‘We want cash’ Drug agents seize $209mn in random profiling of 5,200 travelers

Previous discussion here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12268122" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12268122</a>

It&#x27;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 &quot;New Yorker level&quot; 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 &quot;an independent artist&quot; 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&#x27;s virtually no chance, with this much shady money getting confiscated, that some fraction isn&#x27;t getting skimmed off the top into the pockets of the individual, relatively lowly paid, officers. It&#x27;s inevitable, even if you had the most incorruptible individuals imaginable, the temptation is too great.

&quot;Civil forfeiture&quot; 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&#x27;d assume the local PD couldn&#x27;t possibly be allowed to keep it themselves, surely it is remitted into some state or federal government fund.<p>Well, enter the &quot;Equitable Sharing&quot; program, which was halted&#x2F;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&#x27;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&#x27;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:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;wonk&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2016&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;the-feds-have-resumed-a-controversial-program-that-lets-cops-take-stuff-and-keep-it&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;wonk&#x2F;wp&#x2F;2016&#x2F;03&#x2F;28&#x2F;the-f...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1033_program" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;1033_program</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com.au&#x2F;aclu-report-on-police-militarization-2014-8" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com.au&#x2F;aclu-report-on-police-mili...</a><p>[4] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;sf&#x2F;investigative&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;11&#x2F;asset-seizures-fuel-police-spending&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;sf&#x2F;investigative&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;11&#x2F;as...</a>

And people say China is corrupt...

The United States has fast become the land where a wall informed individual should never set foot, if he&#x2F;she values his&#x2F;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:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thewire.com&#x2F;national&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;the-dea-paid-an-amtrak-secretary-854460-for-free-passenger-lists&#x2F;375895&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thewire.com&#x2F;national&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;the-dea-paid-an-amtr...</a>) with what happened to Sergey Aleynikov (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sergey_Aleynikov" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Sergey_Aleynikov</a>)

A young gentleman whose name escapes me had develop an app to fight parking tickets (in NY, SF &amp; 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:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;issues&#x2F;criminal-law-reform&#x2F;reforming-police-practices&#x2F;asset-forfeiture-abuse" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aclu.org&#x2F;issues&#x2F;criminal-law-reform&#x2F;reforming-po...</a>

What you&#x27;d expect from the US Government &#x2F; the world&#x27;s most powerful protection racket

This is alarming and a massive overstep. However why would anyone ever travel with sums like that on them? I don&#x27;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.

This &quot;land of the free&quot; sounds very much like Russia to me. In fact, I would rather live in Russia to be honest.