A Storage Wars star has revealed her parents' garage was raided by gun-toting balaclava-clad federal officers when she used it to keep hi-tech spy equipment she stumbled across in an abandoned unit.

Nabila Haniss told DailyMailTV how she was shocked to be caught up in a federal probe into missing military-grade communications systems which a group of Nigerian email scammers are accused of conning Boeing into supplying them by posing as U.S. military officials, then stiffed the company and planned to smuggle the equipment to Mexico.

Hanniss, 54, shot to fame by buying Paris Hilton's abandoned storage unit for $2,775 in 2007, then selling the contents which included pictures of the heiress having sex and appearing to take drugs for $10million to Bardia Persa - who put them on his website Parisexposed.com.

Nabila Hannis says federal agents raided her parents' garage and her business partner's home after they unwittingly bought an abandoned storage unit containing millions of dollars' worth of high-grade military equipment from defense company Boeing

Federal agents stormed into Haniss's parents' garage (pictured) to seize the equipment that turned out to be part of an alleged plot hatched by a group of Nigerian fraudsters to smuggle high-tech devices

She and her business partner Michael Saida buy storage units when they are put up for auction after their original owners' have failed to pay rent, making a lucrative business out of what is essentially pot luck.

But when they paid $6,900 for a 10ft by 10ft Public Storage unit in Lennox, CA, at an auction in September, they found themselves caught up in an international investigation into an alleged plot to smuggle high-grade military communications equipment out of the U.S. - ending with her parents' garage being raided.

The Storage Wars star and Saida bought the unit because they saw it had neatly-arranged stacks of about 15 U-Haul cardboard boxes and two large black plastic pelican cases which they thought might hold valuable camera or music equipment.

But when they opened up the cases they discovered a set of gleaming new and 'extremely hi-tech' devices made by defense company Boeing.

'At first glance it looked like a hi-tech computer, something or other, we weren't sure. There were some military backpacks, so we thought we should probably Google this stuff and see what it is,' Haniss told DailyMailTV.

She hired an attorney who contacted the name on it - Digital Receiver Technology, a defense-sector subsidiary of Boeing - and asked them what to do, and was told 'keep it safe until Monday.'

The business partners moved it from the unit to the garage at her parents' home in Northridge, California.

But just two days later, masked federal agents raided her business partner's house - and then her parents' garage when they were told that was where the equipment was. Her 74-year-old mother and 76-year-old father asked not to be named.

Hannis and her partner paid $6,900 for the unit in Lennox, California last month thinking the boxes and black plastic pelican cases might hold valuable music or camera equipment

'Friday night at 9pm, a group of about 12 law enforcement officials turned up at our door with ski masks, guns, vests. They blocked off the street, it was a horrific scene,' Haniss said.

'The neighbors were texting "is everything alright?" It didn't look very good. 'There were several unmarked vehicles on the street, it was chaos. Local police was there, DOD, FBI and Homeland Security.

'When they were there looking through the stuff they were amazed. Law enforcement has never seen anything like this.

'This is the kind of stuff that only military has seen. They could not believe that I'd touched it and fired up one of the devices. They were handling it with gloves.

'They gave us an inventory sheet, they took pictures, they took serial and model numbers. Everything they were missing, which was $3.2 million in product, was there.'

But after the raid, she discovered the truth - that the 'shiny equipment' was evidence in a federal investigation into an alleged group of fraudsters.

Peter Unakalu, Eucharia Njoku, Saul Eady, Eunice Nkongho, Saulina Eady, Janet Sturmer and Brandon Ross are accused of duping DRT into thinking they were U.S. Navy buyers by setting up a fake @navy-mil.us set of email addresses and using them to contact the Boeing-owned subsidiary.

Haniss, who stars on the A&E show, shot to fame by buying Paris Hilton's abandoned storage unit for $2,775 in 2007, then selling the contents

Unakula is still on the run, while the rest of the gang are in federal prison awaiting trial, the U.S. Attorney's office in Maryland said. It declined to provide a breakdown of the group's nationalities or immigration statuses.

The fake email address - set up on Yahoo - actually fooled the company which contracts for the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security, prosecutors say. The proper form of Navy email addresses is @navy.mil.

The alleged criminal ring had already fraudulently obtained iPhones, iPads and thousands of flat-screen televisions worth $4.5million and shipped TVs to Nigeria while pretending to be from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to court documents.

But the crooks hit the jackpot when they emailed Boeing sales reps in July 2016, prosecutors say.

The indictment says the group used stolen identities to rent office space in Chantilly, Virginia, and in October that year arranged for DRT to deliver the $3.2million sensitive military communications equipment there, then shipped it to the Los Angeles self-storage themselves.

It was in the name of 'Rachel Norman,' who failed to pay the rent.

The Nigerians' plan, the court documents claim, was 'to export to Mexico component items of communications equipment distributed by [DRT].'

They now face sixteen charges including wire and mail fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and interstate transportation of stolen property.

According to the federal indictment filed in August, the fraudsters aimed to take the equipment over the border to Mexico and sell it.

Cartels in Central America have a history of using sophisticated military equipment to avoid detection by law enforcement.

Boeing declined to comment on its subsidiary - based in Germantown, MD, and bought in 2008 by the now-troubled aerospace giant - being conned by fake email addresses.

But Haniss and Saida are now suing Boeing for the value of the equipment and compensation for their ordeal.

Haniss told DailyMailTV she was glad to get rid of the items but could not understand how a defense specialist could be accused of being conned so easily.

'They needed to pick up this stuff, and it was our patriotic duty to turn it in, because we did not want it to fall into the wrong hands. Any of our adversaries could get hold of it – China, Iran,' she said.

'I was shocked. I thought as soon as we called and told them what we had, people would come and pick up the stuff from us right away.

'I didn't know who was after it, I didn't know if we were being watched.'

'I was really disappointed that the manufacturer would let this go to just anyone. It's a disgrace actually. They really need to change protocol on this whole situation. How they let items go like that without really, really checking it, it's really worrying.'