Federal officials are using their authority to confiscate drug-related cash to seize money from people whose actions don’t rise to the level of criminal charges, according to a new government report.
Justice Department auditors reviewed 100 instances of civil asset forfeiture, a policy that allows law enforcement officers to seize cash from people suspected of carrying the money in connection with the drug trade. But fifty-six of the seizures did not relate verifiably to ongoing investigations or lead to arrests or prosecutions, the inspector general noted.
“When seizure and administrative forfeitures do not ultimately advance an investigation or prosecution, law enforcement creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that it is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution,” the IG report said. “[T]he risks to civil liberties are particularly significant when seizures that do not advance or relate to an investigation are conducted without a court-issued seizure warrant, the presence of illicit narcotics, or subsequent judicial involvement prior to administrative forfeiture.”
Civil liberties activists who accuse officials of “policing for profit” pounced on the findings. “This report only further confirms what we have been saying all along: Forfeiture laws create perverse financial incentives to seize property without judicial oversight and violate due process,” Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Darpana Sheth said Wednesday.
Although the report faulted the Drug Enforcement Agency and other law enforcement for making the seizures, the inspector general noted they weren’t entirely without basis. In some cases, drug-sniffing dogs detected “the presence of narcotics residue on currency.”
Even evidence of a crime didn’t always lead to an investigation, however. In one case involving $70,460 seized at an airport, the DEA made minimal effort to pursue the case.
“[W]hen the DEA used its seizure and administrative forfeiture authority without even attempting to investigate or advance an investigation, the DEA and its state and local partners risked creating the appearance that they are more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing a potential criminal investigation,” the report said.
Such incidents violate federal policy, according to the IG. “Even though the DEA does not have a policy explicitly detailing the extent to which its agents should conduct an investigation following all cash seizures, the DEA Agents Manual states that seizure of any asset is to be viewed as ‘an action that takes place incident to a major drug investigation,'” the report emphasized. “Therefore, we believe that the lack of investigative follow-up in the scenario documented above was inconsistent with the intent of DEA policy governing asset seizure and forfeiture.”
