Domestically, onshore, many police forces can (and will) seize money, and refuse to return it. Happens at airports, in personal homes, cars, you-name-it. [0]
The state only has to have good reason to believe its proceeds of crime or somehow tainted, and they can grabbital. Your local lawyers Sue,Sue,Grabbit and Run have buckleys chance of getting it back, because they not only can seize it, they can spend it: The state loves funding which is not formally accountable to the GAO. The wiki link below has an example of the cops putting the seized money in the pension fund, and then refusing to return it. They rate the amount of return to innocent citizens remarkably low, judicial process not withstanding. Less than 2-3% class low. Thats right: 90%+ of siezed funds which are demonstrably "innocent" just don't come back.
Proceeds of crime is very broad. That yacht. Looks crimey to me. And that car, and that furniture.
Don't do bad things is fine, but 'don't have inexplicably large amounts of money, be a bit of a nutcase about banking, or have just decided to withdraw the lot in $1 bills for fun' is maybe a bit .. strong?
A friend of mine said he did once arrange to do a major purchase, possibly a house or car, in low denom notes, purely for the joy of seeing that much cash. His bank needed a LOT of persuading to do it, and made him sign some kind of liability waiver. I don't think that was aimed at civil asset seizure, but you know, it wouldn't be wrong, right?
I am btw anything but a libertarian. I believe in the state, the value and utility of the state. But when I learned about this 'cops just took it' thing I was blown away.
This is only true in certain very corrupt countries; it's not true worldwide.
The US is one of those countries, but this has only been the case since the Equitable Sharing program was set up by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Undoing corruption is much more difficult than establishing it but not impossible.
The state only has to have good reason to believe its proceeds of crime or somehow tainted, and they can grabbital. Your local lawyers Sue,Sue,Grabbit and Run have buckleys chance of getting it back, because they not only can seize it, they can spend it: The state loves funding which is not formally accountable to the GAO. The wiki link below has an example of the cops putting the seized money in the pension fund, and then refusing to return it. They rate the amount of return to innocent citizens remarkably low, judicial process not withstanding. Less than 2-3% class low. Thats right: 90%+ of siezed funds which are demonstrably "innocent" just don't come back.
Proceeds of crime is very broad. That yacht. Looks crimey to me. And that car, and that furniture.
Don't do bad things is fine, but 'don't have inexplicably large amounts of money, be a bit of a nutcase about banking, or have just decided to withdraw the lot in $1 bills for fun' is maybe a bit .. strong?
A friend of mine said he did once arrange to do a major purchase, possibly a house or car, in low denom notes, purely for the joy of seeing that much cash. His bank needed a LOT of persuading to do it, and made him sign some kind of liability waiver. I don't think that was aimed at civil asset seizure, but you know, it wouldn't be wrong, right?
I am btw anything but a libertarian. I believe in the state, the value and utility of the state. But when I learned about this 'cops just took it' thing I was blown away.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...