Police Seize $100,000 From Southwest Passenger At Dallas Airport, Claim It’s Illegal To Carry That Much Cash
It's not illegal . .
by Gary Leff on December 11, 2021
A woman traveling through Dallas Love Field had $100,000 seized by Dallas police. She wasn’t charged with any crime, but the money is being taken from her. The Dallas Police Department mistakenly claimed that it’s illegal to carry more than $10,000 cash on a domestic flight without declaring it first.
Many people know that you have to declare when you’re bringing over $10,000 in cash into the country. Few people realize you need to declare when you’re carrying over $10,000 out of the country let alone would have any idea how to go about doing that since that U.S. still doesn’t have exit lines for immigration and customs.
You can find a customs officer at your international departure airport
Or complete FinCen form 105 online, especially important if you’re flying out of an airport like Washington National which has international flights but no customs facility. (International flights returning to the airport are limited to destinations with US immigration preclearance, and also are subject to the 1250 mile perimeter rule in any case.)
But there is no restriction whatsoever on carrying cash domestically – other than when you do it you might get mugged. By the government.
“[I]t’s absolutely legal to travel with any amount of money domestically,” said Dan Alban, a senior attorney with Institute for Justice. “But, unfortunately, both TSA and DEA have policies that treat what they consider to be large amounts of money as presumptively suspicious and indicative of criminal activity.”
…“Yeah, it’s not, it’s not. And that’s why I said it’s allowed. But again, when it’s in the screening checkpoint, again, like I said, if there is a large amount of cash, or if the way that it’s packaged, it looks strange, then we’re going to contact law enforcement,” [TSA spokesperson Mark] Howell responded.
Over the period 2007–2016 the DEA seized a total of $3.2 billion in cash with “zero convictions tied to this money.”
More on the horrible practice of civil asset forfeiture:
Ineptocracy
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.