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DEA Asset Forfeiture Program Suspended
In airports anyway. The program was suspended in late 2024 but I hadn’t heard anything about it until now.
The DOJ had authorized the DEA to confiscate the assets of travelers who “consented” to be searched. The only criterion was suspicion of criminal activity.
The agents would take cash without proof of wrongdoing, and might never charge their victims of any crime. The confiscated money would go into the DEA’s Asset Forfeiture Fund, and could then be spent by federal law enforcement.
Informants providing intelligence to the DEA would often share a portion of the “take.” The intelligence could be based on suspicious activity such as last-minute bookings, or one-way tickets.
I’ve been hearing about this nefarious activity for years, but the program was suspended without any headlines that I’ve seen.
Published in General
The “consent” was usually under duress, as in the people weren’t allowed to board their flight until they “consented.”
Civil Asset Forfeiture has been a scandal for a long time. The airport stuff is likely to be/have been a fairly small part of the total.
YouTube does have some useful resources. Steve Lehto is one. The Civil Rights Lawyer is another.
And it happened back in November. Credit where it is due to the Deputy AG that made the call. It surprised me that Biden officials suspended the policy. That’ll learn me.
I asked an Uber driver at DFW what was the longest ride he’d had. He picked up two guys at DFW and realized that it was a four hour ride north of Oklahoma City. They haggled over a bonus and agreed on $100. One guy opened his briefcase and it was full of money. They were high stakes gamblers who’d won lots of money in Dallas. To make it impossible to trace them, they’d taken an Uber to the airport. They walked around for a while and then had him drive to a store parking lot. They weren’t going to risk TSA confiscating the cash.
There have also been reports of casinos etc “finking” on their patrons who were carrying a lot of cash. They could also get a piece of what was “forfeited.”
That’s in addition to cops just hanging around casinos and stopping and searching cars that leave, without any help from the casinos.
Asset forfeiture is simply theft. Taking anything without a judicial process is a theft and must be stopped everywhere.
Yes. Congress should have outlawed this years ago.
Theft is back in style. Manifest destiny, you know. Canada and Greenland should belong to us. National security.
I love America and always default to us being the good guys. But things like this make me think that sometimes we can be thugs, who rationalize thug behavior. Outright, planned and organized, indefensible theft.
We need more Captain America and less John Gotti.
This is a welcome development. Civil Asset Forfeiture is piracy conducted by government.
Also, as others have noted at the time, this has only been SUSPENDED. Not wholly removed/cancelled/whatever.
Not this Captain America (language warning):
This is SUCH good news! Absolutely wonderful.
I hope the Feds force this throughout law enforcement. You cannot seize property without first convicting. That is theft.
There are some here on Ricochet who will soon announce that they are tired of all this virtue signaling and moral preening on the subject.
I guess I’m not the only who didn’t see the media trumpet this news. <sarcasm_off>
P.S. The Institute for Justice (IJ.org) is instrumental in many of these cases. Definitely worth supporting.
Not sure I understand…the last I heard anything about acquiring Greenland it was thru a purchase. Is buying something theft?
Not always.
If only someone in charge of running this country was interested in reclaiming California!!
I should add that even if the purchase was made at gunpoint or otherwise under duress, if you accept the payment as consideration, it will usually not be considered theft in a court of law.