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:
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