Using warehouses

How does one secretly transport not-so-legal goods in the US via a warehouse should he wish to remain anonymous?

If there isn't, is it better to use an abandoned warehouse instead?

Warehousing companies don't generally concern themselves with what their customers are storing. Make a paper company and rent warehouse space. Or rent storage lockers at the any of the various storage companies - almost any town will have at least one a large city may have dozens, or even hundreds.

Trying to use an abandoned warehouse is problematic, because the likelihood that it will be in working order (power, lights, access, ventilation) is slim. Additionally, the people in the area will know that it's supposed to be abandoned, and will be curious about activity in or around it. That curiosity may be annoying but harmless, if it's just the neighbors or it may lead to some other group deciding to muscle in on whatever is going on.

edited 26th Aug '11 10:18:58 AM by Madrugada

On a small scale, I would use a self-storage company that caters to individuals. They don't particularly bother about who's storing what, to the best of my knowledge. There may be slightly more curiosity at company levels, but it can probably be gotten around. Using abandoned ones (for actual warehousing, anyway) is probably only more conspicuous.

Thanks for the info so far. I have never heard of self-storage services until now. Hope that won't be a problem for my writing...

So if the police or FBI suspect something illicit that shouldn't be transported is being transported through these services (for example, classified military components) what can they do about it?

Depends what you're storing.

If it's a personal drug stash, sneaking into an abandoned warehouse probably wouldn't catch too much attention.

If it's a weapons cache, I'd do like Madrugada said, and make a dummy company, with most of the boxes being full of some worthless commodity (paper works, but there's a lot of other stuff you could also use), and just a few (left at the bottom or towards the back) with the illicit material in it.

EDIT: I mean 'if it's the size of a personal drug stash/weapons cache.

edited 26th Aug '11 12:00:14 PM by TheEarthSheep

Wait a second. I think you're confusing warehouses and freight companies.

Warehouses don't do transport. Warehouses are where you store stuff. Transport or freight or cartage companies do the transport. (All three of those terms can be used to mean "a company that moves stuff from one place to another for other people.") A freight company may also own some warehouses, but they make their money moving stuff — they don't generally want to deal with storing it. They want to pick it up, move it, and hand it off to the appropriate person on the other end and be done with it.

What could the feds do? Get a search warrant and search the building they think it's stored in, or the trucks they think it's on.

edited 26th Aug '11 12:18:50 PM by Madrugada

I should imagine that there's at least one self-storage company that's very anal about requiring proper warrants; you would want to go with one of those. Who's transporting what and why?

I wouldn't be so sure about that; if it's a legitimate self-storage company, I doubt they would want any kind of trouble with the feds (like being investigated as an accomplice should they be discovered to be storing illegal stuff for someone). Not that the feds wouldn't have warrants; they're pretty easy to obtain, just pointing out that I doubt a self-storage company would put up much resistance should the feds want to search the place.

Being anal about warrants is a condition of staying in business, I suspect. People expect the same degree of privacy they do for their homes.

Yes, but the feds would simply get warrants. It doesn't matter how anal the storage or transport company is, if the feds have proper warrants, they're going to be allowed to do the search.

Equally true.

Another question; is it legal to live in a warehouse? I've read several books where a character who was rich enough purchased a warehouse and turned part of it into living space. The Dirk Pitt series by Clive Cussler has the lead character doing this; he uses the rest of the space to store/work on classic autos.

I myself have often thought this would be cool to do. Anyone know the legality of it?

That would depend mostly on the zoning laws of the area it was in. In many towns and cities, you can't live in a building that's zoned Commercial (which all warehouses would be.) However, it's not at all uncommon for areas (or buildings) that used to be zoned as Commercial to be rezoned to Residential or Mixed Use if someone wants to renovate the old buildings into apartments (or shops on the first floor, apartments above). Doing that is a major way of reviving dying downtown areas. There are at least three upscale apartment/loft residences in my town that used to be factories. And they are upscale — one of them has some of the most expensive (by $/sq ft) living spaces in town.

That's what I figured. I wonder how one goes about getting something re-zoned...

Generally, you have to look around for specific laws, but it's not that hard for private/small businesses to legally re-zone buildings.

Physically rezoning a warehouse is the expensive part, though. Especially an abandoned one—you'll need to restore it and bring it up to modern safety standards.

Once it's restored, it's no longer a warehouse; if it is neither incorporated as a warehouse nor owned by a shipping/storage company, you're just storing stuff in your house at that point, no?

The municipality has a Zoning Board. You'd call them and ask how to apply for a zoning change. They'd probably want proof that you had the financial ability to make any necessary structural repairs and upgrades (you'd need to bring all systems up to current code standards, for sure and Residential Code may be quite different from Commercial Code.) Beyond that, it's simply jumping whatever hoops you need to jump to meet the Zoning standards and convince the Zoning Board that it would be a Good Thing for the municipality.

edited 27th Aug '11 10:53:58 AM by Madrugada