5 Illegal Ways to Make Money and Why You Shouldn’t

If you are looking for illegal ways to make money, you should definitely read this article.

As much as it’s tempting to get into illegal or dubious activities to make money, especially quickly, you should think twice, before going ahead.

Reading this article will definitely prove helpful, if you are one of those searching for illegal ways to make fast money.

 

Why Look for Illegal Money Making Side Hustles

First things first…

Let’s face it, everything in life can be done in one of two ways.

You can do things in either the quick and possibly dirty way or in the same way everybody else does, which is slow but sure and perfectly ethical.

Most people, thankfully, choose the latter path. But, if for whatever reason, you need to make money quickly without doing any work, one of the best ways to do so is to do it in an “extra-legal” or illegal way.

The truth is, the world is undergoing a global crisis and people are running out of money, or are finding themselves in all sorts of financial emergencies.

As a result, it can be very tempting to want to cut corners and take shortcuts to get to the money that you need to make your problems go away.

Still, as the old saying goes, “What goes around comes around” you may be thinking that you are fixing your problems quickly and painlessly but, you’d be surprised as to how things will get back to you in one form or another.

You do reap what you sow, and with that said, here are some fast ways to make money that are not exactly legal.

 

5 Illegal Ways to Make Money and Why You Shouldn’t

 

1. Unlawful Lending

If you are facing a cash crunch on your own, you probably know a lot of other people who are facing the same problem.

You probably also know people or companies with money who are willing to lend at decent rates.

By acting as a middleman, you can borrow money at legal rates and then turn around and lend to people you know at much higher rates.

You would also need to ask for their valuables like their cars, certain types of electronics like TV set, or any other personal possession as collateral.

It’s important to keep in mind that if you want to make money in this type of lending, to have a good eye for collateral valuation.

This means that the item being used as collateral to secure the loan must have a value higher than the amount you’re lending.

In this way, if the borrower flakes, can’t be found, or just simply refuses to pay, you can sell the item that they have given you for a profit.

This is why a lot of people who are into illegal lending make sure that the value of the collateral is so much higher than the amount loaned.

For example, if you were to loan somebody $1,000 you could ask for something worth 10,000 or $20,000 as collateral.

This does not only increase the chances that they will come back to get their property and pay you off but if things go south, you are almost guaranteed a fat profit if the borrower doesn’t pay.

 

2. Setup a Ponzi Scheme

Ponzi schemes are shaped like pyramids for a good reason. You promise the first investors to your scheme a huge amount of money.

However,  they don’t know that the reason why you’re able to give them such heavy returns is that their job is to pull in new investors, whom most of the money is going to come from.

Then, these new investors are required to pull other investors in and they are given the lion’s share of the proceeds. In the meantime, you are getting your cut which can be a lot of cash.

At first, everybody’s happy because who wouldn’t want to put in $1,000 to get $3,000 back?

That’s a no brainer.

Ponzi schemes dragged on for so long and ended up victimizing so many people because the early batch of investors, the ones who made a lot of money in the beginning, got greedy so they came back near the tail end.

But, as you can probably tell, the math doesn’t add up and eventually, you’re going to run out of money because, at some point, the investors can’t pull in new suckers to keep the scam going.

Here’s a tip though, if you’re going to run an illegal Ponzi scheme, do it online.

It’s harder to get traced and if you use Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, the better because it’s going to be much harder to track you down.

However, if you do this on a face to face basis, then good luck because it’s so easy to get caught if you do.

 

 

3. Sell Counterfeit Products

I hate to say it but there are lots of online stores based out of China that can give you what would otherwise be a $10,000 Prada bag for all of $500.

Now you know and I know that there is when there is no chance those items are legit, they are counterfeit.

Also, the interesting thing is that there’s a lot of people who shop online looking for counterfeit and they know that they’re not stupid.

They’re aware that a Hermes purse that normally sells for $5,000 is available for 100 bucks, that item isn’t genuine, and they don’t care.

If you should get into this line of business, your job is to set up websites where people select and buy counterfeit products.

The big challenge is finding reliable and trustworthy suppliers from places like China that won’t ship you the product directly.

