check how he owns such a large pile of wine, just paying enough taxes would require half of it.

Lanse suddenly froze on this issue because this sum of money was too much. Because it had always been wine before, he hadn't considered these.

But if it is to be cashed out now, it means he must have a plan to dispose of these more than 400,000.

Is it to throw it into the safe as cash proceeds, then bury it deep underground, or wash it clean through other means?

Money laundering is not an easy thing.

Although from Lanse's perspective, money laundering in this era is not too difficult, wanting to wash hundreds of thousands of cash clean quickly is not an easy thing.

And this will definitely be targeted by the Federal Tax Bureau.

Being targeted by the Federal Investigation Bureau, Lanse doesn't feel there is any problem. Everyone knows that as long as you feed their director, they are tigers taking a nap.

But the Tax Bureau is hard to deal with because they only want money, and it's a lot of money.

Watching Lanse fall into deep thought, Alberto, who does financial companies, knows what he is worried about and gave him two suggestions.

"If you want cash and want to take it out to spend, you can let the Koda family help you wash the money clean, but their fees are very high."

"If you don't want cash, bearer bonds are a good choice."

Casino money laundering has always been a... relatively reasonable money laundering method, but the cost of this method is very, very high.

Casinos are inherently prone to getting involved with various crimes. If you don't give enough cost, the Koda family will not conflict with the Tax Bureau for tens of thousands of dollars.

Giving this money to the Koda family is not as good as paying taxes directly—

If the money is given to the Koda family, they won't feel that they owe you; instead, they will feel that you owe them. They helped you solve the problem that your funds couldn't be seen, and the fees you gave them are what you should do.

You also have to owe them a favor, just to save less than fifty thousand dollars.

That's not as good as paying taxes directly. The Tax Bureau will think you are a good person!

"Cash, I'll find a way to solve it myself.", Lanse finally made a decision, and then asked: "How to trade?"

Alberto stood up and walked back and forth a few steps: "If you want to come forward yourself, I will introduce you to Mr. Pastore."

"If you don't want to come forward yourself, then you sell this batch of wine directly to me, and I will hand it over to the family."

It looks like a good choice, but compared to meeting this big boss of the five major families because of this matter, Lanse hopes to use another reason so that the news won't leak.

He decided to sell the wine directly to Alberto, and it was traded at a total price of 465,000, saving Alberto more than a thousand dollars.

This sum of cash is an amazing number, and it looks even more amazing.

There are no large-denomination banknotes of one hundred or fifty dollars, all are cash of ten and twenty dollars.

One hundred sheets in a stack, tied with rubber bands, they directly used two waterproof gasoline barrels to hold the money, and both oil barrels were stuffed full.

Out of trust, and because he couldn't count so much money at all, he chose to trust Alberto.

But soon, how to place these two barrels stuffed with banknotes also became a problem.

He could only temporarily transport them back.

Buying a reliable and safe big house became the thing Lanse needed to do most at the moment.

Alberto, who got a large batch of high-end wine, soon told Mr. Pasreto the news, and the latter praised him greatly.

Now there is a... strange phenomenon in New Jincheng. Most people who hoard wine hoard mid-to-low-end wine, especially low-end wine.

Some miscellaneous cheap whiskey and copper-label Napo whiskey are the goods they mainly hoard.

To some extent, their choice is actually not wrong. When the price of alcoholic beverages skyrockets, the mainstream consumer group can only afford these cheap or inferior wines.

Like mid-to-high-end wine, they can't afford it at all!

The price of gold-label Napo whiskey in an underground bar is one dollar and thirty-five cents a glass, and the bar can't make money, but who the fuck can afford this?

This also led to the fact that the quantity of mid-to-high-end wine currently hoarded by wine merchants in New Jincheng is actually not much...