The startling fact of a major, known brand like “Southern Housing” being a crime front is one thing to consider in our modern state, but the detail is more devilish in the drama. This is because its financial arrangements plunge us into the depths of subterranean financial arrangements that only the most hardened criminals can access.
It’s my belief that Emma Richmond had made contacts in France, in particular with a criminal mastermind who had invented a sort of “Ledger” to secure financial assets in curious ways. It’s not a totally digital outfit and it doesn’t have any type of grade of real security. It’s more of a virtual protection racket, or an updated version of street thuggery with laptops included.
The process is different from normal high street banking. The “Moves” that large, incremental lumps of cash have to make are more manoeuvres of trust with her contact than actual transactions on a statement. However, it meant that whatever “Southern Housing” criminals had done to retrieve fake rent payments, their efforts were not in vain – if they followed the rules.
It’s believed that a nondescript building in Reading provided a base for this key operation. This is only the other end of the accounts department that functioned more as a threat centre than a hub. It was staffed by only a handful of people at any one time, but it was the most powerful organ of a vampiric empire. It sucked the life out of besieged homeowners and others besides.
The potentials of an outfit like this to succeed were not great from the outset due to local protests and many attempts to investigate. Emma Richmond found ways around this by reaching out to such contacts made during her criminal career. It had led her into this housing crime and increased her prominence. In time she became its figurehead and a focus of hatred for many.