In other words, once you get an order, your software turns around and orders it from your vendor who then ships it directly to your buyer, this is called drop shipping.

You don’t have to hassle with the headaches of having to warehouse counterfeit goods and mess with returns or dissatisfied customers.

You can offload all of that to your vendor thanks to the dropshipping business model.

Of course, this line of work is very risky because there are anti-counterfeit raids by Customs and other officials in the United States all the time.

But, with that said, the profit margins are phenomenal, we’re talking 500% to even 1,000% profit per item sold.

Of course, you don’t want to use the regular payment processing systems for this, such as PayPal.

Your best bet would probably be to use Bitcoin because there are no refunds and it’s really hard to trace people using cryptocurrency as they could even be involved in things like money laundering.

 

4. Sell Drugs

There are two ways to play this game, you can either sell drugs in a completely black market or you can do so in a gray market.

The black market scenario is very easy to make money and easy to understand, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, crystal meth, you name it are all of course legal.

There are no two ways about it. It’s a complete black market and if you get caught, you might go to jail for a long time.

On the other hand, there is a gray market and of course, I am talking about marijuana.

As you probably already know, marijuana is fast becoming legal at least for medical purposes in many states in the USA.

You operate in the gray market when you buy marijuana for medicinal purposes and then turn around and sell it to recreational drug users.

This is a very lucrative business but you do need capital upfront and if you get caught, it can be quite rough.

Because even though there are many jurisdictions where marijuana is completely legal for recreational use, it is still completely illegal at the federal level.

Also See: How to Make Money on Upwork and Make Money as an Illustrator.

 

5. Pretend to Be Somebody’s Digital Girlfriend

One of the most common scams being done on the internet right now is to go on Facebook and post somebody’s very attractive pictures.

You create this fake persona of you going on vacations with your friends, and just living life to the fullest.

Of course, in these pictures, you are a very attractive female and then send friend requests to people in first world countries who look like easy marks.

Related: How To Sell Feet Pics or Videos On Feetify and Make Honest Money!

These people are usually looking for somebody who got divorced, somebody in their 40s to 50s and beyond, or somebody who has money.

And this is a numbers game, so these accounts just blast out hundreds if not thousands of friend requests over some time.

Sure enough, a certain percentage of these people will add you as a friend and if you play your cards right, they will communicate with you.

One thing leads to another and a lot of these internet scammers would then ask for money for whatever reason, such as the rent isn’t getting paid or somebody whom they know met up with an accident and is in the hospital and needs money to be released.

Whatever the case may be, it’s all a sob story and it’s all a scam.

Interestingly enough, a certain percentage of the people ask money from sending the money.

And what’s mind-boggling is that they don’t just send it once, there are lots of suckers out there that will send it month after month.

A lot of these scams are often hosted overseas, so if you live in the United States, this might mean you might want to partner with somebody from overseas which can open a whole can of worms.

Regardless, this is very lucrative. In fact, according to some estimates, close to several billions of dollars worth of scam money changes hands all thanks to the process that I’ve described above.

Related: Apps That Pay You To Go On Legit Dates Online.

 

Why You Shouldn’t Look for Illegal Ways To Make Money

You may be thinking that the methods above can help tide you over ss you’re facing tough financial times. But let me tell you, easy money can get quite addictive.

The moment you scam somebody or the moment you refuse to work hard for the cash you’ll get, it becomes a habit.

Pretty soon, you’ll instinctively try to find a shortcut, and guess what?

You may get lucky the first few times and you might be able to get away with it.

But if this becomes your lifestyle, and worse yet your mindset, it’s only a matter of time until you get what you have coming to you.

The bottom line: Crime does not pay

It’s so much better to just put in the hard work now, sacrifice, and do things right.

Do you know what will earn you big money?

It’s not scamming or ripping people off, it’s all about giving value to people. The more you add value to people’s lives, the richer you will get.

As the old saying goes, “People are not going to care about what you know until they know first  that you care.”

When people see the value you bring to the table, that’s when you will get rewarded. There is no such thing as a shortcut to success because eventually, that will blow up in your face.