The money goes into the budgets o the expropriating agencies which sometimes have deals with the City or County governments to share. The extrabudgetary infusion into the Department’s budget lets the local government reduce its support and the money also buys some goodies for individual officers and their bosses. Confiscated cash is not necessarily properly accounted for.
That is an obvious conflict of interest, is unethical and should be illegal. The FDA and Justus Dept. are now addicted to billion dollar fines as well. The routine fines are now just a normal cost of doing business and a normal funding source for the beast. Consumers pay for it via much higher prices. Companies incur billions more expenses implementing preventative measures, but that just annoys the government.