Totally unrelated obviously but I know of a business owner who had serious vat problems and got a tip off that the Revenue were going to clear his stock out in a raid the following day, so he cleared the stock out himself during the night. He then shut the business down and opened up again with a different company a week later, same name over the shop.another trick used to be putting up a 'closed for re-decorating' sign in the window for a week or two with the blinds down, giving the owners or operators time to leg it with anything mobile of value