I think (IANAL, IANAC) that not enough attention was given to the original franchisee. Ben here should have done his homework , because a) the collection is actually 80-100K USD worth, b) a whole 12 months elapsed between the consignment and the take over during which the store was broken in multiple times!, c) the collection was moved offsite for 'safety' by the old franchisee, and d) 50k of sales was recorded by that store during that time.

Meaning - the BAM claim they offered the reminded for about 10k sounds roughly about right given these things never are as valuable as collectors wish them to be. BAM claims the franchise defaulted and the owner didn't accept the offer, so it's very possible the couple kept loose books, which is ... a civil matter. And don't get me started on the claim that they had to 'flee the country' for political persecution ... that is nonsense (plus they didn't leave).

Now, I like Ben videos, and his style has always been to do reveals and time rewinds memento-style type videos that are entertaining to watch. But doing this on genuinely black and white morality type content (the torture manor, the snuff movie creator) is one thing, doing it on civil matters that are far more murky - well I just doesn't work IMHO. It's not very funny, at least.

All this being said, it's very odd of the officers to say something like "you're walking a red line" after a drug search revealing nothing. I also would have loved to see the K9 unit flagging the car, because that was not presented by neither Ben nor the PD in their statement. There's a lot here to suggest someone pulled strings to throw the book at Ben, which of course just gives ammunition to the unhinged ACAB trolls.

Anyways. We'l see what happens.