Safe deposit Boxes raided

I don't know UK law but when someone gets a safe deposit box at a bank is a disclaimer signed that they can access it?
I know in the US they can be opened by court order or search warrant (or failure to pay). A third party has (notary of the public) has to be present to document all items.

Originally posted by Dan Tanna
95 % of all the stuff opened so far has been of a criminal nature.

their are bomb squad dogs there too making sure the officers are not opening booby trapped devices.

This is a hardcore operation and will go on for some time.

well if its all illegal why the outrage?
maybe i just dont get it. it seems to me like its some thing that needs to be done...

[edit on 15pmu102007 by DaleGribble]

reply to post by DaleGribble


Well, if they're doing it legally there shouldn't be any outrage. If they are doing it illegally there should be lots of anger. Law enforcement and governments are as responsible to follow the law as any citizen. The ends do not justify the means.

[edit on 8-6-2008 by mysterychicken]

This is a legal operation intelligence lead and signed off by the lord Chief justice and the home secetary.

Trust me, this is no random 'lets see if we can raise cash' going on but a very targetted operation.

People should really read the full article before saying the cops had no rights to open the boxes.

Operation Rize, led by officers from the MPS Economic and Specialist Crime Command raided seven addresses in an intelligence-led operation. The operation is the first of this scale the Met has ever conducted against criminals using this type of secure storage.

Searches of the home addresses and the office were completed on 3 June. Searches at the three safe depositories businesses are likely to continue for some time with armed police remaining at all of the addresses whilst the searches are completed.
Source

They obviously did a thorough investigation of the criminals before they raided the storage boxes. The woman claiming they seized her assets in the vault was arrested for suspected money laundering. Therefore they did not sell her assets, nor did they destroy any evidence in the process. They need the evidence to investigate if the money is actually laundered or if she is legit.

The police obviously thought the storages were run by criminals and that is why they raided the place. The police have to go through all the money to see who's actually legit or not. It is not right to the legitimate people, but in order to catch the criminals they need to do this. I am sure the public will get their stuff returned within time.

[edit on 8-6-2008 by Equinox99]

[edit on 8-6-2008 by Equinox99]

Genuine peopel got stuff back within two hours of their applications.

Its all secured in a Police controlled environment. Turn up, prove the stuffs yours and they hand it right back with an apology.

As long as they went though the proper channels what's the problem?
I can understand being concerned if they didn't follow the law but since they did....
I think since it's not a common occurrence it might seem strange. Strange doesn't mean illegal though.

But they appear to be doing a large sweep rather than targeting individual box holders. Now I guess I can understand if the deposit boxes were run by a criminal front company, but I don't understand if its just at a bank and they are sweeping through the boxes to see what they find...which is the way I read it.

Before you bother with getting a deposit box you should ask for a notorized copy of the actual laws in your state about asset forfiture. Many states have very vague laws on whats considered abandonment of property. It will scare you to read some of the laws. In some states if you don't 'visit your box ' in a timely fashion you can loose the contents without notification to the state. I found this out the hard way when my dad died. He had another bank auto pay for the box and unfortunatly no one knew of that box except the other bank. It wasn't untill that account was closed by my mom that we found out that the box had its contents confiscated. We are unsure of exactly what was in it but I know it was a goodly sum of cash.

Zindo

- seems like every 50 years or so. someone violates the banks oath of trust. and hell, any time the government wants in - well the bank has the key ready and willing... for the IRS... Mafia inc.


Before Banks were trusted - Farmers used Chicken Koops as their Bank.
see not even a Fox can approach a chicken coup without alarming the farmer... the bad news is, men Die all of a sudden, Hence if you like metal detecting, always locate the chicken coup when surveying Antique Farms.

Imagine getting, oh I don't know, say a very valuable necklace handed down from your great grandmother. How would you prove it is yours?

Imagine getting a valuable coin collection from your father. How do you prove it is yours?

Imagine that you don't trust banks, and you have been purchasing silver and gold, and storing them in the safe deposit box. How do you prove that it is yours?

Do you see the problem with the "prove it is yours" argument? How about this... the government (of whoever's country) prove that it ISN'T yours? How about the burden of proof fall on them to prove the stuff that you have isn't yours?

Always look out for the "the innocent have nothing to fear" claim. That is usually a dead giveaway that they are actually targeting innocent people.

Remember, if they were so sure that this place was a "front", then they would know WHICH lockboxes were holding "illegal" objects, wouldn't they?

REPLY TO THIS COMMENT:
Im completely dumb founded by these statements, and find them to be laughable. the guy is a drug dealer and a crook and a pervert. its obvious. he desierved what he got and hopefully they will lock him up for the rest of his worthless life........

UM THATS UP FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO DESIDE!!
What if you were not a drug dealer? what if you did not get off on kiddy porn? YOU are missing the point, it's not up to you to say I'm innocent anyone can say anything was in there and how much would people like you believe it. A post office safe box is assumed to be something you place YOUR things in PRIVATELY. It's more believable that the evidence a police or federal officer finds in your safety deposit box is YOURS.
Think about that

Ok, here's a real life example.

