Here’s the scheme. Open up a business with some sort of quasi-official name, like United States Private Vaults, and install a big, very secure looking vault just like one would find in an old bank. Line the walls with numbered boxes with keys you can hand out to customers with the promise that they could put their valuable belongings into the box and never have to worry that they’ll be stolen should a burglar break into their house. Hand them a key and tell them no one else will have that key and the ability to open that box.

Then wait until the boxes are filled and then…go through the boxes and take what you want. It’s not like they can prove what was in the boxes. It’s not like they can prove what isn’t there after you’ve taken what you want. Brilliant, right? Except I can’t take credit for the scheme, because the government beat me to it.

Box 8309 was just one of the hundreds of safe deposit boxes that ended up in the government’s possession when federal agents raided a private vault in Beverly Hills, California, on March 22.

Federal agents took those boxes, as Reason previously reported, even though they did not have a warrant for them or their contents. The business that housed them, U.S. Private Vaults, is suspected of conspiracy to distribute drugs, launder money, and avoid mandatory deposit reporting requirements. But the unsealed warrant authorizing the raid of U.S. Private Vaults granted the FBI permission to seize only the business’s computers, money counters, security cameras, and large steel frames that effectively act as bookshelves for the boxes themselves. Per FBI rules, however, the boxes could not be left unsecured in the vault after the raid had been completed, so agents had to take them into custody too.

The seizure presented an internal conflict. On the one hand, if this private vault business was using its facilities for the concealment of contraband, whether drugs or proceeds, it was complicit in a crime, and was not only susceptible to search and seizure under that basis, but potentially part of the conspiracy committing the underlying crimes. Wrapping itself up in a cool business name doesn’t alleviate any culpability for the underlying conduct.

But the business also had legit customers with legit boxes containing legit private property with no connection to any offense. And the court issuing the warrant properly limited the authority to search and seize only to those boxes for which probable cause existed. What the court neglected to do was accommodate the legit boxes protection and privacy from the only entity with the capacity to violate their owners’ rights, the government.

With the business out of business, what were the agents to do? They couldn’t just walk away and leave the legit boxes unsecured. Of course, they could have secured the boxes, the premises, or at worst taken the unopened boxes and warehoused them in safekeeping, using the records of the business to ascertain the owners of the boxes and notify them to come retrieve their personal property for which the government had no cause to search and a duty to protect. They didn’t do that.

In the first screenshot, an FBI agent tasked with identifying Box 8309’s owner can be seen removing the box from the “nest” to open it. Notice the paper taped to the lid of the box, which will become significant in a moment.

Next, the agent opens the letter taped to the top of the box, which contains all the necessary information to identify the box’s owner—identified in legal filings as “Linda R.,” an 80-year-old woman who had stored a significant portion of her retirement savings in Box 8309.

In this particular case, the customer of the box taped her identifying information to the outside of the box, making it easy-peasy for the government to determine its owner and give her a jingle to come pick up her stuff. No reason to open the box. No reason to look inside. Especially, no reason to open sealed containers in the box. But the government didn’t need a reason, and did so anyway. And in the process, apparently not only needlessly violated the owner’s rights, but lost some gold coins and perhaps some other things. It’s hard to say because there’s nothing to prove what was in the box to begin with, and even less to prove what was in the box when the agents were done with it.

When it was all finished, the FBI’s official documentation detailing the contents of Linda’s box makes note only of “miscellaneous coins” without any specific amounts or other identification of the coins. In the lawsuit, Linda’s attorneys argue that the FBI’s search of Box 8309 resulted in up to $75,000 of valuable coins being misplaced—though it is difficult to know for sure due to what Linda’s attorneys call “the chaotic and slapdash manner” in which the box was examined.

This, of course, was for Box 8309, where Linda R. was thoughtful enough to include her personal contact information on the outside of the box. Others were not so thoughtful, and there was no reason why they should be. After all, if anyone suspected this was going to happen, they wouldn’t have put their valuables into boxes at United States Private Vaults.

For the people whose identities were not so readily ascertainable, there were more and more difficult issues. Could they prove to the satisfaction of the government they were the party that leased the box? Could they prove ownership of its contents? Could they prove the contents were not contraband? Even though the government had no warrant granting them authority to search and seize, the only party having standing to challenge their unauthorized conduct and to replevin their property was the lawful owner of lawful property. You’ve got to admit, it’s a brilliant scam.

Then again, had the judge issuing the warrant given it a bit more thought, the dilemma created by the warrant, which simultaneously expressly stated that it did not authorize a search of other boxes but authorized agents to “follow their written inventory policies to protect their agencies from claims of theft or damage to the contents of the boxes” would have been obvious. So too would this outcome. After all, the judge ordered the FBI to protect itself from “claims of theft,” provided the theft wasn’t by the agents themselves.