In reply to "who knew?"...
Low lifes, high lifes and as I've learned since this case broke, many people will surprised to learn that there's plenty of the high-low lifes. Money really can buy a lot these days.
I agree to most people used cars, real estate, adult entertainment and the adoption of many special needs children would seem odd.
Awhile back I remember reading where one of the major adult film stars was either planning to adopt a child or had already adopted one.
Sometimes the business or even lifestyle a person is involved in regardless of how the general public would view it, would pose no risk to a child and therefore it is allowed.
I know of quite few used car dealers that live in $1 mil+ homes, but none that have that many children. I do know a medical professional that lives in a multi-million dollar home, that aside from his 3 biological children and 5 grandchildren, he and has wife adopted 6 special needs children at the same time, from another country. It was a private adoption done through churches with no state involvement and immigrations gave them no hassle on bringing the children into the country and residency status was granted without too much question.
With the mentioning of the real estate, I haven't spent any time poring over their real estate documents to be able to say anything, but flipping is a well known tactic that can become extremely profitable if the property is flipped among friends, family or very trustworthy associates, it can also be used to greatly increase a property's value over a short period of time.
I agree with robbery being secondary.
What you mentioned about your daughter's friend, I've said before and I'll say it again, that's the biggest problem we have in this world, too many people ignoring the evils that are out there until it lands in their backyard and then they become "shocked". The majority of the crap that goes on isn't really as "underground" as people like to believe, so much of it goes on right under noses, but people choose to live by the monkeys...see no evil...hear no evil...speak no evil...evil no exista.
I have 3 uncles that were LE, one was a city police chief, another a county deputy and the other was FBI. I was brought up to look at all sides to every story, combine them, then split it down the middle to start finding the actual truth.
It's a sad situation all the way round.