Homeland Security Seized $2 Billion in Cash From Travelers at U.S. Airports

Reason ^ | July 30th | C.J. CIARAMELLA

[RandFan]

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other Department of Homeland Security agents seized more than $2 billion in cash from travelers in U.S. airports between 2000 and 2016, according to a new report by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm.

The institute's report is the first to comprehensively analyze the use of civil asset forfeiture by federal law enforcement in airports, where multiple news investigations have revealed horror stories of passengers having their money taken even though they weren't ever charged with a crime.

Take a case that Reason covered: Rustem Kazazi, a U.S. citizen who tried in 2018 to get on a plane to return to his native Albania from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Kazazi had roughly $58,000 in cash in his luggage, money he said he was taking to repair a house he owned and possibly to buy another. Kazazi was strip-searched by CBP agents, who also seized his life savings. The agency claimed the cash was "involved in a smuggling/drug trafficking/money laundering operation," despite there being no proof of that.

CBP failed to file a claim against Kazazi's money within the 90-day deadline, and then failed to return his money after the deadline passed. Last year, the U.S. government agreed to return nearly all of the cash, although Kazazi says it seized $770 more than it admitted.

Then there's the case of Anthonia Nwaorie, a Houston woman who had $41,000 in cash seized by CBP at an airport in 2018. The money was earmarked for a children's hospital in Nigeria. Kazazi and and Nwaorie's cases are just two of 30,000 cash seizures at airports across the country, according to the report.

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[ontap]

The people of this country have decided that drug cartels are a big problem. The police are charged to stop them. One large sign of a drug dealer is large sums of cash. No police officer is legally allowed to confiscate money from a citizen who is legally carrying it. Are there bad cops absolutely....like any other criminal if they are caught they should be prosecuted. I know of no law banning carrying large sums of money except through airports etc. I believe but am not sure it is international airports!!!

[discostu]

No. The people of this country were sold a bill of goods. And now they don’t know any better. We’ve been doing this asset seizure as part of the war on drugs for 50 freaking years and the drug cartels are more powerful now than they were then.

Nope, you are 100% wrong. Carrying $10,000 is considered “suspicious” and subjects you to seizure. You don’t have to be doing anything illegal. They don’t have to have any proof you got it illegally, or will use it illegally. They don’t have to charge you with anything. Too much cash is subject to seizure with zero due process.

The only reason airports are at all “special” when it comes to this is they have metal detectors. Combine those with the magnetic strips that they put in our money and you have a very easy system to detect “too much cash”. Doesn’t matter if you’re flying internationally. Doesn’t matter if you’re in an international airport. And it can happen anywhere. If they wind up with “probable cause” to search your car and find “too much cash” they can seize it. And your car at that point because you’ve become “suspicious”.

[zeugma]

When the $10000 limit was passed in 1970, you could buy a brand new Corvette fully optioned out for that amount. And the trailer to haul it around.

Yup. Today it ought to be $100,000 or more. This is nothing but legalized theft on the part of many, many government agencies.