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In Ocean's 11, an accomplice of the robbery requests to store "diamonds" inside Mr. Benedict's vault. But for some reason he only asks to store them for 24 hours.

What could possibly have been the point in doing that? Couldn't he at least ask to store them for a few years or something? Shouldn't it have been extremely suspicious? It made no sense when rewatching the movie.

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Benedict's vault is for storing Casino funds, not for long-term storage of whatever valuables people might want to put in there. He may be willing to store certain things for certain people, but only in the short term. As a gesture of kindness to the big whales that bring in lots of money to gamble with.

In actual fact, asking to store them for a long time is what would have been suspicious. As a "prominent businessman," Mr Zerga should have no trouble finding a proper bank or other secure facility who's actual job it is to store people's valuables, if he wanted to store them somewhere for a long time. Asking a casino manager to store them in the casino's vault (which is NOT its official purpose) is asking a favour, so he needs a reason that explains why he's doing this instead of going to a real bank - such as he won't be in town for long and only needs someplace safe to put them for a short time, so dealing with a bank and all their paperwork would be more hassle than he'd prefer to engage in.

As Wildcard points out below, the 24-hour limit was actually Benedict's limit, not "Zerga's." The point still remains, though, that Zerga would be acting suspiciously if he tried to insist on storing them longer.

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    That wasn't the purpose of the diamonds. Yen was going in another way inside one of the cash carts. The 'diamonds' were actually the charges used on the vault door. In fact, Yen was brought in by Benedict's men when the two brothers were having the argument outside the door for forgetting their ID.
    – CBredlow
    Jun 5, 2017 at 16:46
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    I made the same mistake that @CBredlow debunked. But there's one aspect still missing: 24 hours was Benedict's limit, it wasn't part of the request.
    – Wildcard
    Jun 6, 2017 at 3:24
  • @Wildcard Thank you, it has been a while since I last watched the movie. I've edited the answer to reflect this detail.
    – Steve-O
    Jun 6, 2017 at 13:12
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    Benedict's time limit, even if he didn't want to impose them himself, would be required, possibly due to liability-driven concerns (if his insurer found out he was using the vault for longer-term storage of other people's assets, worth millions, there would be an upcharge on his premiums).
    – PoloHoleSet
    Jun 6, 2017 at 14:09
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I believe that Benedict was the one said that he can help Mr. Lymon Zerga but he can keep the diamonds no longer than 24 hours.not Benedict. Benedict did that as a favor for Mr. Zerga. Of course he didn't know that Zerga is a accomplice of Danny Ocean.

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