American shakedown: Police won't charge you, but they'll grab your money

Across America, law enforcement officers — from federal agents to state troopers right down to sheriffs in one-street backwaters — are operating a vast, co-ordinated scheme to grab as much of the public’s cash as they can; “hand over fist,” to use the words of one police trainer.

Basically, if you happen to be transporting any (attractive enough) amount of cash, Police feel empowered (and are encouraged) to seize the money from you - without any evidence of any crime having been committed.

Seizing suspected drug money has been legal here for decades, but after 9/11 police acquired a whole new set of powers and justifications. And they set about using them for profit.

The Washington Post this week reported that in the past 13 years, there have been 61,998 cash seizures on roadways and elsewhere without use of search warrants.

The total haul: $2.5 billion, divided pretty much equally between the U.S. government and state and local authorities (hence the Kafkaesque “equitable sharing” euphemism).

Under the guise of the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror" police, it seems, are acting as Road Pirates...pilfering cash from unsuspecting citizens for their bosses - and in all likelihood pocketing portions for themselves.

Some, no doubt, were indeed drug dealers or money launderers and just walked away from the money. Others just couldn’t spare the expense and time of going to court.

Of those who did, though, nearly half got their money back, a statistic that fairly screams about the legitimacy of the seizures.

So does another fact: In many cases, authorities offer half the money back – money they’d claimed was proceeds of crime. And when they do issue a cheque, they almost always insist their victim sign a legal release promising never to sue.

As the title of the article suggests, this is nothing more than an organized shakedown...let's just call it what it is - organized crime.

Police forces use the money to finance their departmental budgets, sometimes spending it on luxury vehicles, first-class tickets to conferences, and lavish quarters. They regard the money as rightfully theirs. One prosecutor used seized cash to defend herself against a lawsuit brought by people whose cash she seized.

This one is my personal favourite. Steal people's money, using the veil of "justice" as your cover, them beat the victims over the head with their own cash when they fight to get it back.

Someone...anyone...please tell me what has happened to America?

www.cbc.ca...

We didn't listen to Jefferson. Every 20 years.

Hide your cash no matter where or when and hope they don't train the drug sniffing K-9 Units to find money.

I'm sick and tired of these LEO antics and now, contrary to how I used to feel, I actually hope that they suffer in the most extreme manner when the villagers come down to the station with pitch forks in hand. After the pitch fork party, I hope they find their homes and take everything and leave nothing living behind when they burn it to the ground.

The smart and honest cops hopefully will have resigned by that time. Screw all of the power hungry psychos who use their position to steal form us and kill our loved ones and our pets. It's us against them now and I can't see that getting any better without putting down all the rabid animals in government and law enforcement.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Hide your cash no matter where or when and hope they don't train the drug sniffing K-9 Units to find money.

Drug dog often alert on currency. Here is the reason:

In a study reported in Forensic Science International, A.J. Jenkins, at the Office of the Cuyahoga County Coroner (Cleveland, OH), the author reports the analysis of ten randomly collected one-dollar bills from five cities, and tested for coc aine, heroin, 6-acetylmorphine (also called "6-AM"), morphine, codeine, methamphetamine, amphetamine and phencyclidine (PCP). Bills were then immersed in acetonitrile for two hours prior to extraction and subjected to Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Results demonstrated that "92% of the bills were positive for coc aine with a mean amount of 28.75+/-139.07 micrograms per bill, a median of 1.37 μg per bill, and a range of 0.01-922.72 μg per bill.

Wikipedia: Contaminated Currency

This has been going on for quite a while, & I believe the state of Tennessee start ed it. If you look at a map, It's easy to see why Tennessee Pioneered it. If you want to drive from the east coast to the west coast or from the north to the south, you pretty much have to go through Tennessee at one point or another. I lived in Knoxville Tennessee for 5 years And since I 40 and I 75 merge for about 12 miles, that stretch of road was nortorious. Policy like this Started us on a very slippery slope. We Failed to nip it in the bud and now we have things like red light cameras That make you guilty until proven innocent in the courts eyes.
My god I miss the old America. a reply to: mobiusmale

Looool Land of the free my arse lol


Though your 2nd was meant to protect you from stuff like this?

This is going on in 17 different states and to this point since 9/11 they have over 60,000 seizures.

Highway interdiction courses are training the cops to do this and there using Equitable Sharing laws to distribute these monies locally. If you sue for your money you are lucky to get half back.

Equitable Sharing, highway interdiction, 400 seizures from 17 states examined

originally posted by: crazyewok
Looool Land of the free my arse lol


Though your 2nd was meant to protect you from stuff like this?

That is what Abe Froman posted about above.... here.
Without the Second.... you can't do the Thos. Jefferson Liberty-Tree blood-watering thing.

They can read those little strips in the money.

They know how much you have before they even pull you over.

Search Texas roadside sniffers. Most of you already know.

They will claim the Dog alerted on the money.

They leave locals alone for the most part. That's why nobody complains.

originally posted by: abe froman
We didn't listen to Jefferson. Every 20 years.

No kidding. These forfeiture laws are so unconstitutional that its obvious they are not even bothering to try to pretend/.

originally posted by: crazyewok
Looool Land of the free my arse lol


Though your 2nd was meant to protect you from stuff like this?

The US isn't the only good nation suffering form this particular illness:

In the UK asset forfeiture proceedings are initiated under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. These fall into various types. Firstly there are confiscation proceedings. A confiscation order is a court order made in the Crown Court requiring a convicted defendant to pay a specified amount of money to the state by a specified date. Secondly, there are cash forfeiture proceedings, which take place (in England and Wales) in the Magistrates Court with a right of appeal to the Crown Court, having been brought by either the police or Customs. Thirdly, there are civil recovery proceedings that are brought by the National Crime Agency "NCA". Neither cash forfeiture proceedings nor proceedings for a civil recovery order require a prior criminal conviction.

originally posted by: NavyDoc

originally posted by: crazyewok
Looool Land of the free my arse lol


Though your 2nd was meant to protect you from stuff like this?

The US isn't the only good nation suffering form this particular illness:

In the UK asset forfeiture proceedings are initiated under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. These fall into various types. Firstly there are confiscation proceedings. A confiscation order is a court order made in the Crown Court requiring a convicted defendant to pay a specified amount of money to the state by a specified date. Secondly, there are cash forfeiture proceedings, which take place (in England and Wales) in the Magistrates Court with a right of appeal to the Crown Court, having been brought by either the police or Customs. Thirdly, there are civil recovery proceedings that are brought by the National Crime Agency "NCA". Neither cash forfeiture proceedings nor proceedings for a civil recovery order require a prior criminal conviction.

Im not denying it. What crap the USA does the UK does too.

But our masses don't go round round chanting that whole "land of the free" crap when we know we are unfortunately not


Plus there are many on here that say there guns were meant to protect them from exactly this while snearing down on us in the UK. Just seems guns or not we are both in the shame #e.

I find it interesting that there are car auctions that can demand payment in cash, thousands of dollars mind you... but, its not safe to even have it from the police.

Just think, these are the cases where paperwork was involved. Have to hit up non-dealers so as to cover up the lack of reports on real drug money.

a reply to: mobiusmale

This is the way it was in Mexico when i traveled there in the 70's so now here we are reversing everything until eventually we will be a 3rd world nation.

No secret America has been infringing on the public's right to travel.

With the economy in the tank, expect these new Black codes for all.