‘This was the largest armed robbery in United States history, and it was committed by the FBI’: Lawsuit claims FBI seized $86 million in assets by misleading judge on warrant

A recent class-action lawsuit alleges that FBI agents illegally seized more than $86 million in assets stored in safety deposit boxes located in Beverly Hills, California, under the presumption that the assets were somehow linked to unidentified crimes.

Back in 2015, the FBI began investigating a U.S. Private Vaults store in Beverly Hills, suspecting that the owners were engaging in drug trafficking and money laundering. During the course of the investigation, agents secured six warrants, five of which were rather straightforward and pertained only to the business and the business owners.

However, according to a story from the LA Times, the sixth warrant, signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Steve Kim in 2021, authorized agents to seize business equipment from the store, including 1,400 safety deposit boxes located in the store, even though agents did not know the identity of the box owners or have probable cause to suspect that the owners were involved in any drug trafficking or money laundering scheme.

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