Caches To Whet The Appetite!!

[MiddenMonster]

He gave them the name of a Self-Storage Place in Silver Lake, California (Los Angeles). FBI went to the storage place and gave the alias the robber used to get the storage. The manager told the agents that everything from that unit was gone. When the guy hadn't paid for it, they cut the lock and auctioned off the contents. No records of the names of the purchasers are ever kept.

As caches go, bidding on unpaid storage units might be the most consistent way to score good cache finds. People are always forgetting what they store, or storing guns and other things they aren't allowed to put in the spaces. The downside is that there are professional resale companies that you are competing with. I've never been to one, but I've asked the people who run the local Public Storage place about it. They told me that you have to stand behind a line that is 10' from the door. They open the door and you can look in from behind the line. Then the bidding starts. All of a sudden I'm getting the urge to check one of these auctions out. I suppose the stuff can always be sold in a garage/yard sale, or auctioned on E-bay if it isn't a keeper find.

 

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[gollum]

[Skrimpy
Now why didn't you ever go there and bid on stuff!?!? You might have gotten a reward for finding the money!
********

Reward?? snicker snicker

Tropical Tramp - in training to be a politiciian! heheh

That was my first thought as well! REWARD? HeHeHe

Hey MiddenMonster,

You are absolutely correct. It's getting MUCH more difficult to find legitimate storage auctions. Most of them know all the stories about found treasures. Most of them open the units before the auction starts. Many of them go through the contents, and cherry pick. I have to say, that there are a few that still do it honestly.

One that happened to me personally, was at one of those storage unit auctions (yes, after seeing that story on the news, I did make a living going to those auctions).

At one auction, the manager cut the lock on a unit, and slid open the door. It was a 6'X9' room. Inside the room, were some loading pallets. On those loadiong pallets were some boxes. Two open folding chairs. A small table with a dual beam scale on it. Next to the scale, were what looked like two kilos of cocaine. On one of the chairs, was an eight inch tall stack of $100 bills (turned out to be $60K).

I immediately bid $5! The manager sent the rest of the bidders to the next storage unit. He said he had to call the sherrif. I stayed close by his side. I offered to split the cash with him. He said he had to turn it in. I knew that if I left, he would pocket the whole stack. I hung out till the cops showed up. Now, he might have split it with the cop, but I made sure he didn't get it all.

At anoth auction, an old man got a filled unit for $200. While he was emptying it out, he came to a few of us and asked if we could tell him what was in one of three 55 gallon blue plastic drums. Turned out to be crystal meth. The old guy paid $200 for 165 gallons of methamphetamine! What a deal! He reported it to the police.


Best,

Mike

 

[Skrimpy]

[Skrimpy
Now why didn't you ever go there and bid on stuff!?!? You might have gotten a reward for finding the money!
********

Reward?? snicker snicker

Tropical Tramp - in training to be a politiciian! heheh

Well, that is my first thought. Why the heck should I turn it in? Finders keepers right? Then my next thought is "Hey there's close to a million in cash in a trunk"...TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, ARE YOU INSANE?!?!?! It's obviously money involved with some sort of crime. With over a mil in cash its bound to have some large sequential bills (ie marked bills missing from that bank robbery), meaning the second you start spending, or depositing, you're going to get nabbed and surely the feds will find some way to punish you for having a large sum of undeclared money. Now, if the bills are small and non-sequential that's another story. Run like the wind baby. Run like the wind.

 

[gollum]

[Skrimpy
Now why didn't you ever go there and bid on stuff!?!? You might have gotten a reward for finding the money!
********

Reward?? snicker snicker

Tropical Tramp - in training to be a politiciian! heheh

Well, that is my first thought. Why the heck should I turn it in? Finders keepers right? Then my next thought is "Hey there's close to a million in cash in a trunk"...TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, ARE YOU INSANE?!?!?! It's obviously money involved with some sort of crime. With over a mil in cash its bound to have some large sequential bills (ie marked bills missing from that bank robbery), meaning the second you start spending, or depositing, you're going to get nabbed and surely the feds will find some way to punish you for having a large sum of undeclared money. Now, if the bills are small and non-sequential that's another story. Run like the wind baby. Run like the wind.

It was never stated whether or not the bills were sequential or not. And the only time you have to declare cash is when you are travelling by plane with over $35K (I think).

mike

 

[Skrimpy]

No it didn't but I would be very, very cautious with a large sum of cash in a trunk found at an abandonned storage facility. It would be wise to check it first to make sure there aren't large sequential bills.

