Make crime pay by skirting the edge of legality 

The Reykjavík Grapevine, noting the threadbare jackets, unkempt hair, and haggard faces of our readership, has commissioned a series of free business ideas to raise you, our impoverished reader, out of the gutter and into the shining ranks of the upper classes.

Our team of stern-faced in-house lawyers, who relish getting in the way of a good article, have advised me to say that this article is not legal advice. In fact it’s for entertainment purposes only. All characters are fictional. The Reykjavík Grapevine itself is an intricate mirage, a self-sustaining conceptual art piece that’s long got out of hand, et cetera.  

Four steps to riches 

With that unpleasantness out of the way, one of Iceland’s open secrets is that you can get away with a certain amount of light, victimless crime. A cheeky smile and a well-delivered “Aw shucks” is often all you need to get off the proverbial hook. What this means is that operating on thin ice can be challenging but financially rewarding work for the would-be mogul. 

Here are the steps you need to take to direct a veritable river of money towards yourself: 1) Identify an unpopular law. 2) Set up a business that skirts those laws just enough. 3) Wait for the laws to catch up and legitimise you. 4) Enjoy your money. To illustrate the point further, we’ve gathered some case studies. 

#1 Alcohol: restriction is opportunity 

The Icelandic government likes to keep a close eye on alcohol. Therefore, state-run shops have a monopoly over the direct-to-consumer sale of alcohol. As pro-business stalwarts we applaud monopolies. In the words of investor Peter Thiel: “competition is for losers.” State monopolies are, however, a different matter entirely. If you need a last-minute white wine to go with langoustine on a Sunday night then you’re sadly out of luck. To encourage public health the state-run liquor shop is firmly closed on the day of rest. And if it were open, then your choice of white wine would be restricted by what the government has ordained to stock. A maddening state of affairs for any freedom-loving wine connoisseur, for whom variety is the spice of life.

Yet not all hope is lost. Following our model, a few entrepreneurial types, noticing that one could buy alcohol from companies in the EEA and have it sent to Iceland completely legally, saw an opportunity like no other. They set up their own European companies, ostensibly headquartered in continental Europe, to sell alcohol directly to consumers in Iceland via the magic of the internet. What’s more, nothing stops these companies from operating warehouses out of Iceland. Or even ‘showrooms’ for that matter, where customers can inspect the merchandise before ordering it online, picking it up moments later.

All this is made possible by EEA competition laws that stop members from discriminating against foreign competitors in the trading bloc. The bold use of those laws has seen the leading company in this evolution, Santé!, in a series of legal battles with the state monopoly and even with the duty-free shop in Keflavík Airport. Lawyers cackle with delight; libertarians cheer on the Randian hero; while the ghost of the temperance movement, greatly agitated, spins in its grave. Most importantly, every day, expensive wine flows from private business into private hands, to great profit.

#2 Vaping: Strawberry Heaven 

I once spoke to a purveyor of vape juices, before it was strictly speaking legal to be that kind of a purveyor. He had trouble importing vape juice with nicotine in it, as half of the time his orders got impounded at customs. I’d come asking for Strawberry Heaven, say, and he’d shake his head sadly and direct me to lesser juices, explaining that they might soon be back in stock.  

This sad state of affairs carried on until he asked the manufacturers to label the juices as 0 percent nicotine, but colour-code the bottle caps to indicate their actual strength. This gambit paid off. Slightly in awe of the brazenness of this whole operation, I asked him if he’d ever gotten in trouble with the authorities. He said they’d called him once, asking him if he was selling vape juice and he said no. That was the end of that. 

Lucky for him he wasn’t the first vape shop in Iceland. The authorities had puckered themselves out by energetically prosecuting that unfortunate business almost out of existence. Having sampled it once, they seemed to lose interest. Shortly after there were seemingly ten different vape shops operating openly in Reykjavík and its surroundings. Everyone seemed content to pretend that the law didn’t exist until eventually the politicians struck it off the books. 

Let this be a lesson to you, impoverished reader. Fortune favours the bold. Sometimes a sketchy business — frightening at first — may turn legitimate, and better yet, lucrative. 

Freyr Thorvaldsson writes Atlantic Islander, the business newsletter where the rich get richer. Find it at freyr.substack.com.