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DEA Strikes Again: Seize Man's Life Savings Under Civil Asset Forfeiture Without Charges
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
All the money – $16,000 in cash – that Joseph Rivers said he had saved and relatives had given him to launch his dream in Hollywood is gone, seized during his trip out West not by thieves but by Drug Enforcement Administration agents during a stop at the Amtrak train station in Albuquerque.
Rivers, 22, wasn’t detained and has not been charged with any crime since his money was taken last month.
That doesn’t matter. Under a federal law enforcement tool called civil asset forfeiture, he need never be arrested or convicted of a crime for the government to take away his cash, cars or property – and keep it.
Rivers was left penniless, his dream deferred.
From the Albuquerque Journal article: DEA to Traveler: Thanks, I’ll Take That Cash
In the “land of the free” you might be innocent until proven guilty, but your assets aren’t.
In one of the most uncivilized and preposterous loopholes in America, federal agents are allowed to steal citizens’ assets; cars, cash, even homes, based on suspicion alone. I’ve covered this barbaric and backward practice on many occasions, but here’s a quick refresher from the first post I wrote on the subject in 2013, Why You Should Never, Ever Drive Through Tenaha, Texas:
In a nutshell, civil forfeiture is the practice of confiscating items from people, ranging from cash, cars, even homes based on no criminal conviction or charges, merely suspicion. This practice first became widespread for use against pirates, as a way to take possession of contraband goods despite the fact that the ships’ owners in many cases were located thousands of miles away and couldn’t easily be prosecuted. As is often the case, what starts out reasonable becomes a gigantic organized crime ring of criminality, particularly in a society where the rule of law no longer exists for the “elite,” yet anything goes when it comes to pillaging the average citizen.
One of the major reasons these programs have become so abused is that the police departments themselves are able to keep much of the confiscated money. So they actually have a perverse incentive to steal. As might be expected, a program that is often touted as being effective against going after major drug kingpins, actually targets the poor and disenfranchised more than anything else.
Fortunately, civil asset forfeiture became a major issue last year, and while many states are moving to halt or crack down on the practice, this apparently doesn’t stop federal agents from continuing to ruin people’s lives. In today’s post, the culprits are DEA agents, recently best known for using drug cartel and taxpayer money to pay for orgies with prostitutes, as well as wrongfully locking up a California student for days without food and water until he had to drink his own urine to survive.
If those stories weren’t sufficient to convince you that the war on drugs is a useless fraud, perhaps the following will. From the Albuquerque Journal:
Maybe he should have taken traveler’s checks.
But it’s too late for that now. All the money – $16,000 in cash – that Joseph Rivers said he had saved and relatives had given him to launch his dream in Hollywood is gone, seized during his trip out West not by thieves but by Drug Enforcement Administration agents during a stop at the Amtrak train station in Albuquerque.
An incident some might argue is still theft, just with the government’s blessing.
Rivers, 22, wasn’t detained and has not been charged with any crime since his money was taken last month.
That doesn’t matter. Under a federal law enforcement tool called civil asset forfeiture, he need never be arrested or convicted of a crime for the government to take away his cash, cars or property – and keep it.
Agencies like the DEA can confiscate money or property if they have a hunch, a suspicion, a notion that maybe, possibly, perhaps the items are connected with narcotics. Or something else illegal.
The most amazing part is that any society can be stupid and passive enough to allow this policy to persist.
Or maybe the fact that the person holding a bunch of cash is a young black man is good enough.
It happened, Rivers said, to him on April 15 as he was traveling on Amtrak from Dearborn, Mich., near his hometown of Romulus, Mich., to Los Angeles to fulfill his dream of making a music video. Rivers, in an email, said he had saved his money for years, and his mother and other relatives scraped together the rest of the $16,000.
Rivers said he carried his savings in cash because he has had problems in the past with taking out large sums of money from out-of-state banks.
A DEA agent boarded the train at the Albuquerque Amtrak station and began asking various passengers, including Rivers, where they were going and why. When Rivers replied that he was headed to LA to make a music video, the agent asked to search his bags. Rivers complied.
Rivers was the only passenger singled out for a search by DEA agents – and the only black person on his portion of the train, Pancer said.
Rivers was left penniless, his dream deferred.
Other travelers had witnessed what happened. One of them, a New Mexico man I’ve written about before but who asked that I not mention his name, provided a way for Rivers to get home, contacted attorneys – and me.
Sean Waite, the agent in charge for the DEA in Albuquerque, said he could not comment on the Rivers case because it is ongoing. He disputed allegations that Rivers was targeted because of his race.
Waite said that in general DEA agents look for “indicators” such as whether the person bought an expensive one-way ticket with cash, if the person is traveling from or to a city known as a hot spot for drug activity, if the person’s story has inconsistencies or if the large sums of money found could have been transported by more conventional means.
