Well, the law is that if you deposit more than $10,000 into different accounts on the same day, and at least one of those deposits was less than $10,000, the bank is required to notify the feds. Don’t blame the bank for this.
There is a crime called “structuring” in which criminals deposit less than the threshold to avoid the reporting requirement.
But as I pointed out, people legitimately do deposit less than $10,000 for perfectly legitimate reasons and neither the law or the IRS policy takes note of it.
The problem once the government seizes your money, the burden of proof falls on you to show it was not illicitly acquired or used to fund criminal activity.
You always need to hire a lawyer in a civil forfeiture proceeding but unless the sum involved is substantial, its generally not worth the bother fighting the government over it.
“Well, the law is that if you deposit more than $10,000 into different accounts on the same day, and at least one of those deposits was less than $10,000, the bank is required to notify the feds. Don’t blame the bank for this.”
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Did you read the linked story? The situation you describe is NOT relevant with any of the individual cases mentioned in the story. These agencies are seizing much of this money simply to use it for their own purposes.