Having worked on more than a few government corruption cases I have seen some situations where the people involved in the asset forfeiture / sieizure process called dibs on the seized property and bought it cheap at auction themselves then turned around and sold it for a nice profit or kept it for themselves. I mean when you can buy a $20K Harley for $2K - $5k its not a bad deal at all.
It sounds like you were in on the scheme.