I just stumbled upon someone asking how much cash he can carry on himself without a risk of a police officer taking it away. Then when I scrolled through comments it sounded like a police officer can decide to take away your money and NEVER EVER give it back!
Is that actually true??? I mean, the idea that police officer can take your money if they decide you have “too much” on you is insane already. But even if so, there is no way you can’t then go to police station or something and get it back!
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The government says “we *think* you got your property/money (it can be your house/estate if they want) illegally or let it be used in the commission of a crime, so we are taking it and if you want it back you have to hire a lawyer and sue us.”
If you (or someone else) smoke weed in your car – forfeit it
If you have a lot of money and cops assume it’s from selling drugs with zero evidence – forfeit it
There are laws against this in some states, so cops there send it to the feds who keep 20% of the money/value and give them 80% back.
They specifically use Civil Asset Forfeiture – which is legally a lawsuit against your property – instead of *criminal* asset forfeiture because criminal suits require 1) a conviction by a jury 2) a gov appointed lawyer for people who can’t afford one. Civil suits require neither of these.
Even though most defenders of this obvious form of theft say it’s to deter criminals, it’s mostly used against poor people who can’t hire lawyers to get their stuff back. Take a $3000 car from a person who would need to spend $3500 on a lawyer and take time off work to get it back, and what do you think they’ll do? They give up, and you sell the car for a couple thousand dollars, which is how cops make tons of money.
Cops will also just take large amounts of money and make you fight to try and get it back. They robbed a religious migrant group after one of their concerts this way.
Again, if it were about criminals, they would use criminal asset forfeiture. They don’t because it is about making money, and they make *billions* this way.
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