• grue@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Of course Yahoo buried the lede:

    While the searches may not be popular, they’re certainly profitable.

    Clayton County records and federal documents show that drug agents find large amounts of cash on passengers at departing gates rather than drugs. Agents have seized millions of dollars, and while travelers aren’t arrested, their money is often administratively forfeited.

    Like most civil forfeiture cases, people who have their money taken must prove in court that their money isn’t connected to drug trafficking or other illegal activity. Seizures like these don’t just happen at the Atlanta airport. They’ve taken place at airports across the country.

    • anemoia_one@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 year ago

      must prove in court that their money isn’t connected to drug trafficking or other illegal activity

      Ah yes, the cornerstone of US law, “guilty until proven innocent”

      • pedro@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Generally I would agree with you on that but here aren’t they already guilty of moving large cash amounts without any sort of authorization? (I don’t know if it’s legal or not to transport that much cash in the US)

        • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          If it’s your money you can do whatever the hell you want with it. I think title 31 regulates if you are moving money for other people/money laundry, etc

        • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Are there rules in some countries about not being allowed to carry as much cash as you want/need? That seems very strange to me as a US citizen. Is it because you might use it for drugs/other off the books transactions? or just because it’s dangerous and you might get robbed?

          • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s rules about crossing borders, with the intent of curbing tax evasion and money laundering. But even then it’s mostly an obligation to report.

          • pedro@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            In France it is illegal to have more than 10k€ on your person. So moving large sum of cash is illegal but there might be a way to have a proper authorization to do so?

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s perfectly legal in the US to carry any amount of cash, but …… asset forfeiture has turned into a situation where if police assume it was used for a crime, they can steal it from you without actually proving there was a crime committed.

          While I can see that in a lot of cases large amounts of cash are related to crimes, there are also plenty of cases where that’s not true. More importantly it’s a workaround for your Constitutional protections that should be illegal as hell

    • renlok@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      How is this allowed in US, it’s what you might expect from a police force in a third world country