Earlier today, I realized that the players at the Pokerstars PCA in the Bahamas would be in danger on their flight home. Or, more accurately, their money will be in danger. That's because flights to the US from the PCA have long been the target of US Customs and the FBI, which have seized cash from poker pros who committed no crime. Additionally, many of these players were carrying under $10,000, and thus were not under any requirements to report the cash they were bringing back into the country. I fired out this tweet to warn people:

https://twitter.com/ToddWitteles/status/1617693920774991873


I was surprised that some people responded with claims that I was exaggerating, or that this simply was not a problem at all. Others felt that you could avoid the heartbreak of civil forfeiture simply by declaring the money you're bringing in the country. Even others thought that this will never happen if you're carrying less than $10k.

I realized that there was a lot of confusion regarding civil forfeiture, exactly what it is, and why US law enforcement has the right in many jurisdictions to grab your cash at any time for any reason. This post will help you understand civil forfeiture, and how it applies to gamblers and poker players.



What is Civil Forfeiture?

Civil forfeiture is the act of US law enforcement seizing property or cash from private citizens, based upon their suspicion that the property or cash was acquired through criminal activities. This does not require a warrant, court order, or conviction. Under civil forfeiture laws, law enforcement can simply take your stuff, and it requires a tremendous effort (usually involving expensive lawyers) to get it back.

Civil forfeiture began in 1983, as part of the War on Drugs. It began under a reasonable premise. Often known drug dealers would be caught with large amounts of cash on them -- sometimes millions -- which clearly were proceeds from criminal activity. However, without proof that the money had been acquired via criminal activity, the government could not seize it. Civil forfeiture law allowed the government to confiscate money or property from suspected criminals, and the criminals would have to show in court how they legally acquired it in order to get it back. This sounds like a good thing, but like many well-intentioned laws, it eventually became abused. Within a short time, civil forfeiture was perverted into legalized theft against ordinary citizens.

Despite it originating 40 years ago, the father of civil forfeiture is a very familiar figure today. It was a young Senator named Joseph Biden, who introduced the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act into law that year. With this law, federal agents had nearly unlimited powers to seize assets from private citizens, and it became official in 1984. Then, in 1984, the Comprehensive Crime Control Act was introduced, which allowed federal agents to work with local police to engage in civil forfeiture, and thus sharing the proceeds. This became known as "equitable sharing", and allowed federal forfeiture laws to supersede any local or state protections against abuse of these seizure powers. The equitable sharing law took effect in 1986, and civil forfeiture went off the rails. It quickly became more about legalized theft than a sincere effort to combat drug dealers.

In the 2010s, the Comprehensive Crime Control Act was reversed, but it was put back a few years later. We are still just as vulnerable to civil forfeiture today as we were in 1986.




Why Would the Government Target Ordinary Citizens Like Me?

Growing up, we were taught that if we haven't broken the law, we have nothing to fear regarding law enforcement. In most cases this is true, but civil forfeiture is a clear exception. The problem spawned from the government's discovery that civil forfeiture didn't need to be limited to grabbing cash from real criminals. They had the power to take cash from anyone who happened to be holding it, so if the police department, the town, or the county is strapped for cash, why not use this as a fundraising source?

And indeed, that's exactly what's been happening. It is quite burdensome and expensive to get back cash seized via civil forfeiture. The legal fees will almost surely cost you $10,000 or more, which makes it impractical to hire an attorney to fight seizures of smaller amounts, such as $8000. This allows law enforcement to stop people on highways or at airports, claim a phony "drug money suspicion", and count on it being too expensive to legally fight.

Even in cases where the money seized is large enough to worth fighting in court, the entire process is still quite slow, expensive, and burdensome.

Local governments, and in some cases the federal government, do not feel any guilt stealing your hard-earned cash. Their position is that anyone driving or flying with thousands of dollars in cash is likely up to no good, and therefore you are undeserving of any rights or consideration. They are not ignorant to the fact that most of the "drug money seizures" via roadside and airport civil forfeiture isn't really drug money. They just assume you must be shady if you have such cash with you, and therefore their conscience is clean when taking it.



