Asset Forfeiture
The ultimate financial siege: seizing the gains before the trial even begins.
via Wikipedia: Asset forfeiture · see source
Asset forfeiture is a form of confiscation of assets by the authorities. In the United States, it is a type of criminal-justice financial obligation. It typically applies to the alleged proceeds or instruments of crime, including but not limited to terrorist activities, drug-related crimes, and other criminal and even civil offenses. The alleged purpose is to disrupt criminal activity by confiscating assets that potentially could have been beneficial to the individual or organization. Asset forfeiture was found to generally increase with the percentage of the assets retained depending on electoral incentives.
Quick Facts
- Primary users
- U.S. Department of Justice
- FBI
- SEC
- Legal basis
- Proceeds of Crime statutes
Lore & Background
In the United States, there are two types of forfeiture cases: criminal and civil. Approximately half of all forfeiture cases practiced today are civil, although many of those are filed in parallel to a related criminal case. In civil forfeiture cases, the US government sues the item of property, not the person; the owner is effectively a third-party claimant. The burden is on the government to establish that the property is subject to forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence.
If it is successful, the owner may yet prevail by establishing an 'innocent owner' defense. In contrast, criminal forfeiture is usually carried out in a sentence following a conviction and is a punitive act against the offender. The United States Marshals Service is responsible for managing and disposing of properties seized and forfeited by Department of Justice agencies, currently managing around $2.4 billion worth of property.
Reader's Guide
Asset forfeiture has been harshly criticized by civil liberties advocates for its greatly reduced standards for conviction, reverse onus, financial conflicts of interests arising when the law enforcement agencies who decide whether or not to seize assets stand to keep those assets for themselves, and violation of separation of powers and due process. In 2015, a number of criminal justice reformers, including Koch family foundations and the ACLU, announced plans to reduce asset forfeiture in the United States due to the disproportionate penalty it places on low-income alleged wrongdoers.
The forfeiture of private property often results in the deprivation of the majority of a person's wealth. Congress has incrementally expanded the government's authority to disrupt and dismantle criminal enterprises and their money-laundering activities since the early 1970s by enacting various anti-money-laundering and forfeiture laws such as the RICO Act of 1970 and the USA Patriot Act of 2001.
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