 

[MiddenMonster]

No it didn't but I would be very, very cautious with a large sum of cash in a trunk found at an abandonned storage facility. It would be wise to check it first to make sure there aren't large sequential bills.

Even if there were sequential bills in the lot, what are the chances that they would be discovered after several years had passed? Do banks record the serial numbers of every $100 bill that passes through it? I can't imagine that they do. Even if they did, stores and other private businesses don't. The place you would really have to be careful would be casinos, which do have cameras in the ceiling that tape every bill that is used to purchase chips at a table.

 

[gollum]

First of all, it was not an abandoned storage facility. It was abandoned at a storage facility. Big difference!

What would happen is that when the store made their nightly deposits, the next day the bank would find that one of the notes from that deposit were stolen. Police would then start hanging around the area, waiting to see if any more stolen notes were being passed. The biggest worry would be buying something expensive.

$900K in hundreds is way too much cash to convert the old fashioned way. About 25 years ago, a friend needed to change about $50K in counterfeit $20s into real money. He offered me 25% if I would go with him. I turned him down (not worth the risk getting caught). Here is what he did:

Hit I-10, and start driving East (from New Orleans). He would take every exit, and hit every gas station, convenience store, grocery store, and liquor store. He would buy a pack of cigarrettes with a $20 each time. It would take him a couple of days of driving. If he made it to I-95, he would start heading North. When he got back, he had a bunch of real money, and a trunk full of cigarrettes to sell! He would stop and return home after two days (finished or not), because about that time, the banks would have been finding the counterfeit bills, and the local police would be too late, because he would have gone through that state, and another by then. By the time the FBI got involved, and figured out his route, he would either have finished, or turned around by then. He seemed to have it doped out pretty well (and if he would have stuck to that, he may have been fine. He got caught with about 40 pounds of pot in his trunk one time, and did several years in the pokey).

I don't personally know if all banks monitor all their $100s, but it wouldn't be too difficult with state of the art Optical Recognition machines out there. They could run stacks of them through what looks like a money counting machine, that reads serial numbers.

Best,

Mike

 

[ZumbroKid]

Here have a real one!
Lost Dahlonega Gold Coin Cache!

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Cherokee county, Georgia: has the only reported, still unrecovered cache of Dahlonega gold coins, i have run across in my treasure sites project.
A wealthy lumberman secreted a cache of rare Dahlonega Mint gold coins in the area of his home near the Shiloh Church close to the Forsyth county line. The cache of 1850’s coins were never recovered after his death.
Maybe someone close to the location can look into it.

 

[ZumbroKid]

Here have another one!
Yet another Dahlonega gold coin cache! Forsyth County, Georgia
« on: September 03, 2006, 07:43:25 PM » Quote Modify Remove

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Here is another bunch of rare mint coins you can search for!
In 1851, a prospector named Ledbetter returned from the California goldfields with a large amount of gold which he had minted into coins at Dahlonega. Returning to his home near Cummings, he told his family that he had buried the coins within sight of the house, but did not tell them the exact location. Ledbetter was killed in an accident on the farm and, even though the family did considerable searching, the cache of coins was never recovered.

 

[MiddenMonster]

About 25 years ago, a friend needed to change about $50K in counterfeit $20s into real money. He offered me 25% if I would go with him. I turned him down (not worth the risk getting caught). Here is what he did

I saw a special on counterfeit money once. The problem with trying to pass them, once you get around that federal crime thing, is that there are usually very few fingerprints on them--the counterfeiter's and the store clerk's. It's not that hard to track them back to the person who passed them, especially if that person hits every store in a linear pattern. I hadn't thought of an optical reader. That's certainly a possibility. But in order for it to work the bank would have to run a daily update for the check list of serial numbers to check against. If they do read the serial numbers of every $100 bill, how far back are they checking?

 

[Skrimpy]

First of all, it was not an abandoned storage facility. It was abandoned at a storage facility. Big difference!

Best,

Mike

Er...sorry, my mistake. I didn't mean abandoned storage facility. And yes they do keep track of a sampling of serial numbers. Keeping track of all of them would be too much of a burden, but with so much cash in one place, I'm sure there would be a handful of those marked bills in there somewhere, and when they turn up, the trail gets hot, and like gollum said, if they happen to pull a print off from them, sure as spit, it will match up with you and then you can say hello to your new cell mate bubba and the rest of the pokey population (assuming they have a known print to compare it to).