“We don’t have to prove that the person is guilty,” Waite said. “It’s that the money is presumed to be guilty.”
Again, what kind of idiotic civilization conducts its business like this?
DEA agents may choose to ask the person whether his or her possessions can be searched in what is called a “consensual encounter.” If the subject refuses, the bags – but not the person – can be held until a search warrant is obtained, he said.
Waite said that he could not provide exact figures on how often seizures occur in Albuquerque but that last week the DEA had five “consensual encounters” that resulted in seizures.
Whatever is seized is held during an internal administrative process (read: not public) while a case is made to connect the property to narcotics. Subjects can file a claim to have the items returned – and then they wait, sometimes forever.
This is not what freedom looks like.
While travelers like Rivers still have to worry about DEA agents, state and local law enforcement in New Mexico no longer has these virtually unlimited seizure powers. Five days before Rivers’ encounter in Albuquerque, Gov. Susana Martinez signed into law a bill that bars state and local law enforcement from seizing money or property under civil asset forfeiture. The law takes effect in July.
But the new state law won’t supersede the federal law, meaning federal agencies such as the DEA are still free to take your cash on arguably the flimsiest of legal grounds.
Drugs are everywhere. The “war on drugs” has been a monumental failure that has achieved absolutely nothing other than erode the civil liberties of average Americans, and provide an efficient avenue for police and federal agent to steal citizens’ hard earned assets with no due process. It’s long past time to put an end to the war on drugs, civil asset forfeiture and the DEA.
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Uks Cameron just said obeying the law isnt enough for them to leave you alone...when the Potus says you didnt earn that by yourself he was telling us they will always have a piece of the action just like the protection racket of the 20s....and when he said ..everybody has some skin in this..he was telling us it will come out of our hides...make no mistake about that. Its already here on both sides of the Atlantic.
“What is the difference between law enforcement and a pick pocket [or organized crime]? None.”
So says “cherry picker”, at 19:21.
I disagree: they are as different as day and night. One operates during daylight hours… the other at night.
Also, one has the power of taxation behind it, and a bunch of stupid sheeps who trot into voting booths to volunteer a 'mandate'. (Albeit, that second group is dwindling, but not quick enough. What if they had an election, and nobody came?)
“What is the difference between law enforcement and a pick pocket [or organized crime]? None.”
There is one very important difference. I can shoot the pickpocket and m ost likely not be charged with a crime.
Blue heroes? They can do whatever they want and if you dare attempt to defend yourself, you will be killed. If not by the responding officer, by the backups that show up shortly thereafter.
If you're some kind of Rambo and manage to defend yourself from the first wave, the next wave will be much larger and better armed and they will keep sending subsequent waves until you are extinguished.
A lone individual has no chance against the blue heroes.
t's going to take an organized response that works like a jetty to break up the waves before they reach the shore.
Those pretty $100 bills are TRACEABLE - the government thieves did not just HAPPEN to approach this young man by LUCK - they scanned for the $$$ and then tracked him down and stole the $$$ and split it....
... if the person is traveling from or to a city known as a hot spot for drug activity ...
Is there any US city that isn't a hot spot for drug activity?
His 'crime' was not keeping the money in a bank. Part of the ongoing push to outlaw cash.
Time to leave the United States of Theft
It's already too late for many; Uncle G™ now charges $2350 Federal Reserve Notes to renounce citizenship from this bitch. But that is a bargin compared to what it will be in the future, when shit gets worse.
Ha! Where exactly do you think you can go to escape the reach of the NSA/CIA/DIA/USMil/Bank/....?
Yea, blacks should leave America and move to any one of the glorious, first world, peaceful black majority nations where they can finally be free of racism and oppression.
Oh.....wait....
A Sweet Little Bullet From A Pretty Blue Gun ~ Tom Waits ~ Live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch6x9iHlVHU
.
to hollywood with 16 grand to make a music video,
with all due sympathies and respect,
wake the fuck up. we have to wake up.
.
"..wind up on wilcox ave., there is a pimp feeding ice cream
to a dog. its, oh how the mighty have fallen. ..." t.w.
