When did she say it was "hidden?" I heard "from around the house."
In my house, at this moment, there's cash in my wallet, in my wife's purse, in the safe, in a drawer and probably a couple of other places I've forgotten about. The amounts are all under $1000 but I'm sure if I was targeted as Burt was it would all be confiscated and I'd describe it in the same way.
There is a miscommunication going on in this thread.
I'm going to guess that most of the posters here don't remember the days when the delivery vans used to have "Driver doesn't cary cash" painted on them.
Again the interesting and unusual part isn't whether it is "legal" or "illegal" to keep that much cash at family residence with small kids. The question is: is it safe and sane? The people who really handle that cash on the daily basis treat it in a way similar to dangerous explosives. Because cash first of all attracts crime.
I'm thinking that maybe BurtW wasn't telling his wife everything, maybe he kept additional job for cover, maybe he tried to keep double and/or cooked books and gotten over his head in it?
Keeping $30,000+ in cash on hand when you're trading bitcoins makes sense to me.
At a family residence with wife and small kid? I think you are either unmarried/childless or homicidal/suicidal/infanticidal.
if you live in a good area and are wealthy its not unreasable to think some people have cash or even gold well in excess of 30k
maybe he took precautions ,had it stashed in a safe or split up in various locations around the house
someone who is practically famous for doing big deals face to face for the last few years would need to have operational cash on hand in case the phone rings and someone wants to dump some cheap btc ASAP to take advantage of the situation and make a profit etc