I missed this post by Eric Boehm when it went up last month and embarrassingly I found it because the Los Angeles Time wrote about it on Friday. Better later than never, though, I guess; here’s an excerpt, although you should read the whole thing:
The FBI told a federal magistrate it intended to open hundreds of safes seized in a raid in March 2021 to inventory the items inside – but new evidence shows that federal agents had been plotting from the start to use the operation as an opportunity to confiscate cash and other valuables.
Federal agents did not disclose those plans to the federal magistrate judge who issued the warrant for the high-profile raid on US Private Vaults, a private business in Beverly Hills, Calif., that was being investigated by the FBI. since at least 2019. When the raid took place, the FBI also appears to have ignored limitations imposed by the warrant, including an explicit ban on using the safes as a basis for further criminal investigations.
These details regarding the planning and execution of the FBI’s raid on US private vaults are now being made public after another federal judge ruled this week that the government could not keep these details off the public record.
As Raison has widely reportedthe raid on US private safes led federal agents to seize and attempt to confiscate over $86 million in cash as well as gold, jewelry and other valuables from the owners. who were not suspected of any crime. Lawyers representing some plaintiffs trying to recover their property have questioned the FBI agents who planned the raid, but federal prosecutors tried to keep certain details of these depositions redacted….
The FBI had been investigating US private safes for more than five years and had previously targeted people suspected of using the company to hide the proceeds of crime. In 2019, according to some of the newly unredacted depositions, federal agents changed their approach and began building a case against the company as a whole.
But the raid which targeted businesses also swept away the private property of hundreds of people believed to have committed no crime….