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FBI says seized fortune was criminals’ loot—owners say: Where’s the proof?

389 points by cascom 5y ago

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athenot 5y ago
In an ideal world, seizures should be escrowed until a proof comes to light. And if innocent, they amount to a loan so the entity who did the seizure should pay interest along with the restitution. (Sadly in reality even when innocent, it's hard to get the assets back without a legal battle.) EDIT: typos.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- adolph 5y ago
  Escrow doesn't seem to address what happens if the seizure is needed to fund its release.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    If it's a large enough amount, surely lawyers would work on contingency? Obviously that'd still miss a lot (the majority) of cases, but still.
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      "If it's a large enough amount, surely lawyers would work on contingency? Obviously that'd still miss a lot (the majority) of cases, but still." Let's not create more cases where little guys get bullied around by the legal system because they can't afford to defend themselves. It's already the case that they can (and do) coerce people into pleading guilty for a BS indictment because they can't afford lawyers.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        Frankly, there should be no situation where the government should be allowed to use its resources against an individual without that individual having access to representation. It's a right in the criminal realm and it's a damn shame that the government is using that (and charging inanimate objects) to get around those protections. People think they have rights, until the system decides you're an outsider and tramples all over you to the applause of the society (the in group).
    - AmVess 5y ago
      You won't find a lawyer willing to take on a case of this nature. LEO use this as a tactic to deprive defendant's ability to fund their own defense.
- dleslie 5y ago
  In an ideal world, police would amass evidence of wrong doing _before_ seizing property.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Sure, but there's a season why these forfeiture laws, as terrible as they have turned out to be, came into being. The claim was that criminals with large assets who realized they were under investigation would do something to "squirrel away" their wealth, putting it out of reach if they were caught. The justification for the law(s) was to preemptively grab stuff to avoid this possibility.
    - svachalek 5y ago
      I can live with seizing assets before conviction, even though it makes me uncomfortable in principle, but mass seizure of assets with a "guilty until proven innocent" policy is just beyond the pale. It's the next step now that we've accepted that we're all wiretapped, all the time. This needs to stop or the Bill of Rights means nothing.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > criminals with large assets who realized they were under investigation would do something to "squirrel away" their wealth In cases of drivers with cash, this problem is solved by the police arresting the individual and holding the cash.
    - bcrosby95 5y ago
      The source of these laws were actually pretty pragmatic. The point was to help enforce custom duties on people that would never step foot in the country. Instead of trying to chase someone down in, for example, France, that didn't pay their customs duties (not really practical in the 19th century), they seized the ship and the contents of it.
- kiba 5y ago
  In an ideal world, seizures wouldn't happen and people would be prosecuted instead of the money. Moreover, government types like the FBI would be super squeaky clean types who cross every i with a dot. They would also work to prosecute less people every year, no more than needed. The best part is no part.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    Both of you are saying the same thing. The difference is criminal vs civil forfeiture. Criminal already works as an escrow system (sort of, the feds might not have been able to find what they want to seize before the conviction). Civil doesn't in that it doesn't require a conviction.
    - mikeyouse 5y ago
      Civil has its own benefits though.. That famous "Civil asset forfeitures overshadow the value of all thefts" infographic from a few years back was only the case because the Feds took all of Bernie Madoff's funds via civil asset forfeiture and then gave those billions of dollars back to his victims. Had they waited for the criminal cases to play out, it would've been years before they saw their money.
      - nybble41 5y ago
        > Had they waited for the criminal cases to play out, it would've been years before they saw their money. They could have sued directly in civil court without waiting for the criminal cases to play out. If the Feds have enough evidence to justify foregoing, you know, actual trials and immediately redistribute the assets to the victims then any court cases should be trivial formalities and quickly resolved. On the other hand, if it actually does take years to determine guilt then maybe the Feds shouldn't be so quick to apply the sentence before the trial.
      - mindslight 5y ago
        There is a significant distinction between the government declaring that money (/other goods) is another party's property and returning possession to the rightful owner (ie equity), and the government declaring that something was earned through an illegal activity and thereby transferring it to themselves (ie taking).
- jdsully 5y ago
  In an ideal world the government wouldn’t seize assets until there’s a conviction.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  In this specific case, in an ideal world they should not be allowed to seize anything at all. Indeed, from the article it sounds like they seized what they found then tried to justify it a posteriori and for this guy it seems that was only "god sniffed narcotics on bills". To me this really reads as: "You have a safe deposit box, and we found cash in it, so you're a criminal and we have seized that cash.". That's ridiculous.
- jandrese 5y ago
  I've always seen this as a tacit acknowledgement of how the justice system actually works. The cops know that if you have the money for a good lawyer you have a much better chance of avoiding punishment regardless of the facts of the case. If you need to increase your conviction rate the best way is to go after people who are going to have to use a public defender even though in terms of actual damage to society the rich offenders are far worse criminals.
  - KorematsuFredt 5y ago
    Yes. Because the objective is no more keeping your community safe but objective is to flood the jails and convince voters that "we are tough on crime".
- eli 5y ago
  And in no event should the seized money benefit the enforcement agency itself. What an absurd conflict of interest.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    This has been a huge problem at the state, county, and municipality level, for many years. John Oliver did a piece about it, a few years ago[0]. Some places actually create budgets, based on forfeiture. There's a town in Texas, that basically set themselves up as "highwaymen"[1] (Would have been ironic, if the town was named "Turpin"). Gives a whole new meaning to "Quota Night." I remember reading about a person around these parts, that was unable to get their property back, after they were cleared, because the police department had already sold it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas#Asset_forfeiture_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas#Asset_forfeiture...
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I think New Mexico was actually the state with the reputation. So much so that I think they recently passed a law to help fix it.
  - adventured 5y ago
    US systems of authority often specialize in conflicts of interest. I think it's obviously by design, both sides ride the gravy train (govt / private sector). The FDA gets ~46% ($2.7b of $5.9b for 2019) of its operational funding from the pharma industry. The telecom industry and FCC exchange employees routinely, as do Wall Street and the Treasury & Fed. The specialization makes sense, however these prominent figures, so primed for conflict of interest, should clearly be barred from doing that for N time (5-10 years at least).
    - jjk166 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- AmVess 5y ago
  Seizures shouldn't be a thing at all unless a conviction has been nailed down, and even then, proof must be made for every cent seized having been made through illicit means. No proof? No forfeiture. I understand why it was implemented, but it has been abused so widely and for so long that it must stop. It has stopped being a tool for law enforcement to being a tool to coerce defendants and the innocent alike.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    > proof must be made for every cent seized having been made through illicit means. The counter-argument is that if that money was used to generate more funds legally, is that other money not tainted? Say you make $10 million selling drugs, and use that to invest in housing in an area, and the money doubled over a few years. If you sell all those houses and now have $20 million in the bank, how much of that is funds available because of illicit behavior? $0, $10 million, or $20 million? I agree the current system is stupid, and often abusive, but I don't think it's necessarily a simple problem.
    - kenniskrag 5y ago
      Banks are regulated and want a proof of the origin of the money. In Europe even car dealers or jewellery shop want it. Because otherwise it would be money laundering. Of course it is hard to provide a proof if you have the money in your pocket.
      - kbenson 5y ago
        That doesn't actually affect the problem at all. If the money is laundered, it's still illicit. The question is if you invest illicit money to make more money, how much is illicit? Some people (and the U.S. government) would say all of it, and probably take anything else as well because they don't like to spend time to make sure they're only taking illicit funds (and it's not in their best interest to do so). So, say you have $10 million after laundering it through a business, and that's used to invest in housing, and that doubles, and later the government identifies all of that original $10 million as illicit because they've identified your laundering method. They are going to attempt to take everything gained, the whole $20 million, under the theory that it was all proceeds of your illicit behavior. The problem is, what if you already had $1 million dollars free and clear from a settlement or something, and you used that as well, so $11 million was invested and $22 million resulted? Is the government going to take $20 million and leave you $2 million? Doubtful. Should they? That's an interesting question, and depending on how people view the laws involved, 4th amendment rights, and the purpose of the seizing of money, they might come down on different sides of that question.
- RIMR 5y ago
  And that interest should be something draconian, like what payday lenders charge. If your money gets tied up for years, it ought to come back doubled.
  - bityard 5y ago
    Who should pay for that? Taxpayers?
    - thelittlenag 5y ago
      Yes. Its "our" justice system. The liabilities and costs go along with the benefits.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      So long as the police line their coffers with forfeitures, they should pay whatever associated costs. If this isn't profitable enough for them, too bad.
      - harperlee 5y ago
        You are attacking the problem on the wrong side. They should have never been able to profit from that.
        AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Why not attack on both sides? I absolutely agree that they should never have been able to profit from that. But, while we work on removing their ability to profit from it, why not also make it less profitable when they abuse it?
        harperlee 5y ago
        Fair point! Makes absolute sense for me.
        klyrs 5y ago
- ifdefdebug 5y ago
  No need to seek an ideal world for shit like that not to happen. Just moving from USA to EU will do.
- KorematsuFredt 5y ago
  A lot of this eventually reflects American society itself. I am generalizing here but Americans in general are pretty insensitive to anyone who is claimed to be a criminal. I have seen people argue that rights of someone like George Floyd do not matter as in past he had committed some crime. There is a huge support for taking away rights of people who are convicted of crimes irrespective of those crimes. When we talk about the bad conditions in our jails, people are quick to say "who cares how those evil folks are treated"? The law enforcement understands this and uses it to profit from this public support.
