Sep 262022
 

The story *should* include bits about how everyone had their stuff returned and how the people responsible have been not only fired but arrested.

FBI misled judge who signed warrant for Beverly Hills seizure of $86 million in cash

The privacy invasion was vast when FBI agents drilled and pried their way into 1,400 safe-deposit boxes at the U.S. Private Vaults store in Beverly Hills.

They rummaged through personal belongings of a jazz saxophone player, an interior designer, a retired doctor, a flooring contractor, two Century City lawyers and hundreds of others.

They omitted from their warrant request a central part of the FBI’s plan: Permanent confiscation of everything inside every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or goods, a senior FBI agent recently testified.

Apparently “US Private Vaults,” as a company, was doing shady stuff including money laundering, And some of their safety deposit box clients were storing illicit and stolen goods there. Fine. But sweeping in and simply taking everything that people had stored there would be akin to taking everything kept in storage units because the owner of the lot was running an illegal casino operation somewhere on the lot and renting out a few units to the mob.

 Posted by at 2:36 pm