Man finds $7.5 million hidden in storage unit he bought for $500

A man who paid just $500 (£390) for a storage unit ended up walking away with a staggering $7.5 million (£5.8 million).

The unit was bought at auction from Storage Wars auctioneer Dan Dotson. The US show follows the sale of storage units that have been locked up and left unpaid for at least three months, with buyers bidding without knowing what’s inside.

Over the years, the auctions have turned up everything from classic cars to odd hidden valuables. But one purchase stood out from the rest.

Dotson explained how he heard about the discovery while out in public.

"An older Asian woman at the table next to me kept looking at me like she wanted to tell me something," Dotson shared on his joint YouTube channel with his wife and fellow auctioneer, Laura Dotson. "Eventually, she walked up and told me her husband works with a guy who bought a unit from me for $500 and found a safe inside."

According to Dotson, the buyer first tried (and failed) to get the safe open.

"They called a second person, and when that person opened it up... inside the safe, they're normally empty, but this time it wasn't empty. It had $7.5million (£5.8m) cash inside," he said.

Pexels

The sheer amount of money left Dotson baffled: "$7.5 million inside of a unit, I don't think you'd forget it, but maybe you were just in a position where somebody else was in charge of it, I don't know."

Where the cash came from remains unclear, with Dotson suggesting it may simply have been abandoned.

"Credit card went bad, it was finished, they moved away, perhaps the person went to jail... who knows what it was," she speculated.

However it got there, the $500 gamble turned into a once-in-a-lifetime windfall.

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