Feds Steal $16,000 From Innocent Man On Train, Because, Well, He Shouldn’t Be Carrying That Much 

It apparently is no longer safe to carry large sums of cash with you when you travel in America.

Joseph Rivers learned this lesson the hard way when the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) took his entire life’s savings — $16,000 — while he was riding on an Amtrak train in April to Los Angeles. The 22 year old is an aspiring music video producer.

Like many drivers, Rivers was never arrested or charged with a crime. Instead, DEA agents used civil asset forfeiture law to seize the cash he was carrying on a passenger train he had boarded in Michigan. Agents entered the train in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The agents took the cash after asking Rivers a series of questions. When he told them he was going to Los Angeles to make a music video, the agents asked for permission to search his luggage, which was granted. The DEA found the cash and seized it.

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Police Seize $63,530 From Veteran Because He Kept It In Grocery Bags 

Simply carrying a large amount of cash in a grocery sack in your car is now sufficient grounds for a police officer to seize your money, a US circuit court has ruled. A panel of the Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals found that all a deputy has to do to seize cash from a person is say it is drug money.

The court refused to return the $63,530 that Deputy Dave Wintle seized from a disabled veteran named Mark A. Brewer during a traffic stop in 2011. Brewer was never charged with a crime or even given a traffic ticket. Yet the decorated Air Force veteran lost his savings when a drug-sniffing dog smelled marijuana on it, even though no cannabis was found in Brewer’s car or his home.

Brewer saved the money from disability payments and his Air Force pay — as documents deputies found in the car indicated. He said he was traveling to Los Angeles to visit his uncle and to use the money as a down payment for a house. He added he was hoping his uncle could help him get a job there.

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