Was One of My College Summer Jobs Actually a Money Laundering Scheme?

I'm not going to disclose the name of this company but here is the story: 

college students were promised $10 in cash just to show up to this "interview" and usually were recruited by another student who worked this job. 

the role was to be a vendor at a booth and sell a product at different high schools and universities-very seasonal. 

You would show up to the warehouse to load the trucks and they gave you a location for the day (or few days) you had trips on. Then you would load up a vehicle with the product and head to the destination. All transactions were cash and credit card terminals but the accounting was just on a written paper... They paid for all food and travel expenses on these trips including hotel stays ( I flew to the West Coast for a trip once) 

None of the rental vehicles used EZ Pass, it was all cash and again logging expenses on a hand written log.. 

And we were all paid in cash??? They really had 

make it make sense