When I retired from the Military I moved most of my savings to cash, sold my extra car and my bike. I tried to put as much cash together as I could because I was going back to Grad school and fulfill a lifelong dream.

I wanted to live very frugally on my pension without any outside debt to insure that I could afford to get all the way through school without financial difficulties, (yes I had loans and GI bill).

I put all that cash in a safe deposit box, it was almost 2 years worth of my former salary. I had receipts for the sale of the vehicles but how do I "prove" I saved the rest from the previous 15 years?

And how much would it take for the Government to say my "proof" is good enough, or that I'm required to report cash over $5000, All it would take is for them to tie it up in court long enough and they would end up with it anyway regardless if I win a court case or not.

What I managed to save from before was already taxed, if I put it into a checking account it will be taxed again. So now if they can't get it through excessive taxes and fees they'll just take it and you can "prove" it's yours, sure.

I wonder if the banks get a kickback for their cooperation?

Here's one more thing that I forgot to add concerning these "forfeitures".

60 Minutes or 20/20 did a special on those forfeitures when they first came out. There was this nursery owner (as in baby plants nursery) who always flew to NY (IIRC) every year with cash to pay for his plants. It was something like $15,000 or so. The police confiscated it, and said that he had to prove it wasn't linked to money laundering, drug money, etc. This guy had been doing this for something like 15 or 20 years, every year like clock work.

Last I heard, he still hadn't provided enough "proof" that the money was his.

Originally posted by DaleGribble
and you guys are freaking out about this safe deposit boxes being raided?

im completely dumb founded by these statements, and find them to be laughable. the guy is a drug dealer and a crook and a pervert. its obvious. he desierved what he got and hopefully they will lock him up for the rest of his worthless life........

I don't think there's any arguing that they had a right to raid the man's box as you describe him. What you seem to be missing is that this is a blanket search. They're opening EVERY box in a bank and confiscating the stuff inside until you can prove it's legit.
A lot of this stuff could be jewelry passed down through the family or the like for which a receipt is unavailable.

If they did a blanket raid legally the real question is how to get the law changed to protect box-holders. Hopefully incidents like this and some of the others in this thread can forward that process.

Got laugh at this... currently across London and the UK Criminals are now emptying their deposit boxes and moving the contents to more secure locations.

Also I get the feeling they are looking for something specific in one of the deposit boxes. Like the movie "The Bank Job" or even the movie think it was called "Inside Job" where they were after a ring from jews in ww2

[edit on 9-6-2008 by greenfruit]

[edit on 9-6-2008 by greenfruit]

i recently went to open an account at my local bank. with the way the ecocomy is i figured i'd ask a few questions. one of thwem was ,if the bank folds and closes,what happens to my possessions if they're in a safe deposit box? the answer to my question was,"YOU LOSE IT!" SO I DONT SEE ANY REASON TO PUT YOUR STUFF IN A SD BOX. THEY CAN OPEN IT WHEN THEY WANT AND CAN CONFICATE IT AT THEIR LIESURE.
i dont use banks for anything except direct deposit,which i clear out almost immediatly
if they did an investigation in that bank in jolly old england,they would have only opened the boxes involved. not everyones. and another question i have is if they found excesssive cash or possessions,even though they were not involved in the scandle,were they taxed or questioned on it?
just reading about the fed,dont you people get that banking is a scam and a ripoff? DON'T TRUST BANKS

ps i was glad to see the penguins got smoked by the wings go flyers!

[edit on 9-6-2008 by Spectre0o0]

reply to post by deepwoods


I am a policeman in the USA and have been involved in similar raids of safe deposite boxes. In mos instances, people who are engaged in drug related crimes use these boxes to store cash, drugs and material related to the laundering of money. They also cannot be arbitrarlily searched (at least not in America) without search warrants that are usually quite easily obtained once the suspect's home is raided and damning evidence is gathered.

If warrantless safe deposite box searches are going on in the U.K you poor folks are way ahead of us in terms of your rights being stripped away. God help us all, stay vigilant and stay angry. Also know that there are those of us in the government that will be on the side of the citizens when the proverbial # hits the fans. God bless the USA and our UK brethren.

Originally posted by greenfruit
Got laugh at this... currently across London and the UK Criminals are now emptying their deposit boxes and moving the contents to more secure locations.

Also I get the feeling they are looking for something specific in one of the deposit boxes. Like the movie "The Bank Job" or even the movie think it was called "Inside Job" where they were after a ring from jews in ww2

[edit on 9-6-2008 by greenfruit]

[edit on 9-6-2008 by greenfruit]

The move was called Inside Man. It had Clive Owens?, Denzil Washington (sp?), and Jodie Foster in it. I liked that movie. I'm very picky and don't like many movies.

I think people need to be very careful what they put in their boxes if they get one/some. All it takes to win over most people's support of this type of thing is to raid everything, find anything illegal, and report it to the news media. Anyone who is a victim of theft will be instantly branded a criminal in public mind so no one will stand up for them.