Chapter 9 - The Hidden Room Beneath the Guest House
Two days later, federal agents executed a comprehensive search warrant on Julian and Victoria’s 10,000-square-foot estate. Detective Jenkins invited me to be present during the recovery of Chloe's personal belongings.
While forensic teams cataloged the living room where the casket had rested, FBI search dogs alerted handlers to the detached carriage guest house at the rear of the property.
"Mrs. Vance, step back," Agent Harris warned as a team with sledgehammers smashed through a fake false wall behind the guest house wine cellar.
Behind the drywall lay a hidden, climate-controlled vault.
Inside the vault was a sight that made even the battle-hardened FBI agents gasp in outrage.
There were three industrial metal storage trunks. When agents popped the locks, they found stacks of bundled counterfeit passports, over four million dollars in cash, hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncut diamonds, and seven custom-built hard drives.
"What is all this?" I asked, looking at the high-tech setup.
"Victoria Vance wasn't just running a Ponzi scheme," Agent Harris said, examining the passport photos. "Her real name isn't Victoria Vance. It's Victoria Helena Brandt. She’s an international identity fraudster wanted by Interpol in Germany and Austria for two previous 'accidental death' life insurance frauds in Europe dating back to 2014."
I gasped. "She did this before?!"
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"In Vienna, in 2015, her first wealthy husband died in an apparent 'boating accident' and was hastily cremated before an autopsy could be performed. She collected four million euros," Harris explained. "Then in 2018, an elderly business partner in Munich supposedly died of pneumonia in a private clinic—again, cremated immediately. Julian wasn't the mastermind. Julian was her mark. She found a weak, greedy, corruptible man with massive debts and groomed him into orchestrating this entire nightmare."
"And Chloe was just an expendable pawn to cash the largest policy yet," I whispered, tears of rage burning my eyes.
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