There’s a whole separate underground economy just with individuals bartering goods and services - basically “cash under the table”.
It doesn’t require organization nor a mob and the chances of getting caught are basically nil.
If you look for it, you can find it all over the place. Some of it is blatantly illegal, most is in the grey area between a business and helping your friends and neighbors.
Yep. Like the guy who offered $10k plus $5k cash for my used car so he could reduce the sales tax bill by 1/3.
More power to him!