Buyer finds $7.5 million in cash inside Southern California storage unit

[left-of-center2012]

Dan Dotson, the familiar face of the A&E reality show "Storage Wars," was standing at a charity event in Indio on Nov. 1 when a quiet woman approached him. She had a story to tell the auctioneer.

Her friend bought a storage unit from Dotson the month before in Southern California — and found inside that shed was $7.5 million in cash. It came as a surprise to the buyer and the auctioneer. “It was an amazing story,” Dotson told The Desert Sun as he recalled the exchange. “She said, ‘I just gotta tell you this story, my husband works for a guy that bought a unit from you and there was a safe in there.'”

“She says, ‘there was a safe in the unit. The first guy couldn’t open it, so they called a second guy and there was $7.5 million,’ and I say ‘$7.5 million?’ and she says, ‘Cash.’” Dotson declined to share the woman’s name, the city the unit was sold in or the name of the new owner of the unit, citing privacy and safety concerns. That auction was not recorded for the popular A&E series.

Dotson said when the original owners of the storage unit found out that their storage locker sold, they had their attorney contact the new owner to negotiate a deal to reclaim the money. The attorney originally offered the new unit owner $600,000 of the $7.5 million, but they eventually agreed to keep $1.2 million and return the rest.

Dotson and his wife Laura recounted the story and asked viewers what they would have done with the money.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/11/23/buyer-finds-7-5-million-cash-auctioned-california-storage-unit/2094781002/

[lapfog_1]

1. Breaking Bad meets Storage Wars? - n/t

[MontanaMama]

2. Yikes. Who stores millions of dollars in cash

in a storage unit? Something’s fishy there.

[Horse with no Name]

3. A storage unit that they didn't pay for....

Something is really bad there

[MiniMe]

13. That occurred to me too

If they had 7.5 million in cash, why weren't they paying for the storage unit?

[Initech]

25. Walter White?

[brush]

4. The buyer probably made the right decision. That kind of money in cash in a storage...

locker? You know it's not clean and whoever put it there was not to be messed with.

I'd have tried to hold out for a little more though, maybe 2M, but would take the 1.2M immediately if the other party "made it an offer I couldn't refuse".

I'd of had a lawyer there too.

[left-of-center2012]

5. My first thought ...

Drug money

[brush]

7. Yep, and somebody just got out of jail and found out his locker was sold.

[Ilsa]

9. And probably Blood Money. nt

I think I would have negotiated a deal where 10-20% goes to a couple of charities. The rest could be split however the two parties agreed.

[Horse with no Name]

6. We had a friend years ago lose a storage shed

It had all of her deceased moms belongings in it that meant the world to her.
The storage building owners would not negotiate a price to retrieve these items.
My daughter watched the auctions and when they opened hers she went to it and bought as much stuff as she could back. She didn’t spend over $50 doing this and despite the friend offering somewhat more then that for these items, they would give them to her.
The terms of the co tract are clear.
The money belonged to the person that bought the unit.
This story is really weird.

[brush]

8. Legally the money belonged to the unit buyer but you know someone was going to...

to come looking for that much money. And that someone was most likely not a respectable, upstanding, church-going member of the community.

[left-of-center2012]

10. Yep

"a respectable, upstanding, church-going member of the community" would use a bank.

[Horse with no Name]

15. Someone who was most likely in prison lol

And a relative forgot to pay the storage fees.

[Blue_true]

19. $7.5 million in a safe in a storage locker.

Think a while and let those words sink in. The money was likely illicit and the person that left it there would likely kill to get it back, plus he or she was able to figure out who had it. Yes, the law says the storage locker buyer owned the money, the only question is how long did he want to run from someone who would put $7.5 million in a storage locker.

[Ilsa]

11. And herein lies a lesson:

When you come across easy money like that, tell no one, not even your BFF.

[uncle ray]

12. the "telling" in this case, would have been before the buyer became a millionaire.

when you bid in an auction, you generally provide a copy of your ID, sometimes even bank info to prove you can pay for the items you bid on. most bidders would not bother to preemptively obscure their identity on the off chance they stumble across millions of cash. the paper trail had already been established. the buyer has probably seen enough "bad guy goes looking for his loot" VHS movies won in storage auctions to know they were in a bad situation.

[Ilsa]

16. Very true.

A lot of planning would need to go into this. I think the tv show has people bidding on closed units, and then the cameras are there for the big reveal.

