A form of
fraud where a business owner knowingly overextends his credit, defaults on payments to suppliers, and generally conducts large transactions in
bad faith with the intention of going
bankrupt. Since fraud this severe is akin to
professional suicide, it is usually perpetrated only in the gravest extreme, like when the business owner owes a large amount of money to the
mafia and is about to be
maimed or
killed.
Restaurants are typically busted out the most, since they can place large orders for easily
fenced goods (
steaks,
lobsters,
liquor) without raising suspicion. An added benefit is that restaurants go bankrupt for legitimate reasons all the time, so it's not as obvious to the authorities that a failed restaurant was
mobbed up as it would be if a
bank or a
department store suddenly
went under.
A textbook example of a bust-out can be seen in the second season of
The Sopranos, where the owner of a
sporting goods store racks up a large enough
gambling debt with
Tony Soprano that Tony's crew takes over the store with the sole intention of defrauding as many suppliers as possible. The
gambling debt is considered erased when all of the shopkeeper's lines of credit have been closed and the mobsters have fenced all of the merchandise on the streets for pennies on the dollar.