4 Business Stories from Behind Bars
by Yolandi Janse van Rensburg on 11/02/10 at 9:43 am
No comments
I guess being incarcerated doesn’t automatically turn you into a ‘dead man walking’ but it does make keeping your business a float a bit more tricky. Well, Ian Fortey offered 4 bizarre business ideas to run from prison. He highlights 4 entrepreneurs who turned their 2×2 cells into an office. So, here are Ian’s four “best” behind-bars-businessmen:
Viagra Empire
After being jailed, Martin Simon Hickman continued to run his illegal Viagra empire from behind bars. From being caught for selling Viagra online, Hickman has simply relocated his business. The Manchester Evening News investigated this little case of sales and ordered some pills from his Web site. They received some Lovegra pills in the mail a few days later, a probably legitimate but unlicensed version of Viagra.
I think double jeopardy comes to mind…
Autograph Business
This one a few of you might already know. The infamous leader of the Manson Family, Charles Manson, has been running a lucrative autograph business from prison. And — though it’s hard to say if this makes it better or worse — it’s a scam; he hires other inmates to sign his name on things. Apparently Manson is becoming one of the wealthiest men behind bars thanks to this empire of falsified autographs that’s bringing in the big bucks.
Record an Album
Jamal Barrow, also known as Shyne, recorded most of his debut album before being sentenced and, once inside, it turned out to be pretty popular. I guess in the rapping industry it sells to have some prison tattoos and street cred’. Shyne got a $3 million deal while in prison and managed to record part of his album, too.
Running the Entire Prison
While many prison businesses involve shady drug deals or selling a few Lucky Strikes; in Guatemala the prisoners were a little more industrious. For 10 years, an entire prison was run by the inmates themselves while corrupt guards pretended to go to work and just wandered around the outside of the grounds. This sounds like Prison Break Season 3 (or 4? I can’t keep count any more). Over the course of the decade, prisoners had built restaurants, shops, bars and churches (Catholic and Evangelical) as well as some cocaine labs.
The more successful inmates even built homes on and around the grounds. Two-story chalets with high-speed Internet connections and flat-screen TVs! Eventually, the government sent in some armed forces to put an end to the prison’s shenanigans and round up the 1,600 inmates.
So, it seems that the old saying ‘if there’s a will, there’s a way’ still applies – even in the most peculiar places.
Yolandi Janse van Rensburg writes about social media, marketing, life and, of course, cars. We say “of course” because Yolandi is nuts about anything on 4 wheels and runs Autofemme, a blog about cars. Our Ideate sub-editor is also the Heavy Chef girl at World Wide Creative. You can follow her on Twitter @Yolandi_JvR View more articles by Yolandi Janse van Rensburg.
