Posted on 09/04/2010 9:09:34 AM PDT by One_Upmanship
YORK – At least $1 million in cash was discovered inside a tractor-trailer Friday afternoon during a routine inspection along the turnpike.
Maine State Police said they found the stash of cash after detaining the driver and a passenger while they examined driver logs.
The driver, 35-year-old Jhon Rivera-Ramirez, was ultimately arrested for falsifying logs. He was later released on bail.
State police said Ramirez was traveling with a passenger, Jose Javier Perez, 46, who was not charged in the stop.
Police did not say where the men were coming from or where they were going. State Police Lt. Thomas Kelly said there was no other cargo inside the trailer.
"They were hauling cash," Kelly said. "That's all they were hauling."
Investigators from the State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit made the initial stop. Police said the rig is registered in Texas.
When officers inspected the back of the rig, they found an odd sight – five gallon pails lined with pink bags and stuffed with bills of varying denominations.
Kelly said $1 million is only an estimate and probably a conservative one.
"It hasn't been counted yet," he said. "We're still early into the investigation."
It was, he said, the largest cash seizure in Maine's history.
By Friday night, Ramirez remained free on bail. Federal agents were expected to join the probe.
In recent years, the smuggling of bulk currency has become the preferred method for criminals to move illicit proceeds across our borders, according to Maine Public Safety Spokesman Stephen McCausland.
It is a crime to smuggle or attempt to smuggle over $10,000 in currency or monetary instruments into or out of the United States.
....is a dead-man walking.
Man ordered to repay $3M in Calif employment fraud
San Francisco Chronicle | June 26, 2010
FR Posted June 26, 2010 by artichokegrower
A former Marysville resident has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay back $3 million in fraudulently obtained unemployment compensation. U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner says 31-year-old Manuel Mejia Ordonez was sentenced Friday to eight years and one month in prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and identity theft. (Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
How does a citizen of Mexico make $3 million in unemployment claims? By establishing multiple identities. The guy----Manuel Mejia Ordonez----got eight years for conspiracy to commit mail fraud........and identity theft.
How do we know that these fine upstanding gentlemen weren't simply acting as innocent couriers of charity collected over a year at local hispanic churches to help the oppressed in Latin Americ?
This presumption of guilt is even worse than "Minority Report". How far can a person get from the southern border and still be in the lower 48 than Maine? How does that argument work in court? Yeah, even though they were thousands of miles away from the border, and despite any evidence or confession we know beyond a shadow of a doubt they were going to cross the border.
Even if it was drug money (most likely), how do they know it was going to leave the country and not be used to buy land or anything else legally purchasable? In that case, the "smuggling" charge is bogus - doesn't one actually have to commit the crime or admit to conspiring to commit a crime to actually have the charge stick? Or has our legal system so degenerated that the hypothetical is no different than the actual.
Clearly Maine wanted the loot and knowing after interrogation that the couriers wouldn't challenge the seizure in court saw this as an opportunity to steal over a million dollars. In a just world, they would have reported the truck to the border patrol and asked them to keep an eye out - but doing that would have forfeited enjoying the full plunder. Justice be damned, its all about the money.
It was, he said, the largest cash seizure in Maine's history.
I figured out how they can get it back without any questions asked: Claim that this money was raised from donation from various mosques and the money was being transported to NYC to build the Ground Zero Mosque
The spiritual crisis the Progressives would have in this case would be priceless.
Maybe the guy was just changing banks.........It could have been worse, the million bucks could have been pennies stashed in barrels.
In other words, there was nothing wrong with his having a million in cash, so they immediately determined somehow that his truck log had been "falsified" and arrested him for that.
ML/NJ
In other words, there was nothing wrong with his having a million in cash, so they immediately determined somehow that his truck log had been "falsified" and arrested him for that.
ML/NJ
ping
Years ago the preferred way to ship it was via Greyhound.
it is not illegal to have $10.000, it is wrong to try to take it out of the country.
Did the drivers actually cross the border with the money? No. Did they show any sign of attempting to cross the southern border? No. Rather they were as far as physically possible from the southern border.
The State of Maine stole millions without there being a crime committed (unless the fine for an irregular trucking log is now in the seven figures). If the State claims that the money was going to be hauled across the border, then they are doing it without evidence. Apparently there hasn't been a confession since the only charge made is against one of them and that is for a falsified log. So while I agree with you that there are presently no laws on the books that criminalize mere possession, it seems that a person can forfeit millions by an unproven hypothetical. That would be akin to a man being charged with rape because he has the equipment and there is a woman at least a few thousand miles away.
How about we actually have a crime committed before we start divving up and spending the plunder?
Wonder if this is a case of racial profiling?
Watch for mal-intent-Muzzies taking Mexican names soas to enter and wander freely. Hey it’s an option. The cockroaches can can even scurry about the country while the lights are on. No hablan Ingles doncha know.
I say they earned it picking blueberries. Innocent until proved guilty .... oh well. Guess the hamlet of York Maine just closed its budget gap.
This same thing happened in our county recently. It was drug money.
A black owned trucking company was busted for carrying it.
If/when you make it, help yourself.
LOL. Yeah, in the daylight and right under Duface’s mole-nose. Apurate, Speedy!
Odds are. LOL
They should have kept going. You don’t lose that much of the cartel’s money and walk away, even if you do go to jail.
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