Blue Valentine
A Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun
. waits .. story about hollywood blvd. ....america
.
when it's raining it's pouring
you didn't bring a sweater baby
now Nebraska will never let you come back home
go down on Hollywood and Vine
by the a Thrifty Mart sign
any night well I'll be willin to bet
you'll see some young girl
she got sweet little dreams and pretty blue wishes
she be standin there all night gettin all wet
but you know there's a place you can go off the drag
they call it the Gilbert Hotel
and there's a couple letters
burned out in the sign
and it's better than a bus stop
they do a good business every time it rains
for little girls with nothing in their jeans
but sweet little wishes and pretty blue dreams
and its raining its pouring
the old man is snoring
now I lay me down to sleep
I hear the sirens in the street
all my dreams are made of chrome
I have no way to get back home
I'd rather die before I wake
just like Marilyn Monroe
and you could throw my dreams out in the street
and let the rain make 'em grow ....
well the night clerk he got a club foot
he's heard every hard luck story
at least a hundred times maybe more
he says check out time is 10 am
and that's just what it means
go on up the stairs
with your sweet little wishes and pretty blue dreams
and it's raining its pouring
and Hollywood's just fine
you gotta swindle a little girl out of her dreams
another letter in the sign
now never trust a scarecrow wearin' shades after dark
be careful of that old bow tie he wears
all it takes a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun
to put those scarlet ribbons in your hair ....
no that ain't no cherry bomb baby
fourth of July's all done
just some fool playin that second line
from the barrel of a pretty blue gun
o that ain't no cherry bomb baby
fourth of July's was a long time ago
just some fool playin that second line
from the barrel of a pretty blue gun.
"seized during his trip out West not by thieves but by Drug Enforcement Administration agents during a stop"
If your premise is faulty so is your conclusion.
I say dea agents are thieves.
Here's my precious metal. <bang> <bang> <bang>.
Do you want some more?!?
Yes mother fucker you do have to prove something. I will not comply with your unconstitutional bullshit....
Maybe this guy will grow up to be Ted Kyczkynski, V2.0. Someobody with a hard on for .govbots.
Nazi Germany all over again!
Actually, the United Soviet Socialist America - picked out of the Russian junk pile as an amazing find by a very Kosher Krew.
This suks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like old viewers know, this happende to me about 7 years ago in Melbore=ne FL.
The fuker stold my rental car and all of our money and could not care less that we sat in the median drinking beer for an hour until we called a taxi to bring us to a hotel....................
The dude found a script for my wife who was on the ohter side of FL and said that was narcotics and they ahd the rite!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was not narcotics but blood preasure meds but did not matter.............
They kept running up the price for relaease of the car the next day until I told them to keep the fuker............
It cost me 800 but the jerks in Melrose only got 100................
Be careful when driving thru there... They will take every thing you owne for no reaso but that you have a rental car..............
They fuking suk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd never travel with that much cash on me, even if LE WASN'T stealing it. It's just too risky. There are other ways to move your money. Large sums on your person is just asking for tragedy and grief.
If I HAD to move a large sum like that, I'd convert it to plain, unattractive, heavy gold jewelry, a belt buckle, cigarette case, shit like that. Monogrammed. Bulky, ugly, utilitarian shit unlikely to tempt anyone. Give it a brown glaze, make it look like brass, or enamel it in colors to disguise it...99% of LE wouldn't recognize gold unless it was obvious.
It would probably be easier to get personalized items back than to get cash after it's been lifted by LE. And though you lose some in the conversion, at least you get most of it safely through.
But cash? No, it's just too tempting for someone to take, too easily spent after taking it. Too difficult to trace. And while they might make some type of case against the origins of the cash in your wallet, it's far more difficult and problematic to argue that your jewelry, especially if it's personalized, is 'contraband'.
<<it's far more difficult and problematic to argue that your jewelry, especially if it's personalized, is 'contraband'>>
Turns out the Indians, that old culture, know a thing or two.
Good people dont steal. They dont read other peoples mail. They dont go out of thier way to hurt people.
Its basic stuff.
Just a guess. Something tells me they knew he had cash. They only searched the guy with the cash? That aint luck.
This shit is not a psyop. It's just legalized theft on a grand scale. Has nothing to do with banksters. Fucking LEOs and prosecutors are abusing 1970s and forward anti-drug/anti-crime laws enacted by Congress and blessed multiple times by those SCOTUS fucks. Fuckers are filling their own coffers with stolen goods. It's fucking out of control, but calling it a psyop makes it sound less evil and harmful than it is. One more reason for people not to take this shit seriously; they don't want to feel a conspiracy kook.
16k to make a ''music'' video.
let me guess it was a video about gang banging, rap and bashing your women with a 6 pack.
Rivers sounds like a nigga name. Bet he wasn't WHITE.
I thought the federales put that form of mining on hold?
Sure are a lot of gullible white people in this thread. I envy the fact that you've never lived in a black neighborhood or had to actually deal with real black people. Good for you. But you are not qualified to speak on this subject. Please refrain from doing so as you are only embarrassing us all.
Get your head out of your ass before you bite it off.
Nancy Jane Barbie Bibi.
Give it away
God wins.
Again.
General Mayhem wins.
Team of thieves. Bit it off when the larums sounded. So sorry.
Please send more ammo.
My Crimes Against the American People List (CAAPL), treason list, just got longer.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Article 3, Section 3 is the flip side of their oaths.