5 ms·

> 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 cont

by 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.
      - Scoundreller 4y ago
        In Canada, the CRA (our IRS) is allowed to tattle on you if the crime they suspect could be “serious criminality”, defined as could involve a sentence of 14 years or more. So when we legalized marijuana, most of the possible infractions have sentences up to 14 years and that’s no coincidence. Bringing marijuana across a border? Up to 14 years! Making an extract? Up to 14 years! Sharing with a minor? Up to 14 years!
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Isn't the 10K the reporting threshold for the bank? (vs actually triggering any sort of law enforcement check on that particular transaction)
  - nradov 4y ago
    US banks are generally required to report all cash transactions over $10K. However, they're also supposed to report smaller cash transactions that look suspicious. Like if you deposit $5K cash today, and then another $5K cash tomorrow, then it's likely that the bank will file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) with FinCEN.
    - bad416f1f5a2 4y ago
      Note particularly that attempting to shape your deposits to avoid SARs - by depositing on different days, or different banks - is itself a federal crime. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324
  - rnotaro 4y ago
    In Canada that's the amount where your transaction get automatically submitted to FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada). Abnormal smaller transaction patterns and suspicious transaction can also be reported to FINTRAC for analysis. "FINTRAC analyzes approximately 19 million transactions per year. In 2017, FINTRAC made 2,000 disclosures to police forces." according to Wikipedia.
gowld 4y ago
> Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? Or less! Obeying the law is illegal! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring
mc32 4y ago
It does raise concern but also banks always monitor transactions looking for anomalies. So while this is physical inspection, it’s not far removed from what banks already do with electronic transactions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- RajT88 4y ago
  It is quite far removed from what banks do. For example, if a bank detects an anomaly, they report it. What they DO NOT do is transfer the suspicious funds to a police bank account.
  - mc32 4y ago
    What I'm saying is I think it _is_ a step too far. I also think it violates people's constitutional rights. But I don't think it's so different from already monitoring people's transactions.
    - pc86 4y ago
      A private organization monitoring transactions and reporting those to the relevant tax authority is "not so different" from police breaking locks open, taking cash without a warrant, and depositing it into the police bank account?
      - a-user-you-like 4y ago
        So just use a bank that won’t report it.
        RajT88 4y ago
        They are slowly arm-twisting those banks into reporting it. Swiss banks ain't what they used to be. Cayman islands too.
    - 4y ago
ectopod 4y ago
> Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? Yes, an "Unexplained Wealth Order" in the UK. If you appear to have too much wealth you can be obliged to explain how you lawfully acquired it on pain of seizure.
- Filligree 4y ago
  But at least you do get to explain it.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    That's correct. Unexplained Wealth Orders target amounts in excess of £50 000 (usually far in excess, they've been used four times so far, with total targets of 143 million pounds). The UWO must target an individual who is either: Politically exposed (e.g. (ex)leaders and senior officials of a country and their families) or Reasonably Believed to be involved in Serious Crime (e.g. bank robbers) and whose wealth lacks an apparent explanation. If the target either can't or won't explain their wealth it may be seized. UWOs are supposed to be reformed to make them work even when you've paid lawyers to make the apparent ownership very opaque. Right now if you're benefiting from an opaque "trust" arrangement maybe spanning several countries it may be impossible to show how that wealth is really "yours" legally, without the co-operation you would have been required to show as part of the UWO. In practice it often happens, as I understand it, that the UWO target decides the best way out is to just hand over the wealth, because the real answer to "Why do you have this wealth?" is "I did a bunch of crimes" and that is a confession of crime, for which you might do prison time, and either they don't trust lawyers or the lawyers they hired couldn't come up with another story that would hold water. Sadly the current (Tory) and former (Tory, Tory, and Tory back many years now) UK governments have been much better at talking up their commitment to transparency than at actually taking any steps to prevent the UK (and especially London) functioning as a laundromat and dormitory for crooks to wash their dirty money and sleep comfortably knowing the people they stole from can't reach them...
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Wow, this is pretty dystopian. "You have money that we didn't know about so you have to explain yourself, or we will assume you acquired it illegally and take it from you". That's not due process. That's not innocent until proven guilty. (Yes, I know UK legal standards are different than the US's, but I believe these things to be rights people should universally have.) That's not rule of law; that's rule by thugs. I guess that's strictly "better" than the nearly-zero-recourse civil forfeiture travesty we have here in the US, but... still not great.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yucky 4y ago
>What is next? Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? The police? Shit, this is exactly what the youth are demanding now. Wealth confiscation is all the rage with Gen Z and younger millenials.
- sianemo 4y ago
  A congressionally passed wealth tax is not the same as the FBI doing asset forfeiture on secured valuables storage but you already knew that before you posted.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Oh I love this complaint - so it's cool if we leave younger generation with massive national debt, unaffordable housing and a climate disaster, but how dare they make any demands on us? Ungrateful little shits, should be happy we didn't send them into the coalmines!
  - yucky 4y ago
    >massive national debt I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're not for smaller government though, right?
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      Life experience has taught me that people who advocate 'small government' don't have my best interests in mind. I am happy with the concept of 'small government', but typically folks who use it dont mean what I think it should mean. They are happy to spend a lot of my tax money on the prosecutor that will charge me for jaywalking, but want to cut spending on the public defence attorney that will defend me from the very same 'small government' they advocate. They tend to invoke 'small government should not interfere' when I ask whether a companies should be able to screw me over, but they want 'full force of the law' when I do anything they dislike.
      - yucky 4y ago

