Federal and state laws, in general, say that a law enforcement agency that seizes assets may not "supplant" its own budget with confiscated funds, nor should "the prospect of receiving forfeited funds … influence relative priorities of law enforcement agencies."
NPR has found examples, mainly in the South, in which both of these things have happened.
Ron Barroso, a longtime criminal defense attorney, says, "I believe a lot of these stops are fishing expeditions, nothing more. They figure they stop enough people out there that they can profile, for whatever reason, sooner or later they are going to hit on something."
"If a cop stops a car going north with a trunk full of cocaine, that makes great press coverage, makes a great photo. Then they destroy the cocaine," says Jack Fishman, an IRS special agent for 25 years who is now a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta. "If they catch 'em going south with a suitcase full of cash, the police department just paid for its budget for the year."
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I guess cops figure that if they can't stop the flow of drugs into the US, the might as well stop the flow of cash proceeds from those drugs from returning to Latin and South America. After 9/11, it's much harder for criminal outfits to launder dollars internationally, so increasingly drug gangs are relying on mules smuggling money through our southern border. So in principle, it's good for the police to try to crack down on one or both directions of the drug-money flow. Less money going south means fewer guns and bribes for the cartels, hopefully (maybe the horrible drug war in Mexico might be a future email topic). But giving law enforcement the green light to cavalierly seize private money on the mere "suspicion" of criminal activity, under the pretext of "keeping children safe from drug peddlers", could be a justice nightmare - and it has been in some cases (see NPR vignettes below). I guess for law-abiding citizens, it's just too dangerous to carry around large sums of cash. Maybe it's always been like that in history, but you don't expect the "good guys" to be gunning for your cash along with the criminals!
Some moron made a law allowing local law enforcement departments to keep 80% of seized currency from drug busts, traffic stops, etc., in order to incentivize aggressive crackdown on money trafficking. Heh, since when have cops ever needed a reason to confiscate other people's money? It goes all the way back to the Sheriff of Nottingham. For civil forfeiture, you don't even have to be charged with a crime, but the cops/Feds just have to be able to show a "preponderance of evidence" that the money impounded was "associated" with criminal activity. And unlike "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", if we want our money back, the burden of proof is on the defendant to demonstrate the money is clean. Though it's hard for Average Joes to get their money back, since the legal costs to challenge the cops are often much larger than the amount seized by law enforcement (though many cases have gone to court, with victories awarded to the defendants).
Yes in many cases law enforcement has properly seized millions in veritably dirty money, which is a good thing for us (though it's debatable how much of an impact those busts have actually had on the overall drug trade). But some innocent citizens had their assets taken by police, often colored people in sparsely-populated areas of the Midwest and South, where police budgets are small and media coverage/legal services are less available to citizens. Granted that it may appear suspicious if blue-collar type minorities, who aren't well-spoken and presentable, are transporting large sums of cash, but that's not illegal (yet) and justice is supposed to be blind. Some immigrants and others come from "cash is king" cultures and don't believe in banks/investing. So what can they do when they need to transport their savings - just hope for the best? Eager cash-strapped cops and prosecutors, non-scrutinizing judges, and semi-defenseless motorists; that is a recipe for abuse if I ever heard one.
Who knows how much cops are keeping on the side, but officially: "Records with the Justice Department show that state law enforcement agencies seized $1.58 billion in 2007 alone, but that doesn't include the tens of millions of dollars that go through the state asset forfeiture programs — which are not tabulated in any central repository."
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91490480#91495507
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91555835
On Sept. 2, 2007, Hunt says he was driving south on I-75 through central Georgia on the way to see his mother in his hometown of Dublin. Hunt was wearing his hair in braids and driving a friend's orange Dodge Charger [profiling!?!], when two Lamar County sheriff's deputies pulled him over for speeding. ... But what really got their attention was the $5,581 Hunt had stuffed in his pockets, which he said was the weekend profits from his car-detailing business.
"They just told me it looked like drug money, that was all," Hunt says. The deputies found no drugs or alcohol in the car; Hunt was not arrested for any offense, nor was he written up for a traffic violation. The U.S. attorney's office in Macon, Ga., has now initiated proceedings to keep Hunt's money based on probable cause that it is "proceeds traceable" to "a controlled substance." Among their strongest evidence:
The deputy smelled burned marijuana.
The deputy observed "an untestable" amount of what appeared to be marijuana on the floorboard.
Drug dogs detected drug residue on the currency when it was brought back to the station. [what money doesn't have drug residue on it!?!]
Hunt has not been charged with any crime as a result of the traffic stop. So the question arises: Why is the government trying to take his $5,581?
Hunt concludes, "It was my hard-earned cash. They had guns and badges and they just took it. If I would have been a drug dealer, I would have just left them and let them have the money."
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On Oct. 20, 2005, Gonzalez says he was driving south on U.S. Highway 281 from Austin to Brownsville to look at a car and buy a gravestone for his dying aunt. Gonzalez, who owns a car lot, was carrying $10,032 in a briefcase. About 90 miles north of the Mexican border, two sheriff's deputies of the Jim Wells County Task Force pulled him over for driving without a front license plate.
"He asked me to get out of the car. I did," Gonzalez says. "He asked me for my driver's license and insurance. I gave it to him. He asked me if I had weapons, drugs or large amounts of money. I told him I did."
