[Zedicus]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&e=1&u=/ap/20031002/ap_on_re_eu/britain_canine_cash

LONDON - A real pound pooch trained by police to sniff out banknotes helped authorities confiscate more than $39,000 in cash Thursday from a man at a London train station.



The dog, one of 25 trained by British police to detect the scent of ink in bank notes, singled out a man carrying the 23,900 in British pounds at the Euston train station, authorities said.


The man — whose identity has not been released — allegedly could not explain why he had the money. He was released but the cash was confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.


The effort was part of Operation Payback, a four-year program between police and Customs officials designed to attack the proceeds of crime by impounding illegal cash and assets.


Since the Proceeds of Crime Act took effect in December, police have confiscated more than $60.1 million.


Now it is leagal for the police to confenscate (steal) peoples money if they think they have to much with them...?
Talk about sinking to a new Low....

I guess I had better be weary about the strange looks I get whenever I withdraw more than £200 at the bank then......:scrutiny:

[keederdag]

from what I understand, at least, The only good thing is that the coppers can only beat you about the head for having too much money on your person. Our customs people can shoot you!:)

[jsalcedo]

Cops in the US arrest money all the time.

You had better have some kind of reciept if you carry more than $1000
or you may have to pay a bunch of legal fees to get any of it back.

I have read many a horror story about peoples life savings being confiscated under suspiscion of being drug money.

[P95Carry]

Maybe some of the table guys at gun shows better watch out ..... some of the rolls of Dollars I see suggest many thousands!!:p :D

[MicroBalrog]

The man — whose identity has not been released — allegedly could not explain why he had the money. He was released but the cash was confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Huh? But how do they know it was earned in a criminal fashion?:confused: :barf:

[Mr. Bombastic]

Guilty until proven guilty.

[Standing Wolf]

But how do they know it was earned in a criminal fashion?

They don't, but they don't need to in the U.K.

[Bill Hook]

Apparently, in the UK, if you have any cash left after the government gets through with you, it's suspicious. ;)

[Snake Eyes]

They don't, but they don't need to in the U.K.
They don't need to in the USA, either.

My attorney tells me that just about any semi-large quantity of bills will produce a "hit" from a drug dog. Therefore, your money must be the proceeds of a drug trafficing transaction. You lose.

Talk to a defense attorney sometime about it. You'll be scared poopless.

[Bill Hook]

Didn't someone find that 98%, or some such figure, of currency has traces of drugs on it?

I'd say that rather than trying to stop drug transactions, the govt. wants to force you to utilize more easily tracked methods of transaction.

[tyme]

Countries with semi-modern banking systems hate people who carry around cash, because it destroys their ability to track money. Cash allows people to cheat the IRS, and it allows transactions that are invisible to the Treasury's OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Control, they're the people who go after foreign funds with suspected ties to crime). If you want to see if your banking transactions are/will be flagged, you can look at the SDN (specially-designated nationals) list:

http://www.treas.gov/offices/eotffc/ofac/sdn/

If a name is on the list, and the "terrorist" listed doesn't have resident address or citizenship, anyone with that name is out of luck every time s/he tries a financial transaction with an institution using the SDN list (which includes every bank and some other entities as well - some insurance companies, for instance). Because they have no way of determining that someone with a name on the list is not the terrorist -- if there's not much info on the terrorist -- those people are just out of luck.

The really delightful thing is that a Mr. Jouke Van Der Zee from Syfact cited a figure - 90% of money laundering detection system alerts are false positives. (From the 2002-10-28 ABA seminar on money laundering prevention c-span videoclip at about 2:11:45 of part 2)

Related links...
Money laundering:
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/eotffc/ofac/
http://www.fincen.gov/
http://www.citigroup.com/citigroup/citizen/antimoneylaundering/
http://www.bankofamerica.com/investor/laundering.cfm

A few behavior/pattern analysis companies:
http://www.mantas.com/
http://www.syfact.com/
http://www.searchspace.com/products/index.shtml

Digital Cash:
http://www.wired.com/news/exec/0,1370,44507,00.html
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/emoney.html
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/bearer_contracts.html
http://munitions2.xs4all.nl/documents/cyphernomicon/12.html

[Orthonym]

I thought the trigger amount in the US was $10,000. ---- That being the size of transaction required to be reported to the Treasury JBTs.

Another point: In America we're afraid of dog-sniffable drug traces on bills; am I correct in inferring that the UK pigdogs have been trained to alert their handlers to the particular individual unmistakeable unique smell of banknote ink ?:what:

[C.R.Sam]

Guilty until you have the time and money to prove your innocense.
Sucks.

Sam

[Orthonym]

Can someone, anyone tell me why a human being should be deprived of his liberty for a time as long as a tenth of a second because of something that happened IN THE MIND OF A DOG?:cuss: :what: :fire: :barf:

[Bill Hook]

Well, the dog isn't biased, so it isn't like a human, who just may not like the way you look. Dog is acting stimulus/response.

Blame the humans who conditioned the dog to respond to a stimulus whose basis for criminalization is quite questionable.

Would you object to a bomb/drug sniffing machine causing your detention? As it stands, dogs are more reliable.

[Orthonym]

I've met dogs who just didn't like the way I looked/smelled, and vice versa. I mind a certain dachshund I would have been very happy to drop-kick the first time I met the worthless son of a bitch. I'm sure he felt just the same about me. And then there are (ugh) Yorkshire terriers.

[c_yeager]

I believe that a number of our own (american) sniffers are indeed trained to alert to the smell of cash.

[MicroBalrog]

Would you object to a bomb/drug sniffing machine causing your detention?

Yes.

[greyhound]

I thought the trigger amount in the US was $10,000. ---- That being the size of transaction required to be reported to the Treasury JBTs.

Yep its called the CTR (Currency Transaction Report) and they will take your ID and SS# and record on whose behalf you are making the transaction. (You can get an exemption if you are a business who regularly deposits over $10,000 in cash).

And, oh yeah, trying to get around the CTR by visiting different branches, spacing deposits out over a few days, etc, is illegal.....