  - javajosh 5y ago
    Yes, but you don't have to be convicted. An arrest, with or without charge, is a black mark to many, many people. (This attitude is at its worst when considering prison conditions. No-one is dehumanized more than a prison inmate in this country.)
    - adventured 5y ago
      Sure, consider the human rights abuse that is the online mug shots industry in the US for example. There's no sympathy for those people, the assumption is guilt. The superficial tough on crime types revel in the notion that those people get publicly humiliated (and it fulfills the deranged lust for snooping, nosing into other people's business). Mug shots don't tell the story of whether someone is innocent or guilty and yet your photo might end up on the Internet regardless.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > the human rights abuse that is the online mug shots industry The way we treat people with a mug shot is horrendous. But mug shots per se serve a vital purpose: they are a public record of persons the state is holding. That makes “disappearing” them later on harder.
        adventured 5y ago
- bambax 5y ago
  > In an ideal world, seizures should be escrowed until a proof comes to light. What?? In an ideal world a proof should be produced before anything is seized!
  - zepto 5y ago
    Hard to gather evidence if you first have to prove the crime.
    - myfavoritedog 5y ago
      Hard to have a 4th amendment if the government can invade your privacy and fish for crimes without evidence.
    - jfrunyon 5y ago
      You don't have to prove the crime, you have to show probable cause. Our society would function perfectly fine without government-sanctioned theft ^W^W^W civil asset forfeiture.
      - zepto 5y ago
        The person I was replying to mentioned proof, not probable cause. I agree with you, forfeiture is obviously wrong.
        jfrunyon 5y ago
        The person you were replying to mentioned proof as a prerequisite to receive seized assets from escrow, not as a prerequisite for seizing those assets and placing them in escrow.
        zepto 5y ago
        No, that’s simply false. You don’t have to go far upthread to see it. Here’s what they said: > In an ideal world a proof should be produced before anything is seized!
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  Nothing should be seized until a proper court has adjudicated such action. "The right of the people to be secure in their ... effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ... [and] particularly describing the ... things to be seized."
- deathanatos 5y ago
  > In an ideal world, seizures should be escrowed until a proof comes to light. No: that deprives the person of their property, and their right to due process. (Not to mention the violations of the 4th covered in the article.) One should not need to prove one's own innocence to get their own stuff back. I'll allow, under probable cause or a warrant, temporary seizures, but even that must have due process. The seizures in the article did not generally have either. (I do sort of agree that, in the case the seizure was of an innocent person's belongings, that it be returned with interest. But that does not forgive/condone the human rights violations in TFA.)
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"entity who did the seizure should pay interest along with the restitution" And punitive damages, maybe then they'll have at least couple of brain cells dedicated to checking if they actually have any case against someone's money.
- dnautics 5y ago
  forget interest. Treble damages.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    apparently RICO provides for civil cause of action. Would love to see an adventurous civil rights lawyer sue law enforcement under the civil provisions of RICO.
paulpauper 5y ago
There is an old joke. Robbery, except with a badge instead of a gun.
- matbatt38 5y ago
  He, they also have guns
1024core 5y ago
How about the FBI man up and seize the Sackler's $11B, eh? It's easy to pick on the small guy while the whale goes unpunished. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  They don't have the courage to do so because billionaires and big corporations have way bigger budgets than the FBI or other agencies. They can overpower smaller guys though.
  - ncphil 5y ago
    Not entirely accurate. Many years ago someone in the DOJ joked about how Bill Gates's billions were a "rounding error" for the US government. The problem isn't that the FBI is afraid of going up against the Sacklers. The problem is that they're afraid of going up against the Sackler's entire class. You know, the people that the political leadership of this country refers to as their "base".
    - spaetzleesser 5y ago
      The government budget is not one big pool of money. It’s split up between agencies and within agencies it’s split up between departments. The people who would go after the Sacklers have only a small fraction of the federal budget available to them. Unless congress gives them more money. That’s where your reference to the Sacklers class makes sense. Congress is not going to move against their donor class.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    In defense of corrupt bullshit, it's not necessarily a lack of courage that stops them taking on well-resourced targets. It would be much less likely to work, and there's much more money than they'd know what to do with. It would be downright irrational. I'd say that self-interest is a more likely explanation than cowardice.
- a4isms 5y ago
smoldesu 5y ago
> The FBI also said a dog had smelled unspecified drugs on Ruiz's cash. What do warrants even prove at this point? That a cop went down a list of increasingly convoluted excuses and picked an attractive looking one?
- macksd 5y ago
  Studies repeatedly show that almost all currency is contaminated with traces of drugs.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    In The Netherlands we don't need this. A sufficient amount of cash is enough to get you arrested. You will get a trial though.
    - KorematsuFredt 5y ago
      Well in USA it is not illegal to carry cash (and for a good reason) but more than theft you have to worry about cops stealing it. Which is what makes it problematic. If you are an actual drug dealer you can hire one of those armored cash moving trucks to move your cash and the cops will never bother stopping it.
      - the-dude 5y ago
        In NL there is current proposal to prohibit cash transactions > 3k. A EU wide rule may follow, but maybe a bit higher.
        jdavis703 5y ago
        In the US cash transactions over 10k are highly regulated. And interestingly even making a series of withdrawals for say $9,500 is also illegal, even though it’s under the limit. They call it “structuring” and even politicians in the US Congress have been charged with this.
arenaninja 5y ago
This was so much worse than I imagined. It was a physical dragnet at a private safe deposit box business and the FBI is trying to claim all the customer's belongings under civil asset forfeiture because a dog smelled marijuana. Meanwhile two legitimate businesses who cannot legally transact with banks were customers and the boxes were not airtight This is brazen overreach and needs to be reigned in
- DisjointedHunt 5y ago
  I’d say it’s criminal abuse of power. Sadly, I don’t expect any thing as serious as even a slap on the wrist for this act that makes a joke out of the laws of the country.
  - quantified 5y ago
    I’d go a step and say that civil asset forfeiture laws make a joke out of the country.
    - jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
      "civil asset forfeiture laws". It's plain legalized stealing, no fancy wording could change that.
  - sneak 5y ago
    > I’d say it’s criminal abuse of power. That's exactly what it is, but there's generally no enforcement against police in the USA, and there's definitely no real enforcement against federal police as a group in the USA. (Sometimes individual federal police get busted, but nothing happens to medium-to-large criminal conspiracies within the FBI/DEA/BATFE/etc.) It's a known bug that nobody with the power to fix really cares about fixing.
    - landemva 5y ago
      USSC created fiction of "government immunity", so government actors are generally allowed to make any mistakes they want. If someone had put a wheel loader in there and scooped up the boxes and contents, it would be criminal premeditated theft.
gorbachev 5y ago
The FBI agents who authorized this should be fired. This thing is a complete joke.
- ldiracdelta 5y ago
  Civil Asset Forfeiture is the law of the land, currently. It isn't Constitutionally valid.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    The best the supreme court has managed to say about it is that some instances could violate the eigth ammendment. Thr courts have been pretty careful to prevent setting any real precedents that wouod limit these laws.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Fired?? They should be prosecuted for theft.
  - unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
    Court sanctions for speculative and insubstantial arguments would be a good start. Blame rests on the judge(s) who apparently is/are tolerating the FBI's evidence-lite dragnet.
  - wearywanderer 5y ago
    They should be imprisoned for theft and allowed to appeal their summary sentence later. Guilty until proven innocent is the way they like to play things, so give them a taste of their own medicine.
inetsee 5y ago
Non-walled link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/fbi-says-fortune-seized-in-beverly-hills-raid-was-criminals-loot-owners-say-where-s-the-proof/ar-AAOBlWO https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/fbi-says-fortune-seized...
ldiracdelta 5y ago
Institute for Justice is attempting to fight this "unlawful [...] seizure" : https://ij.org/case/u-s-private-vaults-seizure/ https://ij.org/case/u-s-private-vaults-seizure/ .
danlugo92 5y ago
Not your keys, not your property.
kennywinker 5y ago
Civil forfeiture is an outgrowth of the war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism). Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror. I doubt we will be able be able to end civil forfeiture until we end the war on drugs.
- RIMR 5y ago
  The war on drugs relies on civil forfeiture, and the practice could be ended with a single law. That would effectively end the war on drugs.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    > That would effectively end the war on drugs. Given that the war on drugs existed before the ramp up of civil forfeiture, I doubt that. But I’m down to find out if you can get that single law passed - my point was the perception of drug dealers rich off drug money are the reason there’s not a lot of support for ending civil forfeiture.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  > Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror A lot of the framework and the beginnings of domestic spying really started after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The underpinnings of the Patriot Act were originally passed then. > war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism) I think this is an oversimplification of the history of the war on drugs. Racism is certainly a facet, but the association of drugs use with counter culture and the anti war movement are just as important. Soaring crime rates in the 70s and 80s are also related to the war on drugs. There were also cultural and political incentives to ratchet it up in the name of :doing something". Average people of every racial and economic background were concerned about drugs in the early 80s. Boiling it down to any one thing really does a disservice to complexity of the issue. Radley Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop"[1] has a lot of good historical information on the topic. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americas/dp/B094492F4R https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
  - 5y ago
dennisnedry 5y ago
Can we add "Defund the FBI" to the national narrative?
- RIMR 5y ago
  "Defund the police" includes the feds, just say that instead.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  How about simply fix the laws through Democratic processes instead of descend into complete Anarchy?
  - barneygale 5y ago
    Your democratic processes are already crippled. Trump and Bush both lost but were still elected president. Many of your states engage in voter suppression. Your corporations have captured legislative responsibilities like tax law. Your legislature is a rubber stamp or a roadblock. Your courts are full of political appointees, many without term limits or proper vetting. Democracy, as a tool, has been made blunt by capitalist and military interests. This is precisely why it's so heavily promoted as part of the american national identity - so people can, in 2021, try to claim that /maybe next election/, if we ask nicely, the US government will stop yeeting Afghani children into 100 pieces.
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      >Trump and Bush both lost but were still elected president. Are you claiming the electoral college isn't legit? There's a very specific reason it exists. >Many of your states engage in voter suppression. Like what? >Democracy, as a tool, has been made blunt by capitalist and military interests. Yes because it's made great by communists????
      - jfrunyon 5y ago
        They are claiming the electoral college is undemocratic. Which it is, by the very definition. If you've missed the voter suppression thus far, you and I both know that you won't listen to any evidence or argument otherwise. There are many more ideologies than capitalist and communist. The world is not black and white.
vmception 5y ago
> Ruiz’s income was too low for him to have that much money, and his side business selling bongs made from liquor bottles suggested he was an unlicensed pot dealer And he could have put $30 in Dogecoin 6 years ago and had $60,000 by the time of seizure. Or $30 in a random token this year like NFT-art.finance and made the same. https://poocoin.app/tokens/0xf7844cb890f4c339c497aeab599abdc3c874b67a https://poocoin.app/tokens/0xf7844cb890f4c339c497aeab599abdc... The government has no control of the money supply and has no basis to assume anyone can't have something by looking at their job and income If this is what they reported to the judge, their whole case should be wrecked and the judiciary should curb stomp the entire practice
- wl 5y ago
  > And he could have put $30 in Dogecoin 6 years ago and had $60,000 by the time of seizure. Or $30 in a random token this year like NFT-art.finance and made the same. If that cash were the realized gain from such an investment, it'd be reportable income and the FBI would have seen it. What tripped up the FBI here is that the source of the cash was compensatory damages, which was likely claimed as non-taxable and thus not reported.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Thanks for the context Doubling down on my point, its not like Dogecoin was traded on Robinhood way back then. The self-reporting wouldn't necessarily say which specific asset. Are you suggesting if the Feds looked at their tax returns and saw a gain at some point in this person's history they would have left them alone and not said "their income is too low and therefore probable cause." Also, I factored in the tax reporting aspect when I was deciding whether to write $30 or $50 as the initial capital, if there was a sale for cash it would be reportable when they file taxes in 2022.
  - cascom 5y ago
    I think you’re assuming the FBI made a good faith attempt here, when it’s more likely they cherry picked the facts that helped their arguments, ignoring those that didn’t
hirundo 5y ago
Don't worry, Politifact looked into this, and it isn't possible for the federal government to be seizing things from safe deposit boxes, because that would require a search warrant, which obviously isn't going to happen. Pants on fire. Various chain emails over the past seven years have warned readers about the possibility of Homeland Security seizing items like gold, silver and guns from their safe deposit boxes at the bank. This isn’t possible without first obtaining a search warrant, since those boxes are private property. And banking officials told us random seizures just aren’t happening. We rate this statement Pants on Fire. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/26/chain-email/homeland-security-can-seize-safe-deposit-boxes-wit/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/26/chain-emai...
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Did...did you read the article at all? "U.S. Private Vaults was indicted in February on charges of conspiring with unnamed customers to sell drugs, launder money and structure cash transactions to dodge government detection. No people were charged." Meaning that the private company offering these deposit boxes was the target; and then everyone who used them is collectively facing the government seizing it for an indictment completely unrelated to them.
  - AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
    You may have missed the implicit "/s" from the parent's post.
    - javawizard 5y ago
      And that's why it needed an explicit "/s": without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it's impossible to create a parody of extreme views such that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied[0]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
  - nefitty 5y ago
    You're not supposed to question if someone read the article. You're gonna get in trouble with a concerned HN citizen
AlbertCory 5y ago
Everyone below who advocates abolition of civil asset forfeiture is correct. The "justification" for it is: a criminal can amass vast sums of money, then use it to buy so many top lawyers that he or she is untouchable. That may be a problem, but "fixing" the problem requires harming so many people who haven't committed any crime that the fix is worse than the problem. A serious criminal will keep the assets safe from law enforcement, i.e. not in a strip mall "bank." Why not just require everyone to use a public defender? That would fix the "problem" too. (That was a joke, in case you're wondering.)
- dariusj18 5y ago
  This kind of makes sense, but then those same lawyers are willing to work on spec and get a larger cut of the money when returned. (aka, they have no incentive to fight this system)
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "The "justification" for it is: a criminal can amass vast sums of money, then use it to buy so many top lawyers that he or she is untouchable" So, logically follows that the ruling class is above the law?
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    They don't even try to pretend otherwise.
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    Mostly they are. Occasionally one is thrown to the wolves (looking at you, Bernie Madoff and Martha Stewart) to sustain the illusion that no one's above the law.
    - KennyBlanken 5y ago
      Given Martha's brand is doing exceptionally well and she uses her prison stay for gags in commercials and appearances on talk shows, more like thrown to a bunch of golden retriever puppies. Her appearance on Ellen alongside Snoop was pretty funny, though.
KorematsuFredt 5y ago
In short: If you are carrying cash you have to worry less about a thug stealing it and worry more about cops stealing it. Note: Assets stolen by law enforcement through CAF far exceeds assets stolens to home burglaries in USA.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  This comparison is pointless. 100% stolen in burglaries is crime. We don't know the percentage for CAF. What if it is 99.9% justified?
  - KorematsuFredt 5y ago
    My bad I thought it was obvious. Police don't have to file any charges to keep the cash. The onus is on the victim to file a claim. Average cost to file a claim including attorney fees is $3000. Average size of forfeitured property is $1400. Most people let go of that money and no charges are filed and hence we do not have any data on the question you have raised. Various states have refused to share this data as well making it hard to obtain. If the cops have not seeked conviction and have not obtained it I would argue that it is just plain theft.
    - lostmsu 5y ago
      The argument comparing claim cost against the size of property is bogus. Winning a forfeiture case AFAIK mandates the government to cover the attorney fees. Also, repeating my comment from below: Specifically, related quotes from Wikipedia: "From 2005 to 2010, government seizures of assets from both criminals as well as innocent citizens went from $1.25 billion to $2.50 billion" "In 2010, there were 15,000 cases of forfeitures." If you divide $2.5B by 15k cases, you'll get avg. $166k/case, which is far from $1400 you mention. So either your source or my interpretation of Wikipedia is wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
      - handoflixue 5y ago
zamalek 5y ago
NO implication Joseph Ruiz is doing anything morally or legally wrong, here. Just a warning: Hoarding cash (the technical term for putting money in a safety deposit, or under your bed) is a really bad way to save. The current inflation rate is 5.3%, that means you lose 5.3% of the value of any savings each year. Prior to the pandemic, you could get in the region of 2.5% interest in a long-term savings account. That would cut your loss to 2.8% per-year. Currently you'll struggle to get anything over 0.5%, but it's still something. There are options that involve risk that might get you net-positive in the long-run.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  The inflation rate only really rose that high during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, when that cash was put there, it was around 2%.
- mig39 5y ago
  Some of the users of the safety deposit boxes were either unable to use banks (legit Marijuana businesses), or immigrants who came from situations where the banks were never trusted.
colpabar 5y ago
>Police justified the searches in some cases by saying the driver was nervous or “their carotid artery was pulsating.” In one case, troopers seized $50,282 after a traffic stop and charged the owner of the vehicle, who was not present at the time. In another, they took $525 from a passenger. Judges ultimately dismissed the charges in both cases, finding the searches were illegal. The state returned the $525 but kept $20,000 in the other case. >The state returned the $525 but kept $20,000 in the other case. >kept $20,000 https://www.inquirer.com/crime/spl/pa-state-police-traffic-stops-forfeiture-seizure-illegal-searches-20201001.html https://www.inquirer.com/crime/spl/pa-state-police-traffic-s... I don't see myself ever needing to carry that much cash, but if I did, my carotid artery would be "pulsating" too.
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  The fact that police can use subjective, undocumentable, unprovable (and undisprovable!) allegations as evidence is pretty damn bonkers. Especially given that the burden of proof is meant to be on the accuser.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  > kept $20,000 Its like I am reading report from the high-sea piracy
- mywittyname 5y ago
  I do wonder how the police get lucky so often. Statistically, it seems like the police would very rarely, if ever, catch a person traveling with a lot of cash. First, a person would need to be pulled over (granted, isn't that rare), then the police would need to think to search the vehicle (they certainly aren't searching every out-of-town vehicle that is pulled over). Yet, somehow they are managing to collect billions each year from civil asset forfeiture. I suspect, without any proof what-so-ever, that police get records of large cash deposits/withdraws from banks and that information is available to them during traffic stops. These kind of cases happen too frequently to be chance, IMHO. There must be some kind of a priori knowledge available to the officers. Especially when they are nicking people going to pick up used cars from out-of-state or something.
imwillofficial 5y ago
Actions like this are what losing the moral high ground look like. It’s hard to support a government that pulls stunts like this.
anm89 5y ago
The trick was to make sure to only rob poor people with asset forfeiture so nobody could be bothered to care.
ALittleLight 5y ago
It's not enough that the FBI return the money and assets they stole here. There need to be penalities, in the form of compensation to the people they inconvenienced or forced to pay for a lawyer, and in the sense of professional or criminal consequences for the people who decided to conduct this theft. The article says that asset forfeiture requires only a "more likely than not" standard of evidence, which seems terrible, but there's no indication that standard has been met. Most money isn't the product of drug trafficking. Seeing rubber bands and having your dog bark in the presence of the money may be slight evidence of drug dealing, but not enough to overcome the low prior.
- savant_penguin 5y ago
  Don't worry, the taxpayer has it covered
  - ryan_lane 5y ago
    In this case, they don't, because the money isn't going to be given back. It's rare for seized assets to be returned, because in most places you have to prove the money wasn't being used for crimes.
wonderwonder 5y ago
This is just the natural progression of giving any government organization power. Civil asset forfeiture was originally created to attack organized crime but much like the patriot act, once a group gets power they are going to use it as they see fit and are going to fight tooth and nail against giving it up. Every time power is given it is expanded and used in ways the original law did not envision.
- BikiniPrince 5y ago
  Don’t drive down the highway with too much money… drug dealers use highways! This the Orwellian society people continue to demand. You don’t get the parts of an authoritarian regime that just benefit your desires. You get the whole enchilada.
jfrunyon 5y ago
The FBI's story doesn't even sense. They justified it by saying it was too much cash, and a dog smelled drugs on the cash - both of which they couldn't have possibly known before raiding the safe deposit box. I don't think that selling legal items counts as probable cause for them to have searched it.
- Aspos 5y ago
  A few legitimate reasons to have a pile of cash: 1. Islam and some fundamental Christian denominations prohibit dealing with those who do usury, so some people can't use banks. 2. One could just have sold a car for cash. 3. People lend money to each other and the chef could just have been paid back. 4. Some people believe in reptiloids, some believe in imminent collapse of the society, so they buy bitcoin, dig bunkers and store cash in safe boxes. 5. Some people may want to store money in a place which is out of reach of their ex-spouses. My point being: big pile of cash is a bad excuse for a search.
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    I suspect you started replying before I edited my comment to remove mention of the suspiciousness of his cash pile. Frankly, neither #2 nor #3 apply to a pile of cash in a safe deposit box (and who loans almost twice the median income to someone?!), and #5 is illegal. But yes, big pile of cash is definitely a bad excuse for a search and a worse excuse for a seizure.
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      > and #5 is illegal Only if that's an attempt to evade legal requirements, rather than (for example) moving personal money out of accounts that the ex-spouse has access to.
      - jfrunyon 5y ago
        You can "(for example)" move personal money out of accounts that the ex-spouse has access to without putting it in a safe deposit box.
CountDrewku 5y ago
Everyone one of our 3 letter government agencies need to wiped clean. They're just strong-arms to do whatever bidding the elites want.
myfavoritedog 5y ago
It's bizarre to me how voters don't understand the importance of keeping tight restraints on law enforcement and government in general. The government's effort to track ever-smaller transactions at banks will lead to more abuses of power. https://fee.org/articles/treasury-department-seeks-to-track-financial-transactions-of-personal-bank-accounts-over-600/ https://fee.org/articles/treasury-department-seeks-to-track-...
tornato7 5y ago
Just a reminder that if you carry cryptocurrency on a hardware wallet or a brainwallet (memorizing some phrase that can recover your private key), the feds can't sieze those funds no matter how much they want to.
pcurve 5y ago
"In civil forfeitures, no criminal conviction is required. The government just needs to prove that it’s more likely than not that the money or property it seeks to confiscate was linked to criminal activity." Wow... I had no idea. This feels like some third world country shit.
- ravar 5y ago
  We have been there for a while.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  It's an important tool for repressing criminals and minorities.
  - HonestOp001 5y ago
    Also in padding the budgets of the law enforcement agencies!
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    You don't have to be a criminal or a minority to be affected. There have been lots of reports of old, white men being hit by this for having the audacity to travel around with >$10k in cash. Steve Lehto's YouTube channel covers these stories a lot.
  - jatone 5y ago
    no its not.
  - dekken_ 5y ago
    I too can make claims without any evidence.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      The article we’re all commenting on is really good evidence. But here’s more: > A 1993 investigation by The Orlando Sentinel revealed that nine of every 10 motorists who were stopped and stripped of their cash by police in Volusia County, Florida, were either black or Hispanic, and three out of four were never charged with a crime. In Philadelphia, where nearly 300 houses are seized annually, African Americans make up 44% of the population but 63% of house seizures and 71% of cash forfeitures unaccompanied by a conviction. Forfeiture is also most likely to affect economically disadvantaged communities: One study found that areas with high income inequality were targeted for civil forfeiture operations, likely because these police departments have limited funding and are inclined to use forfeiture to secure needed revenue. source: https://www.splcenter.org/20171030/civil-asset-forfeiture-unfair-undemocratic-and-un-american https://www.splcenter.org/20171030/civil-asset-forfeiture-un...
vvpan 5y ago
A friend is taking a criminal justice course and her professor said that if you defund the police they'd just stick to dirty tactics like seizure and aggressive ticketing to keep the coffers full. I am inclined to believe. Not that I don't want those guys to have to think twice about how to best spend their budget.
johndubchak 5y ago
Quite honestly, you're seeing the difference between reasonable doubt, needed to secure a conviction, and probable cause, in this case the bullshit justification of the police to seize the assets because there is some likelihood of an offense occurring. The onus is not on the police to prove a crime has been committed and the "innocent until proven guilty" system has flipped to where the accused now needs to move heaven and earth to verify he is innocent. In all likelihood this is just a cash-grab by the cops and I would be suspicious whether all of the funds were entered as evidence or if some of it has "accidentally" been lost in transit.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  It was raided by the FBI; I don't think the FBI is using this raid for petty cash (unlike local PDs). (I think this is more a matter of the FBI being the FBI: they were convinced that they'd find lots of evidence of crime inside those boxes, evidence they couldn't stand not to get their hands on, because they're the FBI and they don't like anything they can't see)
  - landemva 5y ago
    FBI raided Branch Davidians in Waco for budget reasons. Budget hearings were several days after the botched no-knock raid, and the local sheriff said David Koresh regularly jogged down the road and could have been picked up peacefully any day.
someonehere 5y ago
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-exactly-how-often-cocaine-and-feces-show-up-on-your-dollar-bills-2017-07-11 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-exactly-how-often-... So it’s likely anyone could have cash with traces of narcotics on it and tip off a dog. Didn’t they also find that a majority of the drug dogs get signals from handlers to act like they found something? Seems like they find stashes of cash and use the trace amounts of drugs on money or the “trick the dog into signaling” technique to cash in.
- roywiggins 5y ago
  They could just train the dogs to alert on stacks of cash. Or on cue. https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-police-bias-when-handling-dogs-that-bite https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-police-b...
deleted 5y ago
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neonate 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20210919234653/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-19/fbi-seizure-cash-beverly-hills-vault-spawns-epic-court-battle https://web.archive.org/web/20210919234653/https://www.latim... https://archive.is/bLH4W https://archive.is/bLH4W
mzs 5y ago
FWIW US Private Vaults was clearly marketing to criminals: - Complete Privacy, Unlike a Bank - You Keep Both Keys ... - No Photo ID Required "PRIVATE" https://web.archive.org/web/20210121142123/https://usprivatevaults.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210121142123/https://usprivate...
- marricks 5y ago
  Totally, anyone who wants privacy is obviously a criminal /s
- TravisHusky 5y ago
  Not sure how that is marketing to criminals. Looks like they are selling privacy, which is something many people desire, not just criminals.
ransom1538 5y ago
Forfeitures also really help out the DA office. If you take all the persons cash, freeze their assets and kick them out of their home -- good luck getting decent legal counsel. Defense attorneys know if you are covered in forfeitures - it will be difficult to see any of their bills paid.
sneak 5y ago
Guilty until proven innocent.
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
Not directly relevant to the article, but it's probably a public service to have this here: If you're in the U.S., do not consent to a search! Ever! If the police ask permission to search you, your car, or your house, say "I do not consent to a search". Followed by, "Am I being detained?" If the answer is "No, you are not being detained." then leave immediately (unless at your house, in which case go inside and lock the door). Police are good at making you feel as if you have to consent. They might say, "We're going to search your car now." Makes it seem like you don't have a choice and it's happening one way or another, yeah? Well it's not the case. That was your cue to say, "I do not consent to a search". Saying "I do not consent to a search" might prevent a search or make evidence obtained during that [illegal] search inadmissible. Or it might be found that the police had probable cause or other reason to make the search legal, in which case you lost nothing. Record + immediately upload such an interaction if you can. As an aside, I appreciate like 90% of the work the police do.
- sneak 5y ago
  Police are also good at making you think or feel that they're going to be worse or more suspicious if you refuse to consent to a search or refuse to answer questions. It's an INSANELY strong feeling, but it's nearly universally deceptive. Lots of cops will even go so far as to threaten, intimidate, or harass you if you don't answer their (theoretically voluntary) questions. I've actually had US border pigs physically penetrate female partners of mine traveling with me, as retaliation, because I exercised my fifth amendment right to not answer their questions upon re-entering the US. Do not consent to a search, and do not talk to the police. Sadly in the US you must actually vocalize your silence, simply standing silent has been determined by the courts (in a completely insane decision) to be a potential admission of guilt. Practice speaking the following: "I'm sorry, officer, but I must insist on affirmatively exercising my right to remain silent." More info if you need/want it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
  - gorwell 5y ago
    This is really being put to the test right now in the US with the Gabby Petito case. Where her fiance was refusing to talk to the police, exercising the 5th. The media and police kept asking, rhetorically, "If he's innocent, why wouldn't he talk to us?". I fear the progress made by the Youtube video you linked may have been wiped out by this event.
cletus 5y ago
Asset forfeiture is one of those things that sounds almost reasonable, usually because it's pitched as seizing Pablo Escobar's Lamborghini or similar. But in reality it's open to abuse, routinely abused (as mentioned here) and the Supreme Court should smack it down (well, maybe not this Supreme Court). For example, abuse of forfeiture in Philadelphia [1]. There are cases where a teenager is arrested with selling small amounts of cannabis and then his parents have to repeatedly fight to not have their house seized as the proceeds of crime. In the very minimum, asset forfeiture should require a criminal conviction. If you, the government, want to seize $1 million as the proceeds of drug trafficking, you should be required to convict someone with trafficking $1+ million in drugs. And I don't mean "street value" of drugs in their possession. Anything less should be ruled as unconstitutional by virtue of being an unreasonable search and seizure. [1]: https://whyy.org/articles/inside-the-philadelphia-das-side-hustle-selling-seized-homes-to-speculators-and-cops/ https://whyy.org/articles/inside-the-philadelphia-das-side-h...

389 points by cascom 5y ago

Let’s Secure WiFi Network and Prevent WiFi Hacking: https://www.hackerslist.co/lets-secure-wifi-network-and-prevent-wifi-hacking/ https://www.hackerslist.co/lets-secure-wifi-network-and-prev...

athenot 5y ago

In an ideal world, seizures should be escrowed until a proof comes to light. And if innocent, they amount to a loan so the entity who did the seizure should pay interest along with the restitution. (Sadly in reality even when innocent, it's hard to get the assets back without a legal battle.) EDIT: typos.

deleted 5y ago
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adolph 5y ago
Escrow doesn't seem to address what happens if the seizure is needed to fund its release.
- xxpor 5y ago
  If it's a large enough amount, surely lawyers would work on contingency? Obviously that'd still miss a lot (the majority) of cases, but still.
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    "If it's a large enough amount, surely lawyers would work on contingency? Obviously that'd still miss a lot (the majority) of cases, but still." Let's not create more cases where little guys get bullied around by the legal system because they can't afford to defend themselves. It's already the case that they can (and do) coerce people into pleading guilty for a BS indictment because they can't afford lawyers.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Frankly, there should be no situation where the government should be allowed to use its resources against an individual without that individual having access to representation. It's a right in the criminal realm and it's a damn shame that the government is using that (and charging inanimate objects) to get around those protections. People think they have rights, until the system decides you're an outsider and tramples all over you to the applause of the society (the in group).
  - AmVess 5y ago
    You won't find a lawyer willing to take on a case of this nature. LEO use this as a tactic to deprive defendant's ability to fund their own defense.
dleslie 5y ago
In an ideal world, police would amass evidence of wrong doing _before_ seizing property.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Sure, but there's a season why these forfeiture laws, as terrible as they have turned out to be, came into being. The claim was that criminals with large assets who realized they were under investigation would do something to "squirrel away" their wealth, putting it out of reach if they were caught. The justification for the law(s) was to preemptively grab stuff to avoid this possibility.
  - svachalek 5y ago
    I can live with seizing assets before conviction, even though it makes me uncomfortable in principle, but mass seizure of assets with a "guilty until proven innocent" policy is just beyond the pale. It's the next step now that we've accepted that we're all wiretapped, all the time. This needs to stop or the Bill of Rights means nothing.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > criminals with large assets who realized they were under investigation would do something to "squirrel away" their wealth In cases of drivers with cash, this problem is solved by the police arresting the individual and holding the cash.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    The source of these laws were actually pretty pragmatic. The point was to help enforce custom duties on people that would never step foot in the country. Instead of trying to chase someone down in, for example, France, that didn't pay their customs duties (not really practical in the 19th century), they seized the ship and the contents of it.
kiba 5y ago
In an ideal world, seizures wouldn't happen and people would be prosecuted instead of the money. Moreover, government types like the FBI would be super squeaky clean types who cross every i with a dot. They would also work to prosecute less people every year, no more than needed. The best part is no part.
- xxpor 5y ago
  Both of you are saying the same thing. The difference is criminal vs civil forfeiture. Criminal already works as an escrow system (sort of, the feds might not have been able to find what they want to seize before the conviction). Civil doesn't in that it doesn't require a conviction.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    Civil has its own benefits though.. That famous "Civil asset forfeitures overshadow the value of all thefts" infographic from a few years back was only the case because the Feds took all of Bernie Madoff's funds via civil asset forfeiture and then gave those billions of dollars back to his victims. Had they waited for the criminal cases to play out, it would've been years before they saw their money.
    - nybble41 5y ago
      > Had they waited for the criminal cases to play out, it would've been years before they saw their money. They could have sued directly in civil court without waiting for the criminal cases to play out. If the Feds have enough evidence to justify foregoing, you know, actual trials and immediately redistribute the assets to the victims then any court cases should be trivial formalities and quickly resolved. On the other hand, if it actually does take years to determine guilt then maybe the Feds shouldn't be so quick to apply the sentence before the trial.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      There is a significant distinction between the government declaring that money (/other goods) is another party's property and returning possession to the rightful owner (ie equity), and the government declaring that something was earned through an illegal activity and thereby transferring it to themselves (ie taking).
jdsully 5y ago
In an ideal world the government wouldn’t seize assets until there’s a conviction.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
In this specific case, in an ideal world they should not be allowed to seize anything at all. Indeed, from the article it sounds like they seized what they found then tried to justify it a posteriori and for this guy it seems that was only "god sniffed narcotics on bills". To me this really reads as: "You have a safe deposit box, and we found cash in it, so you're a criminal and we have seized that cash.". That's ridiculous.
jandrese 5y ago
I've always seen this as a tacit acknowledgement of how the justice system actually works. The cops know that if you have the money for a good lawyer you have a much better chance of avoiding punishment regardless of the facts of the case. If you need to increase your conviction rate the best way is to go after people who are going to have to use a public defender even though in terms of actual damage to society the rich offenders are far worse criminals.
- KorematsuFredt 5y ago
  Yes. Because the objective is no more keeping your community safe but objective is to flood the jails and convince voters that "we are tough on crime".
eli 5y ago
And in no event should the seized money benefit the enforcement agency itself. What an absurd conflict of interest.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  This has been a huge problem at the state, county, and municipality level, for many years. John Oliver did a piece about it, a few years ago[0]. Some places actually create budgets, based on forfeiture. There's a town in Texas, that basically set themselves up as "highwaymen"[1] (Would have been ironic, if the town was named "Turpin"). Gives a whole new meaning to "Quota Night." I remember reading about a person around these parts, that was unable to get their property back, after they were cleared, because the police department had already sold it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas#Asset_forfeiture_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenaha,_Texas#Asset_forfeiture...
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I think New Mexico was actually the state with the reputation. So much so that I think they recently passed a law to help fix it.
- adventured 5y ago
  US systems of authority often specialize in conflicts of interest. I think it's obviously by design, both sides ride the gravy train (govt / private sector). The FDA gets ~46% ($2.7b of $5.9b for 2019) of its operational funding from the pharma industry. The telecom industry and FCC exchange employees routinely, as do Wall Street and the Treasury & Fed. The specialization makes sense, however these prominent figures, so primed for conflict of interest, should clearly be barred from doing that for N time (5-10 years at least).
  - jjk166 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
AmVess 5y ago
Seizures shouldn't be a thing at all unless a conviction has been nailed down, and even then, proof must be made for every cent seized having been made through illicit means. No proof? No forfeiture. I understand why it was implemented, but it has been abused so widely and for so long that it must stop. It has stopped being a tool for law enforcement to being a tool to coerce defendants and the innocent alike.
- kbenson 5y ago
  > proof must be made for every cent seized having been made through illicit means. The counter-argument is that if that money was used to generate more funds legally, is that other money not tainted? Say you make $10 million selling drugs, and use that to invest in housing in an area, and the money doubled over a few years. If you sell all those houses and now have $20 million in the bank, how much of that is funds available because of illicit behavior? $0, $10 million, or $20 million? I agree the current system is stupid, and often abusive, but I don't think it's necessarily a simple problem.
  - kenniskrag 5y ago
    Banks are regulated and want a proof of the origin of the money. In Europe even car dealers or jewellery shop want it. Because otherwise it would be money laundering. Of course it is hard to provide a proof if you have the money in your pocket.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      That doesn't actually affect the problem at all. If the money is laundered, it's still illicit. The question is if you invest illicit money to make more money, how much is illicit? Some people (and the U.S. government) would say all of it, and probably take anything else as well because they don't like to spend time to make sure they're only taking illicit funds (and it's not in their best interest to do so). So, say you have $10 million after laundering it through a business, and that's used to invest in housing, and that doubles, and later the government identifies all of that original $10 million as illicit because they've identified your laundering method. They are going to attempt to take everything gained, the whole $20 million, under the theory that it was all proceeds of your illicit behavior. The problem is, what if you already had $1 million dollars free and clear from a settlement or something, and you used that as well, so $11 million was invested and $22 million resulted? Is the government going to take $20 million and leave you $2 million? Doubtful. Should they? That's an interesting question, and depending on how people view the laws involved, 4th amendment rights, and the purpose of the seizing of money, they might come down on different sides of that question.
RIMR 5y ago
And that interest should be something draconian, like what payday lenders charge. If your money gets tied up for years, it ought to come back doubled.
- bityard 5y ago
  Who should pay for that? Taxpayers?
  - thelittlenag 5y ago
    Yes. Its "our" justice system. The liabilities and costs go along with the benefits.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    So long as the police line their coffers with forfeitures, they should pay whatever associated costs. If this isn't profitable enough for them, too bad.
    - harperlee 5y ago
      You are attacking the problem on the wrong side. They should have never been able to profit from that.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Why not attack on both sides? I absolutely agree that they should never have been able to profit from that. But, while we work on removing their ability to profit from it, why not also make it less profitable when they abuse it?
        harperlee 5y ago
        Fair point! Makes absolute sense for me.
      - klyrs 5y ago
ifdefdebug 5y ago
No need to seek an ideal world for shit like that not to happen. Just moving from USA to EU will do.
KorematsuFredt 5y ago
A lot of this eventually reflects American society itself. I am generalizing here but Americans in general are pretty insensitive to anyone who is claimed to be a criminal. I have seen people argue that rights of someone like George Floyd do not matter as in past he had committed some crime. There is a huge support for taking away rights of people who are convicted of crimes irrespective of those crimes. When we talk about the bad conditions in our jails, people are quick to say "who cares how those evil folks are treated"? The law enforcement understands this and uses it to profit from this public support.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Yes, but you don't have to be convicted. An arrest, with or without charge, is a black mark to many, many people. (This attitude is at its worst when considering prison conditions. No-one is dehumanized more than a prison inmate in this country.)
  - adventured 5y ago
    Sure, consider the human rights abuse that is the online mug shots industry in the US for example. There's no sympathy for those people, the assumption is guilt. The superficial tough on crime types revel in the notion that those people get publicly humiliated (and it fulfills the deranged lust for snooping, nosing into other people's business). Mug shots don't tell the story of whether someone is innocent or guilty and yet your photo might end up on the Internet regardless.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > the human rights abuse that is the online mug shots industry The way we treat people with a mug shot is horrendous. But mug shots per se serve a vital purpose: they are a public record of persons the state is holding. That makes “disappearing” them later on harder.
      - adventured 5y ago
bambax 5y ago
> In an ideal world, seizures should be escrowed until a proof comes to light. What?? In an ideal world a proof should be produced before anything is seized!
- zepto 5y ago
  Hard to gather evidence if you first have to prove the crime.
  - myfavoritedog 5y ago
    Hard to have a 4th amendment if the government can invade your privacy and fish for crimes without evidence.
  - jfrunyon 5y ago
    You don't have to prove the crime, you have to show probable cause. Our society would function perfectly fine without government-sanctioned theft ^W^W^W civil asset forfeiture.
    - zepto 5y ago
      The person I was replying to mentioned proof, not probable cause. I agree with you, forfeiture is obviously wrong.
      - jfrunyon 5y ago
        The person you were replying to mentioned proof as a prerequisite to receive seized assets from escrow, not as a prerequisite for seizing those assets and placing them in escrow.
        zepto 5y ago
        No, that’s simply false. You don’t have to go far upthread to see it. Here’s what they said: > In an ideal world a proof should be produced before anything is seized!
jfrunyon 5y ago
Nothing should be seized until a proper court has adjudicated such action. "The right of the people to be secure in their ... effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ... [and] particularly describing the ... things to be seized."
deathanatos 5y ago
> In an ideal world, seizures should be escrowed until a proof comes to light. No: that deprives the person of their property, and their right to due process. (Not to mention the violations of the 4th covered in the article.) One should not need to prove one's own innocence to get their own stuff back. I'll allow, under probable cause or a warrant, temporary seizures, but even that must have due process. The seizures in the article did not generally have either. (I do sort of agree that, in the case the seizure was of an innocent person's belongings, that it be returned with interest. But that does not forgive/condone the human rights violations in TFA.)
FpUser 5y ago
>"entity who did the seizure should pay interest along with the restitution" And punitive damages, maybe then they'll have at least couple of brain cells dedicated to checking if they actually have any case against someone's money.
dnautics 5y ago
forget interest. Treble damages.
- dnautics 5y ago
  apparently RICO provides for civil cause of action. Would love to see an adventurous civil rights lawyer sue law enforcement under the civil provisions of RICO.

paulpauper 5y ago

There is an old joke. Robbery, except with a badge instead of a gun.

matbatt38 5y ago
He, they also have guns

1024core 5y ago

How about the FBI man up and seize the Sackler's $11B, eh? It's easy to pick on the small guy while the whale goes unpunished. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM

spaetzleesser 5y ago
They don't have the courage to do so because billionaires and big corporations have way bigger budgets than the FBI or other agencies. They can overpower smaller guys though.
- ncphil 5y ago
  Not entirely accurate. Many years ago someone in the DOJ joked about how Bill Gates's billions were a "rounding error" for the US government. The problem isn't that the FBI is afraid of going up against the Sacklers. The problem is that they're afraid of going up against the Sackler's entire class. You know, the people that the political leadership of this country refers to as their "base".
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    The government budget is not one big pool of money. It’s split up between agencies and within agencies it’s split up between departments. The people who would go after the Sacklers have only a small fraction of the federal budget available to them. Unless congress gives them more money. That’s where your reference to the Sacklers class makes sense. Congress is not going to move against their donor class.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  In defense of corrupt bullshit, it's not necessarily a lack of courage that stops them taking on well-resourced targets. It would be much less likely to work, and there's much more money than they'd know what to do with. It would be downright irrational. I'd say that self-interest is a more likely explanation than cowardice.
a4isms 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago

> The FBI also said a dog had smelled unspecified drugs on Ruiz's cash. What do warrants even prove at this point? That a cop went down a list of increasingly convoluted excuses and picked an attractive looking one?

macksd 5y ago
Studies repeatedly show that almost all currency is contaminated with traces of drugs.
- the-dude 5y ago
  In The Netherlands we don't need this. A sufficient amount of cash is enough to get you arrested. You will get a trial though.
  - KorematsuFredt 5y ago
    Well in USA it is not illegal to carry cash (and for a good reason) but more than theft you have to worry about cops stealing it. Which is what makes it problematic. If you are an actual drug dealer you can hire one of those armored cash moving trucks to move your cash and the cops will never bother stopping it.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      In NL there is current proposal to prohibit cash transactions > 3k. A EU wide rule may follow, but maybe a bit higher.
      - jdavis703 5y ago
        In the US cash transactions over 10k are highly regulated. And interestingly even making a series of withdrawals for say $9,500 is also illegal, even though it’s under the limit. They call it “structuring” and even politicians in the US Congress have been charged with this.

arenaninja 5y ago

This was so much worse than I imagined. It was a physical dragnet at a private safe deposit box business and the FBI is trying to claim all the customer's belongings under civil asset forfeiture because a dog smelled marijuana. Meanwhile two legitimate businesses who cannot legally transact with banks were customers and the boxes were not airtight This is brazen overreach and needs to be reigned in

DisjointedHunt 5y ago
I’d say it’s criminal abuse of power. Sadly, I don’t expect any thing as serious as even a slap on the wrist for this act that makes a joke out of the laws of the country.
- quantified 5y ago
  I’d go a step and say that civil asset forfeiture laws make a joke out of the country.
  - jbuhbjlnjbn 5y ago
    "civil asset forfeiture laws". It's plain legalized stealing, no fancy wording could change that.
- sneak 5y ago
  > I’d say it’s criminal abuse of power. That's exactly what it is, but there's generally no enforcement against police in the USA, and there's definitely no real enforcement against federal police as a group in the USA. (Sometimes individual federal police get busted, but nothing happens to medium-to-large criminal conspiracies within the FBI/DEA/BATFE/etc.) It's a known bug that nobody with the power to fix really cares about fixing.
  - landemva 5y ago
    USSC created fiction of "government immunity", so government actors are generally allowed to make any mistakes they want. If someone had put a wheel loader in there and scooped up the boxes and contents, it would be criminal premeditated theft.

gorbachev 5y ago

The FBI agents who authorized this should be fired. This thing is a complete joke.

ldiracdelta 5y ago
Civil Asset Forfeiture is the law of the land, currently. It isn't Constitutionally valid.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  The best the supreme court has managed to say about it is that some instances could violate the eigth ammendment. Thr courts have been pretty careful to prevent setting any real precedents that wouod limit these laws.
tsimionescu 5y ago
Fired?? They should be prosecuted for theft.
- unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
  Court sanctions for speculative and insubstantial arguments would be a good start. Blame rests on the judge(s) who apparently is/are tolerating the FBI's evidence-lite dragnet.
- wearywanderer 5y ago
  They should be imprisoned for theft and allowed to appeal their summary sentence later. Guilty until proven innocent is the way they like to play things, so give them a taste of their own medicine.

inetsee 5y ago

Non-walled link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/fbi-says-fortune-seized-in-beverly-hills-raid-was-criminals-loot-owners-say-where-s-the-proof/ar-AAOBlWO https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/fbi-says-fortune-seized...

ldiracdelta 5y ago

Institute for Justice is attempting to fight this "unlawful [...] seizure" : https://ij.org/case/u-s-private-vaults-seizure/ https://ij.org/case/u-s-private-vaults-seizure/ .

danlugo92 5y ago

Not your keys, not your property.

kennywinker 5y ago

Civil forfeiture is an outgrowth of the war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism). Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror. I doubt we will be able be able to end civil forfeiture until we end the war on drugs.

RIMR 5y ago
The war on drugs relies on civil forfeiture, and the practice could be ended with a single law. That would effectively end the war on drugs.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  > That would effectively end the war on drugs. Given that the war on drugs existed before the ramp up of civil forfeiture, I doubt that. But I’m down to find out if you can get that single law passed - my point was the perception of drug dealers rich off drug money are the reason there’s not a lot of support for ending civil forfeiture.
ch4s3 5y ago
> Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror A lot of the framework and the beginnings of domestic spying really started after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The underpinnings of the Patriot Act were originally passed then. > war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism) I think this is an oversimplification of the history of the war on drugs. Racism is certainly a facet, but the association of drugs use with counter culture and the anti war movement are just as important. Soaring crime rates in the 70s and 80s are also related to the war on drugs. There were also cultural and political incentives to ratchet it up in the name of :doing something". Average people of every racial and economic background were concerned about drugs in the early 80s. Boiling it down to any one thing really does a disservice to complexity of the issue. Radley Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop"[1] has a lot of good historical information on the topic. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americas/dp/B094492F4R https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Ameri...
- 5y ago

dennisnedry 5y ago

Can we add "Defund the FBI" to the national narrative?

RIMR 5y ago
"Defund the police" includes the feds, just say that instead.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
How about simply fix the laws through Democratic processes instead of descend into complete Anarchy?
- barneygale 5y ago
  Your democratic processes are already crippled. Trump and Bush both lost but were still elected president. Many of your states engage in voter suppression. Your corporations have captured legislative responsibilities like tax law. Your legislature is a rubber stamp or a roadblock. Your courts are full of political appointees, many without term limits or proper vetting. Democracy, as a tool, has been made blunt by capitalist and military interests. This is precisely why it's so heavily promoted as part of the american national identity - so people can, in 2021, try to claim that /maybe next election/, if we ask nicely, the US government will stop yeeting Afghani children into 100 pieces.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    >Trump and Bush both lost but were still elected president. Are you claiming the electoral college isn't legit? There's a very specific reason it exists. >Many of your states engage in voter suppression. Like what? >Democracy, as a tool, has been made blunt by capitalist and military interests. Yes because it's made great by communists????
    - jfrunyon 5y ago
      They are claiming the electoral college is undemocratic. Which it is, by the very definition. If you've missed the voter suppression thus far, you and I both know that you won't listen to any evidence or argument otherwise. There are many more ideologies than capitalist and communist. The world is not black and white.

vmception 5y ago

> Ruiz’s income was too low for him to have that much money, and his side business selling bongs made from liquor bottles suggested he was an unlicensed pot dealer And he could have put $30 in Dogecoin 6 years ago and had $60,000 by the time of seizure. Or $30 in a random token this year like NFT-art.finance and made the same. https://poocoin.app/tokens/0xf7844cb890f4c339c497aeab599abdc3c874b67a https://poocoin.app/tokens/0xf7844cb890f4c339c497aeab599abdc... The government has no control of the money supply and has no basis to assume anyone can't have something by looking at their job and income If this is what they reported to the judge, their whole case should be wrecked and the judiciary should curb stomp the entire practice

wl 5y ago
> And he could have put $30 in Dogecoin 6 years ago and had $60,000 by the time of seizure. Or $30 in a random token this year like NFT-art.finance and made the same. If that cash were the realized gain from such an investment, it'd be reportable income and the FBI would have seen it. What tripped up the FBI here is that the source of the cash was compensatory damages, which was likely claimed as non-taxable and thus not reported.
- vmception 5y ago
  Thanks for the context Doubling down on my point, its not like Dogecoin was traded on Robinhood way back then. The self-reporting wouldn't necessarily say which specific asset. Are you suggesting if the Feds looked at their tax returns and saw a gain at some point in this person's history they would have left them alone and not said "their income is too low and therefore probable cause." Also, I factored in the tax reporting aspect when I was deciding whether to write $30 or $50 as the initial capital, if there was a sale for cash it would be reportable when they file taxes in 2022.
- cascom 5y ago
  I think you’re assuming the FBI made a good faith attempt here, when it’s more likely they cherry picked the facts that helped their arguments, ignoring those that didn’t

hirundo 5y ago

Don't worry, Politifact looked into this, and it isn't possible for the federal government to be seizing things from safe deposit boxes, because that would require a search warrant, which obviously isn't going to happen. Pants on fire. Various chain emails over the past seven years have warned readers about the possibility of Homeland Security seizing items like gold, silver and guns from their safe deposit boxes at the bank. This isn’t possible without first obtaining a search warrant, since those boxes are private property. And banking officials told us random seizures just aren’t happening. We rate this statement Pants on Fire. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/26/chain-email/homeland-security-can-seize-safe-deposit-boxes-wit/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/jul/26/chain-emai...

lostcolony 5y ago
Did...did you read the article at all? "U.S. Private Vaults was indicted in February on charges of conspiring with unnamed customers to sell drugs, launder money and structure cash transactions to dodge government detection. No people were charged." Meaning that the private company offering these deposit boxes was the target; and then everyone who used them is collectively facing the government seizing it for an indictment completely unrelated to them.
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  You may have missed the implicit "/s" from the parent's post.
  - javawizard 5y ago
    And that's why it needed an explicit "/s": without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it's impossible to create a parody of extreme views such that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied[0]. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- nefitty 5y ago
  You're not supposed to question if someone read the article. You're gonna get in trouble with a concerned HN citizen

AlbertCory 5y ago

Everyone below who advocates abolition of civil asset forfeiture is correct. The "justification" for it is: a criminal can amass vast sums of money, then use it to buy so many top lawyers that he or she is untouchable. That may be a problem, but "fixing" the problem requires harming so many people who haven't committed any crime that the fix is worse than the problem. A serious criminal will keep the assets safe from law enforcement, i.e. not in a strip mall "bank." Why not just require everyone to use a public defender? That would fix the "problem" too. (That was a joke, in case you're wondering.)

dariusj18 5y ago
This kind of makes sense, but then those same lawyers are willing to work on spec and get a larger cut of the money when returned. (aka, they have no incentive to fight this system)
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"The "justification" for it is: a criminal can amass vast sums of money, then use it to buy so many top lawyers that he or she is untouchable" So, logically follows that the ruling class is above the law?
- jessaustin 5y ago
  They don't even try to pretend otherwise.
- AlbertCory 5y ago
  Mostly they are. Occasionally one is thrown to the wolves (looking at you, Bernie Madoff and Martha Stewart) to sustain the illusion that no one's above the law.
  - KennyBlanken 5y ago
    Given Martha's brand is doing exceptionally well and she uses her prison stay for gags in commercials and appearances on talk shows, more like thrown to a bunch of golden retriever puppies. Her appearance on Ellen alongside Snoop was pretty funny, though.

KorematsuFredt 5y ago

In short: If you are carrying cash you have to worry less about a thug stealing it and worry more about cops stealing it. Note: Assets stolen by law enforcement through CAF far exceeds assets stolens to home burglaries in USA.

lostmsu 5y ago
This comparison is pointless. 100% stolen in burglaries is crime. We don't know the percentage for CAF. What if it is 99.9% justified?
- KorematsuFredt 5y ago
  My bad I thought it was obvious. Police don't have to file any charges to keep the cash. The onus is on the victim to file a claim. Average cost to file a claim including attorney fees is $3000. Average size of forfeitured property is $1400. Most people let go of that money and no charges are filed and hence we do not have any data on the question you have raised. Various states have refused to share this data as well making it hard to obtain. If the cops have not seeked conviction and have not obtained it I would argue that it is just plain theft.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    The argument comparing claim cost against the size of property is bogus. Winning a forfeiture case AFAIK mandates the government to cover the attorney fees. Also, repeating my comment from below: Specifically, related quotes from Wikipedia: "From 2005 to 2010, government seizures of assets from both criminals as well as innocent citizens went from $1.25 billion to $2.50 billion" "In 2010, there were 15,000 cases of forfeitures." If you divide $2.5B by 15k cases, you'll get avg. $166k/case, which is far from $1400 you mention. So either your source or my interpretation of Wikipedia is wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
    - handoflixue 5y ago

zamalek 5y ago

NO implication Joseph Ruiz is doing anything morally or legally wrong, here. Just a warning: Hoarding cash (the technical term for putting money in a safety deposit, or under your bed) is a really bad way to save. The current inflation rate is 5.3%, that means you lose 5.3% of the value of any savings each year. Prior to the pandemic, you could get in the region of 2.5% interest in a long-term savings account. That would cut your loss to 2.8% per-year. Currently you'll struggle to get anything over 0.5%, but it's still something. There are options that involve risk that might get you net-positive in the long-run.

lalaland1125 5y ago
The inflation rate only really rose that high during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, when that cash was put there, it was around 2%.
mig39 5y ago
Some of the users of the safety deposit boxes were either unable to use banks (legit Marijuana businesses), or immigrants who came from situations where the banks were never trusted.

colpabar 5y ago

>Police justified the searches in some cases by saying the driver was nervous or “their carotid artery was pulsating.” In one case, troopers seized $50,282 after a traffic stop and charged the owner of the vehicle, who was not present at the time. In another, they took $525 from a passenger. Judges ultimately dismissed the charges in both cases, finding the searches were illegal. The state returned the $525 but kept $20,000 in the other case. >The state returned the $525 but kept $20,000 in the other case. >kept $20,000 https://www.inquirer.com/crime/spl/pa-state-police-traffic-stops-forfeiture-seizure-illegal-searches-20201001.html https://www.inquirer.com/crime/spl/pa-state-police-traffic-s... I don't see myself ever needing to carry that much cash, but if I did, my carotid artery would be "pulsating" too.

jfrunyon 5y ago
The fact that police can use subjective, undocumentable, unprovable (and undisprovable!) allegations as evidence is pretty damn bonkers. Especially given that the burden of proof is meant to be on the accuser.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
> kept $20,000 Its like I am reading report from the high-sea piracy
mywittyname 5y ago
I do wonder how the police get lucky so often. Statistically, it seems like the police would very rarely, if ever, catch a person traveling with a lot of cash. First, a person would need to be pulled over (granted, isn't that rare), then the police would need to think to search the vehicle (they certainly aren't searching every out-of-town vehicle that is pulled over). Yet, somehow they are managing to collect billions each year from civil asset forfeiture. I suspect, without any proof what-so-ever, that police get records of large cash deposits/withdraws from banks and that information is available to them during traffic stops. These kind of cases happen too frequently to be chance, IMHO. There must be some kind of a priori knowledge available to the officers. Especially when they are nicking people going to pick up used cars from out-of-state or something.

imwillofficial 5y ago

Actions like this are what losing the moral high ground look like. It’s hard to support a government that pulls stunts like this.

anm89 5y ago

The trick was to make sure to only rob poor people with asset forfeiture so nobody could be bothered to care.

ALittleLight 5y ago

It's not enough that the FBI return the money and assets they stole here. There need to be penalities, in the form of compensation to the people they inconvenienced or forced to pay for a lawyer, and in the sense of professional or criminal consequences for the people who decided to conduct this theft. The article says that asset forfeiture requires only a "more likely than not" standard of evidence, which seems terrible, but there's no indication that standard has been met. Most money isn't the product of drug trafficking. Seeing rubber bands and having your dog bark in the presence of the money may be slight evidence of drug dealing, but not enough to overcome the low prior.

savant_penguin 5y ago
Don't worry, the taxpayer has it covered
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  In this case, they don't, because the money isn't going to be given back. It's rare for seized assets to be returned, because in most places you have to prove the money wasn't being used for crimes.

wonderwonder 5y ago

This is just the natural progression of giving any government organization power. Civil asset forfeiture was originally created to attack organized crime but much like the patriot act, once a group gets power they are going to use it as they see fit and are going to fight tooth and nail against giving it up. Every time power is given it is expanded and used in ways the original law did not envision.