What Legal Standard Allows Them to Take My Money?

It is true that, even under civil forfeiture law, the government can't just take your money because they want to. There has to be some legal justification. Unfortunately, the law is written in such a fashion to where it is incredibly easy to falsify "suspicion" of your money being drug money, thus allowing the legal seizure of it.

Studies have shown that 80-90% of cash bills have small traces of cocaine on them, due to either their usage in drug trade, proximity to drug usage, or actual usage for snorting cocaine. This allows drug sniffing dogs to smell drugs on any stack of bills you're carrying, thus authorizing their seizure.

Again, police are very aware that almost all of these "dog sniffed bills" are false positives for the money actually being from drug deals. However, they don't care. As was explained above, the goal is to acquire funding for government coffers and police departments.

In many jurisdictions, the legal standard for seizure is "preponderance of the evidence". This is a fancy term for "50.01% certain", and is a FAR lower standard than what is required for criminal conviction, which is "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- meaning almost 100% certain. This creates a tremendous gap between the standard for which your money can be seized, and the standard for which you can be convicted of any crime! Therefore, the government can easily seize your cash, even if no criminal case against you could ever hold up, and even if it's clear you've done nothing wrong.

Do any states have laws against this shady forfeiture scheme? Yes, many do. Unfortunately, that's where this equitable sharing bullshit comes into play, in order to circumvent that. Federal forfeiture laws only require preponderance of the evidence to do seizures. If a federal agent is involved with the "investigation", then federal laws supersede any state laws on the matter. Many towns and counties have a federal agent on standby to "assist with the investigation", and turn it into a federal matter. Once that happens, any protection provided by the state is out the window.




How Do They Determine Who Is Carrying Cash on the Road?

Most people do not carry thousands of dollars in cash with them while driving, even when on road trips. How do the cops magically know who to stop?

They usually don't know for certain, but they have their ways to deduce this at a good clip. First off, they almost always target vehicles with out-of-state license plates. Why? Locals aren't as likely to be traveling on highways with a lot of cash. However, people from out of the area are far more likely to be doing so, whether it's because they're driving to or from a gambling venue, driving to buy something expensive, or moving. They will manufacture a false reason to pull people over (often falsely claiming the driver was speeding for failed to use a turn signal), and ask questions of the driver. If the driver admits to having thousands in cash, they will almost always seize it. If the driver does not admit to having cash, they will still sometimes search the vehicle, utilizing a drug sniffing dog to find the hidden cash.

In a few cases, they will get a tip. In one case, a casino (Harrah's Joliet) was so mad at two casino advantage players who had beaten them, that they tipped off police across the country that these two guys would be carrying a lot of cash, and they were stopped in Iowa, with their entire $120k seized. The casino reported 4 other players two weeks later, one of whom got $400k seized by a different department in Arizona.

Roadside seizures of less than $2,000 are rare. There is a certain legal burden the government takes on, so amounts under $2k are usually seen as not worth it.




What About Airports?

Civil forfeiture is common at airports, as well, especially involving international travel.

Airports already have federal customs agents present 24 hours a day, and the FBI is never far away. In some cases, the civil forfeiture operations at airports are strictly done by the federal government. In other cases, it's a combination of local and federal authorities working together to steal money of landing airline passengers.

In 2006, Gina Fiore and Keith Gipson, both of whom were combination poker pros and casino advantage players, had $97k seized at Atlanta airport, when on the way back to Las Vegas from Puerto Rico. They eventually recovered the funds, but it was a tremendous hassle, and it took a good deal of time. In their case, the federal agent who seized the money actually falsified documents in order to justify keeping it, and he never suffered any consequence for it!

Federal agents have also been targeting flights from the Pokerstars PCA in the Bahamas, which took place every January for many years, and now has returned for 2023. After realizing that many on these flights will be carrying a lot of cash, customs started pulling a lot of people aside, inspecting their luggage and carryons, and seizing all cash. It is very important to travel with less than $2000 cash if returning from the PCA, as this is the most commonly targeted group of flights for civil forfeiture.



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