The police video shows Gonzalez with a shaved head, wearing baggy shorts, standing beside a Mazda [more profiling!?!]. The incident report states the deputies grew suspicious when Gonzalez and his passenger both appeared nervous, and a drug-sniffing dog signaled the presence of drugs. The deputies took them in for questioning and searched the car. They found no drugs or weapons. Though Gonzalez said he was a businessman and showed them a credit card printed with the name of his car lot, the officers didn't believe him.
The deputies handed Gonzalez a waiver: If he signed over the money and did not claim the currency, he could walk away free. If he did not sign the waiver, he would be arrested for money-laundering. Gonzalez signed the waiver and gave up rights to his money.
"So at that time we got in our car and we left, still trying to figure out what just happened. We got officers that took our cash. We got officers that told us we can't get an attorney. So I'm thinking, are these guys officers of law? Did I just get robbed of my money?"
Gonzalez hired an attorney, who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit. The county fought it, and lost. In April, the county returned his $10,032 and paid him $110,000 in damages, plus attorney's fees.
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On March 15, 2007, Michael Annan was driving his black Nissan Maxima south on I-95 through southeast Georgia. He had just gotten off his job on a dredging barge and was on his way home to Orlando, Fla., when he was pulled over for speeding by deputies in Camden County, just north of the Florida state line.
Annan, a 40-year-old immigrant from Ghana, was carrying $43,720 in hundreds and fifties rolled up in a sock in the pockets of his overalls — everything he had saved from nine years of work in Florida and Georgia. But because he did not trust banks, or his then-wife in Orlando, Annan was carrying his life savings in his pocket.
"They open my car engine and they try to find something," Annan said in an interview from Brunswick, Ga. "But I don't have nothing in my engine, and I don't know what they thinking. … After that, they said they would take me to the office."
At the sheriff's office, a drug dog was brought out to sniff his car, but it detected no narcotics. Annan says he showed them a pay slip from his employer, Great Lakes Dredging. Annan had no drug arrests. Undeterred, the officers confiscated the money anyway, explaining they needed to investigate whether it was drug money. They said he could call them back in two weeks.
Annan says he did call back, a half dozen times, but that no one would help him. So he took a day off from work to drive to the county seat of Woodbine, Ga., to visit the sheriff's office in person. He said they told him they were too busy to see him.
So he hired an attorney in Brunswick, who faxed Annan's work records and tax returns to the sheriff's office as proof he wasn't a drug dealer. Camden County then returned his money. The lawyer charged him $12,000 — more than a quarter of his savings.
"I think maybe they see money like that … maybe they thought I was dealing with the drugs … how can a black man have this much money in his pocket? I think they robbing me, I can't understand they can stop someone and take his money," he says in heavily accented English.
His attorney, Paula Crowe, who is familiar with Camden County, says that in her experience, she's sure Annan never would have seen his money again had he not hired a lawyer.
Lt. William Terrell, of the Camden County Sheriff's Office, said the highway interdiction team was just doing its job.
"The deputies, with all their training and experience, were acting in good faith as sworn officers doing their job. They were not trying to take Mr. Annan's hard-earned money, they were simply trying to verify that the $43,000 was not money made in a drug transaction."
Camden County has an aggressive highway interdiction program that has earned the sheriff's department more than $20 million over the past decade and a half. Sheriff Bill Smith — once considered one of the most successful sheriffs in the nation at confiscating drug money off the highways — is now the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into whether he misused the forfeiture funds.
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The bundles contained $1 million. According to the law, 80 percent of that will go to the Kingsville Police Department. So that one afternoon's work will boost the department's budget by 25 percent.
"Law enforcement has become a business, and where best to hit these narcotics organizations other than in the pocketbook? That's where it's going to hurt the most. And then to be able to turn around and use those same assets to benefit our department, that's a win-win situation as far as we're concerned," says Kingsville Police Chief Ricardo Torres.
In this sleepy city of 25,000 people, with its enviable low crime rate, police officers drive high-performance Dodge Chargers and use $40,000 digital ticket writers. They'll soon carry military-style assault rifles, and the SWAT team recently acquired sniper rifles.
When asked why the Kingsville Police Department needs sniper rifles, Torres says, "With homeland security, we all hear about where best to hit than … Middle America. This can be considered that sort of area. We have to be prepared."
Federal and state rules governing asset forfeiture explicitly discourage law enforcement agencies from supplementing their budgets with seized drug money or allowing the prospect of those funds to influence law enforcement decisions.
There is a law enforcement culture — particularly in the South — in which police agencies have grown, in the words of one state senator from South Texas, "addicted to drug money."
Part of the problem lies with governing bodies that count on the dirty money and, in essence, force public safety departments to freelance their own funding.
In Kleberg County, where Kingsville is the county seat, Sheriff Ed Mata drives a gleaming new police-package Ford Expedition bought with drug funds. This year, he went to his commissioners to ask for more new vehicles.
"They said, 'Well, there ain't no money, use your assets,' " he says. He says his office needs the money "to continue to operate on the magnitude we need."
Another county agency, the Kingsville Specialized Crimes and Narcotics Task Force, survives solely on seized cash. Said one neighboring lawman, "They eat what they kill." A review by NPR shows at least three other Texas task forces that also are funded exclusively by confiscated drug assets.
The concern here is that allowing sworn peace officers — who are entrusted with enormous powers — to make money off police work distorts criminal justice.
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