We know about this all too well as poker players. Basically the government likes to target "criminal" organizations with a lot of money or assets, and seize what they have.
That's fine for actual criminal organizations, such as drug dealers, but of course the government has decided to start abusing this and seeks to seize based upon likely financial gain, rather than guilt.
They went after a $2 million motel in Massachusetts, simply because there had been just 15 arrests there (none involving staff or ownership) over the entire life of the motel.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...-his-property/
But when Caswell’s lawyer asked Vincent Kelley, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, to explain how he picked certain properties to seize, that’s when the motel owner said he knew ”what the case was really about.”
The DEA agent revealed that their process included seeking out places that were linked to drug arrests, but they would only try to seize properties that had at least $50,000 in equity
Local police departments can evade state forfeiture laws by utilizing federal civil forfeiture laws, which allows law enforcement to simply take property from people without charging them with a crime. It is expensive and time consuming to get your property back, and many people simply don't have the resources to fight it.
A process known as equitable sharing allows state and federal governments to share the profits from these seizures. This gives incentive to local police departments to do the following:
1) Find targets for seizure which will net a lot of money through sale
2) Trump up some BS reason to make a civil forfeiture
3) Bring in federal agents to help with the seizure, thus allowing federal civil forfeiture laws to take precedent over any local or state laws protecting citizens
4) Local, state, and federal governments share the profits!
This is all very real, and not at all a conspiracy theory.
Recently, two poker players driving in Iowa had their $100,000 poker bankrolls seized during a bogus traffic stop, where no arrests were made, and it was later proven that the reason for stopping them was false. Not sure if this was done through equitable sharing, but it's pretty much the same crap either way.
Equitable sharing payments skyrocketed under Eric Holder's tenure at the DOJ...
... but this process has been in place since 1984, so Holder didn't invent it.
This really has to stop.