Taps at main SE?

Alright, I asked another builder, inspector, and electrician and got varied answers (all saying this is wrong) but I need some help from the sparkies.

There was one meter on a 5,500 sq ft house - it was a service lateral. SE cable came in standard 200 amp service. Then (see the picture) on each one of the cables they tapped 2 wires off of them to two 100 amp breakers that were barred together (so 4 wires into what would be the main breaker). The they tapped a remote distribution panel off of the same entry point to feed a 100 amp breaker in the sub panel. Then I found another panel in the garage with another full 200 amps… but the owner had no idea where the power for that panel was coming from.

This was a one million dollar house (not that that always matters), and they had an inspection sticker on it since the panels appeared to be installed. Any guesses?

It seems like they used taps to extend to the other panels. There seems to be some puzzle pieces missing do you have other photo’s?

I do, but they all came out badly. I was in a tight spot in a hot light (the agents were fine, it was literally steaming hot with lights in a small closet) with two agents and it was not easy getting to parts of those panels. The main breaker had 4 lugs with four 4/0 aluminum wires in it (basically 2, 100 amp breakers). Then the 100 amp sub panel was tapped into that as well - all before the main breaker of the first panel

I agree. It is not possible to give a definitive answer without seeing the rest of the panel and the rest of the installation. Context is usually important when trying to figure out electrical installations.

For future reference, if you think you might want to get opinions from electrical experts, you need to make sure you get clear close-up pictures then a series of several pictures moving back from the subject. I like to see pictures that go beyond the panel in question. There may be things outside a panel that could be relevant.