by RajT88 4y ago

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.
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      In Canada, the CRA (our IRS) is allowed to tattle on you if the crime they suspect could be “serious criminality”, defined as could involve a sentence of 14 years or more. So when we legalized marijuana, most of the possible infractions have sentences up to 14 years and that’s no coincidence. Bringing marijuana across a border? Up to 14 years! Making an extract? Up to 14 years! Sharing with a minor? Up to 14 years!
maxerickson 4y ago
Isn't the 10K the reporting threshold for the bank? (vs actually triggering any sort of law enforcement check on that particular transaction)
- nradov 4y ago
  US banks are generally required to report all cash transactions over $10K. However, they're also supposed to report smaller cash transactions that look suspicious. Like if you deposit $5K cash today, and then another $5K cash tomorrow, then it's likely that the bank will file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) with FinCEN.
  - bad416f1f5a2 4y ago
    Note particularly that attempting to shape your deposits to avoid SARs - by depositing on different days, or different banks - is itself a federal crime. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5324
- rnotaro 4y ago
  In Canada that's the amount where your transaction get automatically submitted to FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada). Abnormal smaller transaction patterns and suspicious transaction can also be reported to FINTRAC for analysis. "FINTRAC analyzes approximately 19 million transactions per year. In 2017, FINTRAC made 2,000 disclosures to police forces." according to Wikipedia.

gowld 4y ago

> Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? Or less! Obeying the law is illegal! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring

mc32 4y ago

It does raise concern but also banks always monitor transactions looking for anomalies. So while this is physical inspection, it’s not far removed from what banks already do with electronic transactions.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
RajT88 4y ago
It is quite far removed from what banks do. For example, if a bank detects an anomaly, they report it. What they DO NOT do is transfer the suspicious funds to a police bank account.
- mc32 4y ago
  What I'm saying is I think it _is_ a step too far. I also think it violates people's constitutional rights. But I don't think it's so different from already monitoring people's transactions.
  - pc86 4y ago
    A private organization monitoring transactions and reporting those to the relevant tax authority is "not so different" from police breaking locks open, taking cash without a warrant, and depositing it into the police bank account?
    - a-user-you-like 4y ago
      So just use a bank that won’t report it.
      - RajT88 4y ago
        They are slowly arm-twisting those banks into reporting it. Swiss banks ain't what they used to be. Cayman islands too.
  - 4y ago

ectopod 4y ago

> Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? Yes, an "Unexplained Wealth Order" in the UK. If you appear to have too much wealth you can be obliged to explain how you lawfully acquired it on pain of seizure.

Filligree 4y ago
But at least you do get to explain it.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  That's correct. Unexplained Wealth Orders target amounts in excess of £50 000 (usually far in excess, they've been used four times so far, with total targets of 143 million pounds). The UWO must target an individual who is either: Politically exposed (e.g. (ex)leaders and senior officials of a country and their families) or Reasonably Believed to be involved in Serious Crime (e.g. bank robbers) and whose wealth lacks an apparent explanation. If the target either can't or won't explain their wealth it may be seized. UWOs are supposed to be reformed to make them work even when you've paid lawyers to make the apparent ownership very opaque. Right now if you're benefiting from an opaque "trust" arrangement maybe spanning several countries it may be impossible to show how that wealth is really "yours" legally, without the co-operation you would have been required to show as part of the UWO. In practice it often happens, as I understand it, that the UWO target decides the best way out is to just hand over the wealth, because the real answer to "Why do you have this wealth?" is "I did a bunch of crimes" and that is a confession of crime, for which you might do prison time, and either they don't trust lawyers or the lawyers they hired couldn't come up with another story that would hold water. Sadly the current (Tory) and former (Tory, Tory, and Tory back many years now) UK governments have been much better at talking up their commitment to transparency than at actually taking any steps to prevent the UK (and especially London) functioning as a laundromat and dormitory for crooks to wash their dirty money and sleep comfortably knowing the people they stole from can't reach them...
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Wow, this is pretty dystopian. "You have money that we didn't know about so you have to explain yourself, or we will assume you acquired it illegally and take it from you". That's not due process. That's not innocent until proven guilty. (Yes, I know UK legal standards are different than the US's, but I believe these things to be rights people should universally have.) That's not rule of law; that's rule by thugs. I guess that's strictly "better" than the nearly-zero-recourse civil forfeiture travesty we have here in the US, but... still not great.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yucky 4y ago

>What is next? Having more money in your bank than the police believe you should have? The police? Shit, this is exactly what the youth are demanding now. Wealth confiscation is all the rage with Gen Z and younger millenials.

sianemo 4y ago
A congressionally passed wealth tax is not the same as the FBI doing asset forfeiture on secured valuables storage but you already knew that before you posted.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Oh I love this complaint - so it's cool if we leave younger generation with massive national debt, unaffordable housing and a climate disaster, but how dare they make any demands on us? Ungrateful little shits, should be happy we didn't send them into the coalmines!
- yucky 4y ago
  >massive national debt I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're not for smaller government though, right?
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Life experience has taught me that people who advocate 'small government' don't have my best interests in mind. I am happy with the concept of 'small government', but typically folks who use it dont mean what I think it should mean. They are happy to spend a lot of my tax money on the prosecutor that will charge me for jaywalking, but want to cut spending on the public defence attorney that will defend me from the very same 'small government' they advocate. They tend to invoke 'small government should not interfere' when I ask whether a companies should be able to screw me over, but they want 'full force of the law' when I do anything they dislike.
    - yucky 4y ago