This month, a party functionary was detained at an airport with $100,000 - stashed in his underwear - which he claimed to have earned selling vegetables.
This unsavory screen persona has a basis in fact. In the last year, scanning the newspapers, one can find instances in which self-storage units were found to contain: a corpse (more than once); lye, ammonia, and the other detritus of a meth lab; two girls, age four and five, playing inside a padlocked unit to which they, along with their mother, had made their residence as of a week before; the cameras and photographs of a child pornographer; and the "office" of a self-proclaimed gynecologist who in fact had no medical degree. Both Timothy McVeigh and Ramsi Yousef stored chemicals in self-storage units, and in 2003 the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance on how storage operators can spot potential terrorists.
