Through surveillance, informants and undercover work, they surmised that U.S. She joined forces with counterparts at the Drug Enforcement Administration and Postal Inspection Service. Zellhart, who specializes in money laundering, said she thought it should be shut down. The FBI opened an investigation of the business itself. The Sheriff’s Department suspected a customer was a criminal but was “having all kinds of problems getting into the box that they had a warrant for because of the nature of the business,” Zellhart testified in the class-action suit.īy 2019, federal and local law enforcement had managed to search more than a dozen boxes and seized about $5 million from five drug dealers, a bookie and a debit card thief.

Customers, who could rent boxes without identifying themselves, entered the store’s vault with a biometric eye scan, the deputy told her. It could also spoil an unknown number of criminal investigations by blocking prosecutors from using any evidence or information acquired in the raid, including guns and drugs.įBI agent Lynne Zellhart, a former Sacramento attorney, first heard about it from a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. If he grants the request, it could force the FBI to return millions of dollars to box holders whose assets it has tried to confiscate. Gary Klausner to declare the raid unconstitutional. The plaintiffs in the class-action suit have asked U.S. Private Vaults has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder drug money, and the investigation is continuing, she said. “At no time was a magistrate misled as to the probable cause used to obtain the warrants,” she said. attorney’s office denied that they misled the judge or ignored his conditions, saying they had no obligation to tell him of the plan for indiscriminate confiscations on the blanket assumption that every customer was hiding crime-tainted assets.įBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the warrants were lawfully executed “based on allegations of widespread criminal wrongdoing.” The business was charged with conspiracy to sell drugs and launder money. Private Vaults are suing the FBI over its attempt to confiscate gold and silver, jewelry and $86 million in cash from safe deposit boxes.

FBI wants to keep fortune in cash, gold, jewels from Beverly Hills raid.

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