Via Lew Rockwell, the story of a NJ businessmen traveling home with a large amount of cash from a car he had sold on Ebay:
In Tennessee, forfeiture proceedings are conducted ex parte, which means that the judge only heard the thief's side of the story. Reby didn't learn about the hearing until well after the fact — and if he hadn't gone to the media, it's likely he would have lost his money permanently. He had to travel back to Tennessee in order to get a check that was reluctantly written by a police department that refused to apologize for robbing him at gunpoint.
Spectacles of this kind are common on Interstate 40 in Tennessee, where officers from two drug task forces prowl the highway in search of cash they can seize through civil asset forfeiture.
Kim Helper, District Attorney for Tennessee's 21st Judicial District, insists that the highway robbery scheme is "a way for us to continue to fund our operations so that we can put an end to drug trafficking and the drug trade within this district." Of course, those two objectives — "continued funding" and "an end to drug trafficking" — are mutually incompatible.
By the way, this guy was from the Monterrey Police Department, trolling on I-40 in case you're coming through that way. Want some irony? Larry Bates was awarded
Officer of the Year. Maybe he was bringin' home the bacon:
Oh and did I mention that cops are paid out of the loot?
As Nashville's CBS affiliate reported last year, the salaries paid to the officers involved in this highway robbery ring are paid directly out of the cash and other assets seized by them; this means that police often find themselves competing to stop and shake down the same cars, sometimes nearly coming to blows in the process.
You see if you have cash at all, it
could have been obtained from selling drugs. That makes you suspicious. Never-mind that
Wachovia was caught red-handed laundering drug money through Miami and got a slap on the wrist. If you wanted to stop narcotics trafficking, you'd attempt to stop it at the source by following the money back. There is billions and billions in drug money coming across the border. That's a lot of briefcases {eyeroll}. It's being deposited into the Fed Cartel banks like Wachovia and probably propping them up more than any of us realize.
When Gary Webb broke the story that the CIA was responsible for introducing crack to America, he swiftly became depressed and committed suicide by shooting himself twice.
According to the
Russian Navosti:
Drug money has become a necessary part of the international monetary system and one of the sources of the financial crisis. The world's largest banks depend on "dirty" but liquid money from drug sales and indirectly encourage the further production of drugs.
Anyone remember when California was going to legalize pot and that Russian big wig came over and said, that's a really, really bad idea. This is because the governments/central banks of the worlds are dependent on drug money and its liquidity to keep themselves propped up.
For your viewing pleasure, check out
the Mena Connection- Clinton, CIA, and drugs all rolled up together.
But the point of this post is to beware how we have a separate standards for people wearing a uniform that leads to predatory behavior. We also are seeing a war on cash. Possession of cash = possession of narcotics.