But if the units are being emptied and each item bid on separately, a locked safe would certainly draw interest.

[csziggy]

21. Usually they get to look inside the units before they bid

But they cannot go inside, open or move anything. A closed safe is the ultimate mystery - until it is opened there is no way for the buyer to know what is inside.

Most of the time storage spaces are sold as single units. The contents are generally not sold separately.

My brother in law used to buy storage units and then resell what was worth anything on eBay. He gave it up a while back. Now most of the storage units he might have considered buying in the Panama City area were destroyed and/or flooded during Hurricane Michael.

[TeamPooka]

14. My theory is this: Cannabis shops are legal in CA and have been for years, but they are not allowed

to deposit that money in a bank because of federal banking laws and they stockpile cash, sometimes for years.

A lawyer was used to contact the buyers of the unit so this wasn't the mob/cartel etc.
They would not have used a lawyer to retrieve the money.

This was a business mistake by a large cannabis dispensary in CA.

[Ilsa]

17. I wouldn't be surprised if drug dealers have a

favorite lawyer on retainer, perhaps someone they've known for many years, who helps them launder their money or manage their bigger, more complicated legal and business deals.

[brush]

18. Maybe, but even gangstas know when to use lawyers so as not to go right back to prison.

[left-of-center2012]

20. I grew up in a "mob town" in the1960s

The 'mob' has, and uses, lawyers.

They even have a 'name' = Consigliere.

[TeamPooka]

22. It 2018, not all cash vaults are held by mobsters. There are hundreds of such businesses in Cali

that have to horde cash like this because they are prohibited by law from using banks.
California does about $900 million in cannabis sales each year.
It's all cash.
It's gotta sit somewhere.

[left-of-center2012]

23. "not all cash vaults are held by mobsters"

No one said that.

[Adsos Letter]

28. That is the most reasonable explanation I've heard yet.

There are lots of dispensaries up here in the Bay Area, some of them quite large. Where would they secure large amounts of cash? Would a bank allow safety deposit boxes to be used for Cannabis proceeds?

[TeamPooka]

29. No. Banks cannot allow these funds in their bank in any way. as a deposit or a hiding place

there are bills in Congress to allow it working their way through
guess who is behind them lobbying for them?
The banks of course
They want their cut of this bonanza and one talking point is about how the current situation leads to unhealthy amounts of cash being stored by folks in the weed biz.
just like this one.

and even the default of the unit is easy to explain.
It was on a credit card and the card expired without the owner realizing and the place auctioned the stuff.
Auctioning defaults is part of a storage facilities business plan and can provide up to 25% of revenue in some cases.
The owner gets an envelope from the Storage place and doesn't get to it right away because he thinks thinks it's just an invoice like usual and the place is getting paid automatically, and he's really busy selling cannabis at the shop to make another 7.5 million bucks.
Then someone opens the envelope and realizes the safe is gone.

[Talitha]

24. $7.5 million abandoned? I'd have called the FBI.

No kidding, it could have been profits from drugs, money laundering etc... IMO it's an FBI matter. If they check things out and it's clean money, then I'd have peace of mind and think about what to do with it - instead of keeping it a secret and spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, know what I mean?

[Sneederbunk]

26. Not enough details to verify story. Suspicious.

[Awsi Dooger]

27. Too bad Jarrod and Brandi didn't get that one

Jarrod is a sucker for any unit with a safe, invariably overpaying.

I would have loved to have seen his reaction to $7.5 million. Plus the decision making on whether to give it up, and -- if so -- how much to ask for.

I am not as confident as others that this was criminally gained money. That would be below 50% likelihood, not above.

[JDC]

30. Big safe

[Historic NY]

31. Its money you can't put in a bank or otherwise w/o drawing attn. to oneself

that sudden mega mansion, boat or car is going to send signals to a whole bunch of people.

[sarah FAILIN]

32. That show is a scam

They plant stuff to find all the time. I highly doubt there was really this kind of money in there. More likely a stunt to boost their ratings..

[elocs]

33. An interesting story. Maybe too good to be true.

I'm sure it has occurred to some that it might not be true at all with no real proof other than some woman saying this about her friend who found that.
It could make a good movie though, a comedy.

[MineralMan]

34. Be Sure to Tune in on the New Season of Storage Wars!

Surprises are revealed each week. Don't miss the show!

Yehp!