Posted on 11/24/2018 9:37:49 AM PST by Simon Green
Dan Dotson, the familiar face of the A&E reality show "Storage Wars," was standing at a charity event in Indio on Nov. 1 when a quiet woman approached him.
She had a story to tell the auctioneer.
Her friend bought a storage unit from Dotson the month before in Southern California — and found inside that shed was $7.5 million in cash. It came as a surprise to the buyer and the auctioneer.
“It was an amazing story,” Dotson told The Desert Sun as he recalled the exchange. “She said, ‘I just gotta tell you this story, my husband works for a guy that bought a unit from you and there was a safe in there.'” Dotson tried to hear the woman over the din of the event — the Cars, Stars and Rock 'N Roll charity auction in Indio, the city known for hosting the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
But he did catch the peak of the story: “She says, ‘there was a safe in the unit. The first guy couldn’t open it, so they called a second guy and there was $7.5 million,’ and I say ‘$7.5 million?’ and she says, ‘Cash.’”
Dotson declined to share the woman’s name, the city the unit was sold in or the name of the new owner of the unit, citing privacy and safety concerns. That auction was not recorded for the popular A&E series.
Dotson said when the original owners of the storage unit found out that their storage locker sold, they had their attorney contact the new owner to negotiate a deal to reclaim the money. The attorney originally offered the new unit owner $600,000 of the $7.5 million, but they eventually agreed to keep $1.2 million and return the rest.
Dotson and his wife Laura recounted the story in a YouTube video they posted on Nov. 7. On the video, Laura Dotson asks viewers what they would have done with the money.
“I would feel so worried,” she said. “I feel like it wouldn’t be clean money.”
Laura Dotson goes on to say that the history of a storage unit is sometimes a mystery — sometimes the owner moves away, forgets to keep paying the rent, ends up in jail or even passes away.
“Who knows, but this happens all the time and it’s the modern-day treasure hunt,” she said.
While Dan and Laura Dotson are known as featured auctioneers on "Storage Wars," this sale was just a routine sale through their Calimesa-based company American Auctioneers in California.
But Dan Dotson said he’ll be telling this story for the next 20 years. While his work has led to buyers finding many great treasures, no unit has ever turned up this much cash in his experience.
SSS
Drug money? Often comes with stipulations, such as “You keep it, you and your family die.”
Guaran-damned-tee that the original unit owners are getting a proctology exam RIGHT NOW by both the IRS and the DEA.
First of all.....the “FRIEND” should NEVER have told this story to ANYONE!! She’s just asking for her fiends to be KILLED for this money!
Why would you go around telling people? People have big mouths. Somebody will want their money back & track you down.
Invest the money & don’t tell anybody where you got it.
The IRS must thrilled.
Had she kept the money and said nothing and it belonged to either the mafia or a cartel, they would have eventually found her.
It would be nice to find out who the owner was and why they had $7.5 million in cash........
This would serve as inspiration for a good book or movie.
How do you stash $7.5MM cash in a safe in a storage unit and forget to pay rent to the point they auction the contents? The idiot that told everyone reminds me of someone who recently dug up a hoard of gold coins and immediately shouted it to the news media. Some things one should keep to oneself.
Well...Not exactly... There isn't enough room in there because of all those ammo boxes...
There has to be a interesting reason why this was all kept in cash rather than deposit in a bank.
A story someone would be killed over.
Soon to be a Law & Order type or NCIS story.
They should have kept it.
You stored 7.5 million but the unit ends up getting auctioned?
They could have paid for the unit.. something very fishy here.
The fact that they advertised this doesn't prevent them from harm in the future.
Investing might be tough, because banks report cash deposits of $10,000 or more to the government. At some point, someone, somewhere , will start asking questions about where that cash came from.
I smell a Hollyweed thriller coming soon to a theater near you .. that and pile(s) of old 100 dollar bills.
“Three Kings” —a movie about some SF guy who find tons of cash in Iraq.
In fact there was a similar true story, though the guys were regular infantry, not Special Forces.
And the amount they found was near one BILLION in cash.
It’s not like she found it.
She bought it and what comes with the property is hers, no matter what.
You take the money and don’t say anything.
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