Trouble in 'prepper' paradise: Bunker residents raise financial, safety concerns

A former military munitions site with concrete bunkers now used as residences has become the source of numerous lawsuits, several complaints to the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office, a near-fatal shooting and now an FBI inquiry, a News Watch investigation has found.
The former Black Hills Army Depot munitions storage facility was developed in 2016 into the Vivos xPoint bunker complex that is now a residential community marketed largely to so-called preppers.
More than 500 above-ground concrete bunkers are marketed for lease to those who are worried about a potential national or global disaster or who want to live mostly off-the-grid in a remote area eight miles south of Edgemont in southwestern South Dakota.
The concrete bunkers, which look like earthen igloos, are covered with sod to maintain a constant temperature for the military’s conventional and chemical munitions stored on site from 1942-67. The town of Igloo was often home to more than 5,000 people during that span, including a young Tom Brokaw, a South Dakota native and former NBC anchor. The base and town are now abandoned.  
The owner and operator of Vivos xPoint, California businessman Robert K. Vicino, told News Watch that he has had great success in leasing more than 200 of the bunkers so far and that the project is highly successful and profitable.
Vicino also said the bunker complex has evolved into a thriving community of like-minded people, most of whom are happy to live there.
But a different version of life at Vivos xPoint has emerged in recent months, especially for some of the few dozen individuals and families who make or have made the bunker complex their permanent home.
Over the past four months, News Watch has interviewed more than a dozen people, reviewed hundreds of pages of court records, examined emails and internal Vivos communications, filed three open-records requests and visited the Vivos site to understand the unrest that exists within the community.
At least 16 lawsuits or legal actions have been filed either by residents or former residents against Vivos management or by Vicino, Vivos or its subcontractors against former residents and property neighbors. Five formal complaints against Vivos have been filed with the Consumer Protection Division of the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office. At least two former residents have been interviewed by FBI agents.
Some legal filings relate to evictions, claims of illegal eviction, a demand for return of monies paid to Vivos or requests for legal protection orders. In one complaint to the state, a resident says Vivos has broken promises to build numerous amenities and has not fulfilled contractual obligations to provide adequate security and basic services, for which they pay a separate monthly fee. All four residents interviewed by News Watch during an October visit to the site carried handguns for protection.
Vicino attributed the lawsuits and complaints about himself and Vivos to “bad apples” who reside at Vivos xPoint and who may have “their own agenda.”
“There is a group of disgruntled (people), they call themselves the pioneers, and you know, they seem to have nothing better to do but to complain,” Vicino said.
He added that if residents follow the terms of the lease and the property rules and regulations, no legal action will result.
Vivos uses a 99-year lease agreement, so residents do not legally own their bunkers.
People who take possession of a bunker pay Vivos an up-front lease fee of up to $55,000 and $3,000 for water service. They also pay monthly “common area fees” of $111 and an annual $1,124 ground rent fee.
Lessees sign a 14-page lease and eight-page list of community rules, and those who don't pay or violate the rules can be evicted. One rule states that Vivos residents are forbidden from talking to the media about the bunker complex or the company under the threat of fines or possible eviction.
News Watch recently learned that FBI agents from the San Diego office have interviewed at least two former residents of Vivos xPoint. One former resident, Brandon Elliott, said he was interviewed by FBI agents in November related to Vicino “dealing with problems in an illegal way.”
A spokesperson at the San Diego FBI office said the agency would not comment on ongoing investigations nor confirm if an active investigation was underway.
Bunker resident Wayne Corriea, one of the first people to lease a Vivos xPoint bunker and who formerly worked security for Vivos, said Vicino is an unethical businessman who takes questionable and possibly illegal actions against anyone who disagrees with or challenges him.
In an email response to Corriea’s claims, Vicino said he “enforces the agreements that he enters and wants all parties to follow those agreements.” He called Corriea “a former employee hostile to Vivos” and said he disagrees with any allegations that he acts in an unethical or retaliatory manner.
At least three current and former Vivos residents told News Watch they are concerned about the actions of two on-site subcontract workers for Vivos who have criminal records.
One worker, Kelly Anderson, lives in a Vivos bunker and does construction work on the property, Vicino said.
Anderson, according to public records,, served time in prison in Colorado in 2006 after a felony armed robbery conviction. Despite that, residents and former residents of Vivos told News Watch that Anderson routinely carries a gun while at the complex.
Anderson was shot in the chest but survived an August 2024 confrontation with David Streeter, a Vivos xPoint resident who has since been evicted. After a grand jury review in Fall River County, no one was charged in the shooting. Anderson did not return a News Watch call seeking comment.
Numerous amenities offered to current and potential residents, listed on a large sign at the complex entrance and marketed in a video with computer-generated images on the Vivos website, have not been completed several years after the complex opened. They pay a monthly fee for those amenities and basic services in the complex.
Some current and former residents said Vivos takes payment for bunker leases or bunker improvements up front and that those projects can take years to be completed, if ever. Vicino pointed out that contractual language states amenities are not guaranteed. He blamed the slow pace of construction on the worker shortage in South Dakota.
In late November, Michelle Collins, a resident of Virginia, filed a civil lawsuit against Vivos xPoint Investment Group alleging that the company has broken numerous contractual agreements made with her.
The lawsuit states that Collins paid Vivos $35,000 to lease the bunker, another $3,000 for a water hookup and about $94,000 for construction work. Collins was also paying the annual land lease fee of $1,000 and about $100 a month for Vivos to provide for “common area” amenities, maintenance and security, which she says were not provided.
But more than four years later, the lawsuit states, the construction work has not been completed and water service is not being provided. The lawsuit seeks a refund of payments made to Vivos as well as any punitive damages for “Vivos’ willful and malicious conduct.”
Mike Pugh, a resident of Bismarck, N.D., said he and his wife have grown frustrated with the slow pace of construction on a bunker they leased at Vivos xPoint three years ago.
The Pughs paid about $140,000 in advance to Vivos to lease a bunker and have it built out by Vivos contractors, Pugh told News Watch. Pugh said the couple sees the bunker as an inexpensive home in which to retire.
“After three years of waiting, we’re still not down there,” he said. “I’m starting to get concerned that it’s never going to get done, and that I may not get my full value out of it.”
Custer attorney J. Scott James, who is litigating several lawsuits related to Vivos, said evicted residents can lose the lease monies paid as well as any financial equity or the value of improvements made to their bunkers, which can then be leased again by Vivos.
“In essence, these cases are all about, you know, the rights of the little guy and a company or corporation that is trying to stifle any dissent,” James said. “What’s being sold to them is essentially that they have this great, sustainable community of like-minded people that they’ll be able to thrive in. But I think that they all, over time, have lost confidence in that vision of what this was supposed to be.”
“I believe that this is an operation that needs to see a bright light shined upon it,” James told News Watch. “If a light is shone upon it, I think there will be a lot more to be seen.”
This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit news organization. Read more in-depth stories at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email every few days to get stories as soon as they're published. Contact Bart Pfankuch at bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.