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The FBI Seized This Woman's Life Savings–Without Telling Her Why


Linda Martin's lawsuit alleges that the agency violated her right to due process when it took her $40,200 and sent her a notice failing to articulate the reason.

Private Vaults (USPV), a storage business in Beverly Hills, and raided the safe-deposit boxes there, pocketing tens of millions of dollars in cash, valuables, and personal items. Although USPV itself was ultimately indicted in federal court, the government had no case against unknowing customers like Martin, in a scheme that attorneys have compared to seizing property from individual apartment units because the tenants' landlord was suspected of criminal wrongdoing. And they have already drawn the ire of a federal judge, who in 2021 ordered the agency to halt its forfeiture from hundreds of USPV safe-deposit boxes because the "anemic" notices provided "no factual basis for the seizure."

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