Are bogus “fraud” and SUA civil forfeiture cases the latest federal forfeiture racket?

(c) 2014 Brenda Grantland
Truth and Justice Blog, 5/5/2014

In the past few years I’ve seen a lot of bank account seizures based on the allegations that the money was “traceable proceeds” of fraud – or proceeds of Specified Unlawful Activity (“SUA”) 1/– without any criminal charges  being filed against the property owner.

In many such cases we have successfully resolved the forfeiture case – and my clients have gotten back most if not all of the money – without any criminal charges ever being filed. How did we do it? It required diligent investigation, aggressive pursuit of discovery, research, and a great deal of effort, but often in the end I found the government just didn’t have a case.

With fraud and white collar crime being such a big problem in the U.S. today, why would the government seize a bank account for forfeiture based on a fraud or SUA proceeds theory and not prosecute the property owner with the underlying crime?

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