Answer:
I'm not aware of any illegality in keeping cash in a safe deposit box. Do you have any contact information for the previous box owner? If so, I think you have an obligation to contact them about the cash. If not, then I believe the cash is escheatable under your state's abandoned property rules. This raises an issue about your controls over safe deposit boxes. You should have a control that requires a bank employee to inspect the empty box when a box account is being closed out. This ensures that property is not left like this. If you already have this control in place, then this situation could be one of two things, either the control failed in this case or someone else may have access to this box and be using it to hide money. You may want to involve your auditors in looking at the possibilities that someone inside the bank may be stealing money and hiding it in the vacant box.
First published on BankersOnline.com 3/17/08
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