 

[Marty-Graw]

i have made a lot of money at those storage auctions...... take the good stuff out first for Ebay.... then take the rest to the flea market to get your original money back..... and as far as caches go i have found several jewelry boxes in those things..........now for the counterfeit money...... flea markets are the best place for that kind of thing...... not very many dealers use the little marking pens to check the bills and then they only check 50' or 100's........... not that i have thought about this or anything lol

 

[Blind.In.Texas]

i wouldn't return a dime of it, because, i know what those government types do with it. it all goes into personal pockets.... finders keepers, i say. my driveway. my property. my money. the previous woner should have had better security.

does anyone really think that that money will go back to the good of the community orthe rightful owner? i think the chances are slim.

 

[Blind.In.Texas]

okay, midden, admit it, how much did you find?

 

[MiddenMonster]

okay, midden, admit it, how much did you find?

So far, I've found about half of the lost treasure of the Aztecs, and a good chunk of D.B. Cooper's loot. A while back I thought I had found the cash from the Lufthansa heist back in the 1970s, but as it turns out it was only the primary cash stash for a drug kingpin. I guess luck ain't on my side.

 

[MalteseFalcon]

As for the fact that bills carry traces of drugs, despite the Court of Appeals ruling that the police could rightly assume it was drug money, I beg to differ.

It could rightly be assumed that ALL money is drug money, as the results of a study a few years back were announced in the press where they said something like 99% of all currency in use today has traces of drugs.

A good lawyer could have presented such evidence and gotten a reversal of that decision.

But...no matter.

I also have thought about what I would do if I found a large chunk of cash (enough to set me up for life or close to it).

I would be the only one to know.

The governments have enough of my money.

 

[MiddenMonster]

It could rightly be assumed that ALL money is drug money, as the results of a study a few years back were announced in the press where they said something like 99% of all currency in use today has traces of drugs.

A good lawyer could have presented such evidence and gotten a reversal of that decision.

That's true. But the person seeking ownership of the cash in question would be responsible for funding such a legal action. And in the event of a win the government wouldn't have to cover that person's attorney fees. So if you found say, $50,000,000 and the only thing keeping you from solid ownership was a government claim that it was drug money then it might be worth paying an attorney to put up a fight. But the more money involved, the more the government will fight to get their hands on it. And the harder the fight the more an attorney is likely to charge to answer all the paper filed by the government. So while I agree that a good attorney could win the fight, it would be an uphill battle all the way that only get harder as the amount of money rises. And there is no guarantee of winning the cause. All things considered, I think I would stick with keeping quiet and go the "gentle cycle, light detergent" route. But it's not like I've spent a lot of time thinking about this...

 

[rich68]

The problem with sitting on a LARGE amount of cash is that the Govt. is now changing their bills every 10 years (I read it on the Bureau of Engraving and Printing website).

That means that once the new bills come out, when you try to spend the old ones you will attract attention from whoever is receiving the bills. "Oh wow, these are the old style ones. Where did you get them, from under the mattress?" "Hahaha, gulp!".

I think you would have to spend them on small, expensive, untraceable items. Ones that you can purchase without paperwork from the public, and then sell off later when you need the money, without attracting attention.

I say Gold/Platinum/diamond rings, necklaces, and bracelets.

That's what I would do.

 

[slowreaper]

Moving a little cash here and there isn't the prob. it is when you want or need that new truck ect. that will get ya.

If I ever scored a major cache, it would be motor home and open hiway for me.

Brad

 

[Minnie]

I haven't thought about what to do w/ the money, but every time I get behind an Armored Car, I wait for the door to come open!

Joe

Ya never know what is going to pop out of trucks,,, stranger things have happened.

About 10 years ago on a fairly busy street a truck turned onto the road ahead of me. When it turned the back doors flew open and 2 packages dropped out in the middle of the road right in front of me! The truck kept going.
I of course had to stop and retrieve them. So you know it wouldent say cause an accident if someone ran over them.
I pitched the packages into my car and saw that one said hamburger paddys. Then tried to follow the truck but I lost it.
So I wound up with a big box of frozen hamburger paddys and a box with a spiral sliced ham. It was a meat delivery truck!
It was untraceable and we sorta ate the evidence