They don't say how big is the loan, nor how many were needed to buy the hotel. They might have had to shake hands with everyone in their family.

Some Asian immigrant families form a "lending circle" where they choose a member to go 1st, and everyone gives their extra money to that person, and they buy a hotel/restaurant/etc. The circle chooses a 2nd, and everyone gives them spare money - it's a lot faster this time, with the one hotel/restaurant/etc owner paying in a relatively large amount. This goes around until everyone in the group (maybe 12-20 people) has a hotel/restaurant/etc.

Worked in restaurant industry. Latino workers had a pool of money that the all put into and if I remember correctly they rotated who the paid it out to for big purchases like this. I think they mainly used it for like cars and homes.

These are called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chit_fund. Pretty common in countries where access to the formal banking sector, especially for women who are home-makers, is complicated.

Awesome didn't know what the formal name was.

I had an ex-girlfriend whose family did this. I had no idea it was a cultural thing (she was from Mexico). I just just thought it was specific to her family. If I remember correctly though, it caused a far amount of problems because people would often stop paying after their turn.

Yeah I can imagine. Really has to be close nit so you can put social pressures.

Excellent observation! This is the basis of "chit funds" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chit_fund), an alternate form of circular financing in India. Similar schemes also apparently exist in countries like S Korea per my Korean neighbor. But in the motel instances outlined here, anecdotally, lending circles are not used. It's typically a small group of family members or very close friends with a pool of money to "lend".

Also access to cheap/free labor, also perhaps underaged labor?

Yes, having family members work for you for free is legal.

My accountant once encouraged me to try to get my family members involved in a business I ran just for that reason.

I think the question of age comes into play though.

Possibly. But there are an awful lot of very young family members working on commercial farms.

That’s why rural states give drivers licenses to kids as young as 14 — so they can drive a tractor between fields.

8yo me would have been intrigued by this possibility. (This was on a farm.) As an adult, it seems that anything kids might do around the house, they might do in a family-owned motel. If there are laws against that they are bad laws and also inconsistently enforced.

There's a family business exception.

Underaged labor is legal in the USA as long as they are employed by their parents and the work isn't in manufacturing, mining or occupations declared hazardous.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/childlabor101.pdf

You could make the argument that startup founders who aren't taking a salary from their early stage startup are also performing "free, illegally so" labor.

I think in that case, you can't work for yourself illegally.

If the startup is incorporated, then you're working for the corporation, not for "yourself."

The original blockchain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala

Very difficult to trace and crack by authorities.