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Since our story about unclaimed property aired last week more than 120,000 people have visited the state’s website, crashing it at one point. More than 16,000 people have filled out paperwork to claim property or money. The Florida Bureau of Unclaimed property has about 8 million dollars worth of cash and items that people have left in safety deposit boxes. Next month the state will auction off some of the property. Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink oversees the unclaimed property bureau. Sink said the department tries to find the owners before they put the property on the auction block.

“We have, of course, abandoned safety deposit boxes, and of course recently we returned a purple heart to a family, but there are many many other treasures left in safety deposit boxes. We make an effort for couple of years to try and find the owner,” said Sink.

The state will auction off half a million dollars worth of property on August 2nd at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay.