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One interesting and troubling aspect of this that I read in other reporting is they asserted a lot of the cash seized was drug money on the basis of drug conta

by bragr 4y ago

One interesting and troubling aspect of this that I read in other reporting is they asserted a lot of the cash seized was drug money on the basis of drug contamination, but the FBI has deposited at least some of the cash into trustee accounts at financial institutions so no longer has the physical cash to test, thereby making it impossible to test again and show that it was just, for example, trace cross contamination from the boxes rented by the cannabis dispensaries to store their cash. To me that seems like borderline destruction of evidence. I think the only reason this hasn't completely blown up in their face is they did manage to nab some shady characters, but the ends don't justify the means.

willcipriano 4y ago
> but the FBI has deposited at least some of the cash into trustee accounts at financial institutions so no longer has the physical cash to test Does it go back into circulation at that point?
- bragr 4y ago
  >Does it go back into circulation at that point? Yeah presumably except any bills that may be too damaged/dirty/contaminated, which is the same for any cash, in which case it gets destroyed.
- barelysapient 4y ago
  This is actually an interesting problem for collectors of old currency. The government will deposit the face value of the currency as opposed to its collectible value. So someone who stored an old $1,000 bill doesn’t get the actual value of the bill (probably twice that on collectibles market)
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    Actually, a $1,000 bill is likely to be destroyed. But that's the government's problem. Either they will have to pay the collectable value to the collector (if the property is to be returned to them) or not pay anything to the collector. Well, it's also a "destruction of historical artifacts" problem.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    I remember hearing about one of those cases. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-odd-truth-jan-16-2004/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-odd-truth-jan-16-2004/ > PINE LAWN, Missouri - Curtis Smith Senior wants his $1000 bill back. He carried the rare one-grand note in his pocket for 20 years. It was seized by police in the St. Louis suburb of Pine Lawn, when Smith was arrested during a traffic stop. Officials gave Smith a check last April in return, but he wants his really big bill. Now, the one-grand bill is in the City Hall safe of the mayor - who considers it novelty. Collectors say the bank note is worth much more than its face value. The $1000 bill was last printed in 1934 and was taken out of circulation in 1969. Officials say Smith can have the bill back, once it's no longer considered evidence. But they say he'll have to pay for it. While it isn't available to borrow, here's what the search text of https://archive.org/details/banknotereport32n6krau/page/n11/mode/2up?q=%22Pine+Lawn%22+%22Curtis+Smith%22 https://archive.org/details/banknotereport32n6krau/page/n11/... reports: > The article was from the Jan. 24 edition of the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, written by Heather Ratcliffe. It said that Pine Lawn, Mo., police had allowed Mayor Adrian Wright to “trade” $1,000 of his own money for a $1,000 note seized from Curtis Smith, who had been arrested on suspicion of dealing drugs and being intoxicated at the wheel of his pickup truck. Prosecutors did not file drug charges and ordered the money returned. Pine Lawn officials initially offered to pay Smith by check. They returned the-$ 1,000 note after a reporter inquired about the situation. Smith had carried the note around in his pocket for years as a novelty to show friends.
- MrPatan 4y ago
  Why seize money only once?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    Oh boy, you must have worked for Enron
justin66 4y ago
All the currency in circulation rubs up against currency that has been contaminated by drugs. It’s particularly an issue with one hundred dollar bills, which tend to set off the drug sniffing dogs. https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/this-is-exactly-how-often-cocaine-and-feces-show-up-on-your-dollar-bills-2017-07-11 https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/this-is-exactly-how-of...
- gowld 4y ago
  Drug-sniffing dogs are set off by their handlers. 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... > some cops jokingly refer to the dogs as "probable cause on four legs. > And there are powerful incentives not to change how things are done, says Andy Falco, a former police K9 handler who now trains dogs and works as an expert witness for defense attorneys. > "All [police departments] care about is how many cars you're pulling over, how much money is being seized because your dog alerted," he says, referring to departments that use civil asset forfeiture to keep money and other property found in cars after a K9 alerts to the scent of drugs. > "They go, 'It's easy! All I gotta do is walk my dog around, and look for him to change his behavior slightly, and then we can go inside and sometimes we'll find a million dollars and then we can seize it!'" > "There's been cars that my dog's hit on... and just because there wasn't a product in it, doesn't mean the dog can't smell it," says Gunnar Fulmer, a K9 officer
  - notch656a 4y ago
    They don't even have to be set off, just the presence of the dog allows them to say anything they like. Officer got a warrant to have me taken to a hospital to be "internally examined" all because they told a judge a dog "sniffed my butt" and they thought drugs might be up there. The dog never alerted and the officer even lamented in my presence that it was a "bad dog." Not like the judge can ask the dog what happened.
  - bmitc 4y ago
    Those quotes read identical to mob processes and tactics.
bArray 4y ago
Most money is contaminated with drugs anyway, it doesn't prove anything [1]. Even if the money was contaminated with excessive amounts of drugs, what does it prove? That the owner of the drugs had a drug habit? That the money originated from somebody who had a drug habit? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency
- randombits0 4y ago
  Any way to squeeze those drugs back out? Asking for a friend…
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    The median is 1.37 micrograms of cocaine per bill, so roughly six hundred thousand bills to get a gram of cocaine. And even if you want to buy the most expensive gram of coke, remember that money likely has more literal shit on it than cocaine. There's a reason food service staff is trained to always wash your hands after handling money.
    - roelschroeven 4y ago
      > There's a reason food service staff is trained to always wash your hands after handling money. "... to always wash their hands ...", I presume?
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        That's probably better grammar. I think it works as is though, as their training is "always wash your hands."
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      Who cares what the median is, though I'm surprised it's not zero. The average is much higher at 29 mcg, so each gram is a far more reasonable $35k. But the variability is enormous. Choose the right bills and it'll cost you just under $8k (and a fortune in acetonitrile, but you can recover that!). "Results demonstrated that "92% of the bills were positive for cocaine with a mean amount of 28.75 ± 139.07 micrograms per bill" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency
RajT88 4y ago
> One interesting and troubling aspect of this that I read in other reporting is they asserted a lot of the cash seized was drug money on the basis of drug contamination Civil asset forfeiture is generally used under this premise - that having large sums of cash suggests some criminal intent. But of course, that only makes sense on the surface if you're out in public with it. (There are of course, many reasons you would have a large sum of cash in public other than drug deals.) Seizing cash which is in a safe deposit box is a few steps further, which raises the hairs on the back of my neck. What is next? Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have?
- trhway 4y ago
  >What is next? Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? that is how Al Capone was taken down, isn't it? That is the reason government pushes you to use banks by in particular attacking even very modest cash piles. And you do have that $10K bank transaction limit triggering law enforcement check.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    Tax Evasion, rather different. It was based on their visible wealth, not snooping on their accounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion
    - treeman79 4y ago
      https://youtu.be/G56VgsLfKY4 https://youtu.be/G56VgsLfKY4 Even the Joker wont take on the IRS.
      - RajT88 4y ago
        What's funny is, the IRS really actually does want you to declare all money to have taxes paid. Even the stuff which is from criminal activity. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17 That is, presumably, someone else's problem if you report money received from money laundering or bribes.
jacquesm 4y ago
If you do a swipe on any substantial amount of cash for drug traces it will end up positive unless it has just been minted.
treeman79 4y ago
Like 20+ years ago they were articles about people being prosecuted based on the only evidence their money in the wallet tested positive for drugs. I recall one story where the lawyer asked the judge for a dollar tested it and it came back positive. Quote at the time was Something like 97% of all money has been exposed to drugs. This is my memory of events, so take with grain of salt.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by bragr 4y ago

willcipriano 4y ago

> but the FBI has deposited at least some of the cash into trustee accounts at financial institutions so no longer has the physical cash to test Does it go back into circulation at that point?

bragr 4y ago
>Does it go back into circulation at that point? Yeah presumably except any bills that may be too damaged/dirty/contaminated, which is the same for any cash, in which case it gets destroyed.
barelysapient 4y ago
This is actually an interesting problem for collectors of old currency. The government will deposit the face value of the currency as opposed to its collectible value. So someone who stored an old $1,000 bill doesn’t get the actual value of the bill (probably twice that on collectibles market)
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Actually, a $1,000 bill is likely to be destroyed. But that's the government's problem. Either they will have to pay the collectable value to the collector (if the property is to be returned to them) or not pay anything to the collector. Well, it's also a "destruction of historical artifacts" problem.
- eesmith 4y ago
  I remember hearing about one of those cases. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-odd-truth-jan-16-2004/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-odd-truth-jan-16-2004/ > PINE LAWN, Missouri - Curtis Smith Senior wants his $1000 bill back. He carried the rare one-grand note in his pocket for 20 years. It was seized by police in the St. Louis suburb of Pine Lawn, when Smith was arrested during a traffic stop. Officials gave Smith a check last April in return, but he wants his really big bill. Now, the one-grand bill is in the City Hall safe of the mayor - who considers it novelty. Collectors say the bank note is worth much more than its face value. The $1000 bill was last printed in 1934 and was taken out of circulation in 1969. Officials say Smith can have the bill back, once it's no longer considered evidence. But they say he'll have to pay for it. While it isn't available to borrow, here's what the search text of https://archive.org/details/banknotereport32n6krau/page/n11/mode/2up?q=%22Pine+Lawn%22+%22Curtis+Smith%22 https://archive.org/details/banknotereport32n6krau/page/n11/... reports: > The article was from the Jan. 24 edition of the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, written by Heather Ratcliffe. It said that Pine Lawn, Mo., police had allowed Mayor Adrian Wright to “trade” $1,000 of his own money for a $1,000 note seized from Curtis Smith, who had been arrested on suspicion of dealing drugs and being intoxicated at the wheel of his pickup truck. Prosecutors did not file drug charges and ordered the money returned. Pine Lawn officials initially offered to pay Smith by check. They returned the-$ 1,000 note after a reporter inquired about the situation. Smith had carried the note around in his pocket for years as a novelty to show friends.
MrPatan 4y ago
Why seize money only once?
- dylan604 4y ago
  Oh boy, you must have worked for Enron

justin66 4y ago

All the currency in circulation rubs up against currency that has been contaminated by drugs. It’s particularly an issue with one hundred dollar bills, which tend to set off the drug sniffing dogs. https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/this-is-exactly-how-often-cocaine-and-feces-show-up-on-your-dollar-bills-2017-07-11 https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/this-is-exactly-how-of...

gowld 4y ago
Drug-sniffing dogs are set off by their handlers. 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... > some cops jokingly refer to the dogs as "probable cause on four legs. > And there are powerful incentives not to change how things are done, says Andy Falco, a former police K9 handler who now trains dogs and works as an expert witness for defense attorneys. > "All [police departments] care about is how many cars you're pulling over, how much money is being seized because your dog alerted," he says, referring to departments that use civil asset forfeiture to keep money and other property found in cars after a K9 alerts to the scent of drugs. > "They go, 'It's easy! All I gotta do is walk my dog around, and look for him to change his behavior slightly, and then we can go inside and sometimes we'll find a million dollars and then we can seize it!'" > "There's been cars that my dog's hit on... and just because there wasn't a product in it, doesn't mean the dog can't smell it," says Gunnar Fulmer, a K9 officer
- notch656a 4y ago
  They don't even have to be set off, just the presence of the dog allows them to say anything they like. Officer got a warrant to have me taken to a hospital to be "internally examined" all because they told a judge a dog "sniffed my butt" and they thought drugs might be up there. The dog never alerted and the officer even lamented in my presence that it was a "bad dog." Not like the judge can ask the dog what happened.
- bmitc 4y ago
  Those quotes read identical to mob processes and tactics.

bArray 4y ago

Most money is contaminated with drugs anyway, it doesn't prove anything [1]. Even if the money was contaminated with excessive amounts of drugs, what does it prove? That the owner of the drugs had a drug habit? That the money originated from somebody who had a drug habit? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

randombits0 4y ago
Any way to squeeze those drugs back out? Asking for a friend…
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  The median is 1.37 micrograms of cocaine per bill, so roughly six hundred thousand bills to get a gram of cocaine. And even if you want to buy the most expensive gram of coke, remember that money likely has more literal shit on it than cocaine. There's a reason food service staff is trained to always wash your hands after handling money.
  - roelschroeven 4y ago
    > There's a reason food service staff is trained to always wash your hands after handling money. "... to always wash their hands ...", I presume?
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      That's probably better grammar. I think it works as is though, as their training is "always wash your hands."
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    Who cares what the median is, though I'm surprised it's not zero. The average is much higher at 29 mcg, so each gram is a far more reasonable $35k. But the variability is enormous. Choose the right bills and it'll cost you just under $8k (and a fortune in acetonitrile, but you can recover that!). "Results demonstrated that "92% of the bills were positive for cocaine with a mean amount of 28.75 ± 139.07 micrograms per bill" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

RajT88 4y ago

> One interesting and troubling aspect of this that I read in other reporting is they asserted a lot of the cash seized was drug money on the basis of drug contamination Civil asset forfeiture is generally used under this premise - that having large sums of cash suggests some criminal intent. But of course, that only makes sense on the surface if you're out in public with it. (There are of course, many reasons you would have a large sum of cash in public other than drug deals.) Seizing cash which is in a safe deposit box is a few steps further, which raises the hairs on the back of my neck. What is next? Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have?

trhway 4y ago
>What is next? Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? that is how Al Capone was taken down, isn't it? That is the reason government pushes you to use banks by in particular attacking even very modest cash piles. And you do have that $10K bank transaction limit triggering law enforcement check.
- RajT88 4y ago
  Tax Evasion, rather different. It was based on their visible wealth, not snooping on their accounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Tax_evasion
  - treeman79 4y ago
    https://youtu.be/G56VgsLfKY4 https://youtu.be/G56VgsLfKY4 Even the Joker wont take on the IRS.
    - RajT88 4y ago
      What's funny is, the IRS really actually does want you to declare all money to have taxes paid. Even the stuff which is from criminal activity. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17 That is, presumably, someone else's problem if you report money received from money laundering or bribes.

jacquesm 4y ago

If you do a swipe on any substantial amount of cash for drug traces it will end up positive unless it has just been minted.

treeman79 4y ago

Like 20+ years ago they were articles about people being prosecuted based on the only evidence their money in the wallet tested positive for drugs. I recall one story where the lawyer asked the judge for a dollar tested it and it came back positive. Quote at the time was Something like 97% of all money has been exposed to drugs. This is my memory of events, so take with grain of salt.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]