If you lived in the New York metropolitan area in the 1980’s, you couldn’t avoid the advertisements for electronics store Crazy Eddie. What I didn’t realize until now was that the retail establishment was a criminal operation from day one. Sam Antar, Crazy Eddie CFO, and nephew of company namesake Eddie Antar, talks us through the entire operation in this riveting interview. Along the way, you’ll learn why it was at first advantageous to under-report revenues, then later why it became advantageous to return the unreported money back to the system. Unexpected skill you develop as a money launderer: You can look at a bag and immediately calculate how much cash will fit in it.

Other Planet Money podcasts I found interesting:

• Bloody, Miserable Medieval Economics: Part 1 of a series on the economics of the Middle Ages.
• Economics for 12th Century French Peasants: Part 2 of a series on the economics of the Middle Ages.
• Economics For Medieval Chinese Peasants: Part 3 of the two-part series.
• The Economics of Ticketmaster, and why you have to pay a convenience fee to spend your own ink and paper to print out your ticket.