BikiniPrince 5y ago
Don’t drive down the highway with too much money… drug dealers use highways! This the Orwellian society people continue to demand. You don’t get the parts of an authoritarian regime that just benefit your desires. You get the whole enchilada.

jfrunyon 5y ago

The FBI's story doesn't even sense. They justified it by saying it was too much cash, and a dog smelled drugs on the cash - both of which they couldn't have possibly known before raiding the safe deposit box. I don't think that selling legal items counts as probable cause for them to have searched it.

Aspos 5y ago
A few legitimate reasons to have a pile of cash: 1. Islam and some fundamental Christian denominations prohibit dealing with those who do usury, so some people can't use banks. 2. One could just have sold a car for cash. 3. People lend money to each other and the chef could just have been paid back. 4. Some people believe in reptiloids, some believe in imminent collapse of the society, so they buy bitcoin, dig bunkers and store cash in safe boxes. 5. Some people may want to store money in a place which is out of reach of their ex-spouses. My point being: big pile of cash is a bad excuse for a search.
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  I suspect you started replying before I edited my comment to remove mention of the suspiciousness of his cash pile. Frankly, neither #2 nor #3 apply to a pile of cash in a safe deposit box (and who loans almost twice the median income to someone?!), and #5 is illegal. But yes, big pile of cash is definitely a bad excuse for a search and a worse excuse for a seizure.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    > and #5 is illegal Only if that's an attempt to evade legal requirements, rather than (for example) moving personal money out of accounts that the ex-spouse has access to.
    - jfrunyon 5y ago
      You can "(for example)" move personal money out of accounts that the ex-spouse has access to without putting it in a safe deposit box.

CountDrewku 5y ago

Everyone one of our 3 letter government agencies need to wiped clean. They're just strong-arms to do whatever bidding the elites want.

myfavoritedog 5y ago

It's bizarre to me how voters don't understand the importance of keeping tight restraints on law enforcement and government in general. The government's effort to track ever-smaller transactions at banks will lead to more abuses of power. https://fee.org/articles/treasury-department-seeks-to-track-financial-transactions-of-personal-bank-accounts-over-600/ https://fee.org/articles/treasury-department-seeks-to-track-...

tornato7 5y ago

Just a reminder that if you carry cryptocurrency on a hardware wallet or a brainwallet (memorizing some phrase that can recover your private key), the feds can't sieze those funds no matter how much they want to.

pcurve 5y ago

"In civil forfeitures, no criminal conviction is required. The government just needs to prove that it’s more likely than not that the money or property it seeks to confiscate was linked to criminal activity." Wow... I had no idea. This feels like some third world country shit.

ravar 5y ago
We have been there for a while.
anonporridge 5y ago
It's an important tool for repressing criminals and minorities.
- HonestOp001 5y ago
  Also in padding the budgets of the law enforcement agencies!
- mywittyname 5y ago
  You don't have to be a criminal or a minority to be affected. There have been lots of reports of old, white men being hit by this for having the audacity to travel around with >$10k in cash. Steve Lehto's YouTube channel covers these stories a lot.
- jatone 5y ago
  no its not.
- dekken_ 5y ago
  I too can make claims without any evidence.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    The article we’re all commenting on is really good evidence. But here’s more: > A 1993 investigation by The Orlando Sentinel revealed that nine of every 10 motorists who were stopped and stripped of their cash by police in Volusia County, Florida, were either black or Hispanic, and three out of four were never charged with a crime. In Philadelphia, where nearly 300 houses are seized annually, African Americans make up 44% of the population but 63% of house seizures and 71% of cash forfeitures unaccompanied by a conviction. Forfeiture is also most likely to affect economically disadvantaged communities: One study found that areas with high income inequality were targeted for civil forfeiture operations, likely because these police departments have limited funding and are inclined to use forfeiture to secure needed revenue. source: https://www.splcenter.org/20171030/civil-asset-forfeiture-unfair-undemocratic-and-un-american https://www.splcenter.org/20171030/civil-asset-forfeiture-un...

vvpan 5y ago

A friend is taking a criminal justice course and her professor said that if you defund the police they'd just stick to dirty tactics like seizure and aggressive ticketing to keep the coffers full. I am inclined to believe. Not that I don't want those guys to have to think twice about how to best spend their budget.

johndubchak 5y ago

Quite honestly, you're seeing the difference between reasonable doubt, needed to secure a conviction, and probable cause, in this case the bullshit justification of the police to seize the assets because there is some likelihood of an offense occurring. The onus is not on the police to prove a crime has been committed and the "innocent until proven guilty" system has flipped to where the accused now needs to move heaven and earth to verify he is innocent. In all likelihood this is just a cash-grab by the cops and I would be suspicious whether all of the funds were entered as evidence or if some of it has "accidentally" been lost in transit.

roywiggins 5y ago
It was raided by the FBI; I don't think the FBI is using this raid for petty cash (unlike local PDs). (I think this is more a matter of the FBI being the FBI: they were convinced that they'd find lots of evidence of crime inside those boxes, evidence they couldn't stand not to get their hands on, because they're the FBI and they don't like anything they can't see)
- landemva 5y ago
  FBI raided Branch Davidians in Waco for budget reasons. Budget hearings were several days after the botched no-knock raid, and the local sheriff said David Koresh regularly jogged down the road and could have been picked up peacefully any day.

someonehere 5y ago

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-exactly-how-often-cocaine-and-feces-show-up-on-your-dollar-bills-2017-07-11 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-exactly-how-often-... So it’s likely anyone could have cash with traces of narcotics on it and tip off a dog. Didn’t they also find that a majority of the drug dogs get signals from handlers to act like they found something? Seems like they find stashes of cash and use the trace amounts of drugs on money or the “trick the dog into signaling” technique to cash in.

roywiggins 5y ago
They could just train the dogs to alert on stacks of cash. Or on cue. https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-police-bias-when-handling-dogs-that-bite https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-police-b...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

neonate 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20210919234653/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-19/fbi-seizure-cash-beverly-hills-vault-spawns-epic-court-battle https://web.archive.org/web/20210919234653/https://www.latim... https://archive.is/bLH4W https://archive.is/bLH4W

mzs 5y ago

FWIW US Private Vaults was clearly marketing to criminals: - Complete Privacy, Unlike a Bank - You Keep Both Keys ... - No Photo ID Required "PRIVATE" https://web.archive.org/web/20210121142123/https://usprivatevaults.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210121142123/https://usprivate...

marricks 5y ago
Totally, anyone who wants privacy is obviously a criminal /s
TravisHusky 5y ago
Not sure how that is marketing to criminals. Looks like they are selling privacy, which is something many people desire, not just criminals.

ransom1538 5y ago

Forfeitures also really help out the DA office. If you take all the persons cash, freeze their assets and kick them out of their home -- good luck getting decent legal counsel. Defense attorneys know if you are covered in forfeitures - it will be difficult to see any of their bills paid.

sneak 5y ago

Guilty until proven innocent.

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago

Not directly relevant to the article, but it's probably a public service to have this here: If you're in the U.S., do not consent to a search! Ever! If the police ask permission to search you, your car, or your house, say "I do not consent to a search". Followed by, "Am I being detained?" If the answer is "No, you are not being detained." then leave immediately (unless at your house, in which case go inside and lock the door). Police are good at making you feel as if you have to consent. They might say, "We're going to search your car now." Makes it seem like you don't have a choice and it's happening one way or another, yeah? Well it's not the case. That was your cue to say, "I do not consent to a search". Saying "I do not consent to a search" might prevent a search or make evidence obtained during that [illegal] search inadmissible. Or it might be found that the police had probable cause or other reason to make the search legal, in which case you lost nothing. Record + immediately upload such an interaction if you can. As an aside, I appreciate like 90% of the work the police do.

sneak 5y ago
Police are also good at making you think or feel that they're going to be worse or more suspicious if you refuse to consent to a search or refuse to answer questions. It's an INSANELY strong feeling, but it's nearly universally deceptive. Lots of cops will even go so far as to threaten, intimidate, or harass you if you don't answer their (theoretically voluntary) questions. I've actually had US border pigs physically penetrate female partners of mine traveling with me, as retaliation, because I exercised my fifth amendment right to not answer their questions upon re-entering the US. Do not consent to a search, and do not talk to the police. Sadly in the US you must actually vocalize your silence, simply standing silent has been determined by the courts (in a completely insane decision) to be a potential admission of guilt. Practice speaking the following: "I'm sorry, officer, but I must insist on affirmatively exercising my right to remain silent." More info if you need/want it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
- gorwell 5y ago
  This is really being put to the test right now in the US with the Gabby Petito case. Where her fiance was refusing to talk to the police, exercising the 5th. The media and police kept asking, rhetorically, "If he's innocent, why wouldn't he talk to us?". I fear the progress made by the Youtube video you linked may have been wiped out by this event.

cletus 5y ago

Asset forfeiture is one of those things that sounds almost reasonable, usually because it's pitched as seizing Pablo Escobar's Lamborghini or similar. But in reality it's open to abuse, routinely abused (as mentioned here) and the Supreme Court should smack it down (well, maybe not this Supreme Court). For example, abuse of forfeiture in Philadelphia [1]. There are cases where a teenager is arrested with selling small amounts of cannabis and then his parents have to repeatedly fight to not have their house seized as the proceeds of crime. In the very minimum, asset forfeiture should require a criminal conviction. If you, the government, want to seize $1 million as the proceeds of drug trafficking, you should be required to convict someone with trafficking $1+ million in drugs. And I don't mean "street value" of drugs in their possession. Anything less should be ruled as unconstitutional by virtue of being an unreasonable search and seizure. [1]: https://whyy.org/articles/inside-the-philadelphia-das-side-hustle-selling-seized-homes-to-speculators-and-cops/ https://whyy.org/articles/inside-the-philadelphia-das-side-h...