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,.
Newly unsealed court documents show that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. got the warrant for the raid by misleading the judge who approved it.
The company that ran a Beverly Hills store that rented out safe deposit boxes has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring with customers to launder drug money.
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A retired flooring contractor was watching television one night last month when he saw a news report about federal agents raiding U.S. Private Vaults, a store in a Beverly Hills strip mall that let customers rent safe deposit boxes anonymously.
He knew the place well. It’s near his home and, for years, he has rented a long, narrow box there to keep about $60,000 in cash, gold and silver. It also contained the title certificate for his pickup truck.
The 69-year-old man, who declined to be named because of privacy and safety concerns, said he has kept the stockpile of currency and precious metals since getting spooked by the 2008 financial crash. “You never know what’s going to happen, the way the world’s going today,” he said.