It's long been known by people who play the drug game that the authorities only care about lining their own pockets.<p>This is an anecdotal story, but could be "New Yorker level" vetted if someone tried.<p>About 20 years ago my friend John was living in Salt Lake City, Utah -- where he grew up -- and had rented a house in CA for the sole purpose of growing pot in. He spent almost 5 years bringing about 50-100lbs of high potency pot into Utah in his Prius 2-3 times per month, making countless trips back and forth, before his first contact with the authorities.<p>They pulled him over about a block away from his house and told him they had been watching him and knew what he had in the car -- about 50lbs of pot in duffel bags. He was arrested and charged with... wait for it... failing to pay taxes on the marijuana. He was out of jail within 6 hours.<p>His lawyer told him he had three choices: pay the taxes, to the tune of about $350k, or fight it, or plead guilty. He wrote a check for $350k and never heard from the authorities again. He continued to do this for another 10 years and was never bothered again. Strictly pot.<p>You may wonder how he was able to write that check without raising eyebrows. A few of his clients were business owners who had him on the payroll (taxes and all) to pay for their regular supply of pot. Plus he was "an independent artist" and filed 1099-Ts every quarter via his accountant. Through these methods he made plenty of money on paper, and obviously lived very cheaply (in an apartment). He has still never had a real job and retired at 35, with no record what so ever.
There's virtually no chance, with this much shady money getting confiscated, that some fraction isn't getting skimmed off the top into the pockets of the individual, relatively lowly paid, officers. It's inevitable, even if you had the most incorruptible individuals imaginable, the temptation is too great.
"Civil forfeiture" they call this, where the local Police Department essentially steals your stuff, and the burden is on you to prove why you should get it back. Of course you'd assume the local PD couldn't possibly be allowed to keep it themselves, surely it is remitted into some state or federal government fund.<p>Well, enter the "Equitable Sharing" program, which was halted/curtailed in 2015 when there was a furore about it, but has apparently resumed[1]. This is where the actual local PD that seized your money really does get to keep 80% of it themselves, with only 20% going to the feds.<p>But for some reason the locals aren't allowed to spend this money on op-ex (salaries etc) so they often spend it on crazy equipment which they can obtain via the Department of Defense's 1033 Program[2][3] which allows PDs to buy excess military equipment like weaponized vehicles, armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers, and helicopters -- obviously contributing to the increasing militarization of police[4].<p>Conflict of interest much? More confiscation of citizen funds == more toys for the boys at the PD.<p>All funded by money and assets seized from citizens on highly questionable grounds, with no real semblance of due process. Not great.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/28/the-feds-have-resumed-a-controversial-program-that-lets-cops-take-stuff-and-keep-it/" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/28/the-f...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1033_program" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1033_program</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/aclu-report-on-police-militarization-2014-8" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com.au/aclu-report-on-police-mili...</a><p>[4] <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/asset-seizures-fuel-police-spending/" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/as...</a>
The United States has fast become the land where a wall informed individual should never set foot, if he/she values his/her belongings, freedom and life.
and contrast what happened to the secretary that took ~$800,000 worth of information from their company (<a href="http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/08/the-dea-paid-an-amtrak-secretary-854460-for-free-passenger-lists/375895/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/08/the-dea-paid-an-amtr...</a>) with what happened to Sergey Aleynikov (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov</a>)
A young gentleman whose name escapes me had develop an app to fight parking tickets (in NY, SF & the UK), and more recently work on housing assistance (in the UK). His work is often dubbed “robo-lawyer”.<p>Given the scale, would it make sense to have a similar work done for civil forfeiture?
John Oliver did a story on something very similar: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks</a>
This is alarming and a massive overstep. However why would anyone ever travel with sums like that on them? I don't get it at all. I know that the US is a society that uses cash a lot more than mine, but carry sums like that seems utterly crazy.