Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the reality of airport cash seizures - not the sanitized version government agencies present, not the procedural fiction that makes this sound fair, but the actual truth about what happens when federal agents take your money and walk away without arresting you.
Heres the thing most people dont understand until its too late. When DEA, CBP, or Homeland Security seizes your cash at an airport, they dont charge YOU with a crime. They charge your money. The case literally gets named something like "United States v. $47,000 in U.S. Currency" - your property becomes the defendant, and property has no constitutional rights. This flips everything you think you know about American justice. You're not innocent until proven guilty. Your money is guilty until you prove its innocent.
And you have exactly 35 days to figure this out before you lose everything.
Your Money Is The Defendant And It Cant Hire A Lawyer
The legal term is "in rem" proceeding - Latin for "against the thing." This isnt semantic games. Its the foundation of how civil asset forfeiture bypasses every protection you thought you had. When the government proceeds against your property rather then you, the Constitution's criminal procedure protections dont apply. No right to appointed counsel. No presumption of innocence. No requirement that the government prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Instead, you get a letter in the mail - if your lucky enough that it arrives at the right address - informing you that your cash has been seized and you have 35 days to file a claim. Miss that deadline? Administrative forfeiture completes automaticaly. Your money becomes government property. No judge reviews it. No appeal exists. Its over.
As Todd Spodek explains to clients facing this nightmare, most people have no idea what hit them until the deadline has passed.
The 35-Day Deadline Nobody Tells You About
Heres were it gets ugly. The seizing agency - whether thats DEA, CBP, or HSI - sends a Notice of Seizure to your "last known address." If you've moved, if the handwriting was illegible when they recorded it, if the mail gets delayed - none of thats there problem. The 35-day clock runs regardless.
What happens if you miss it? Administrative forfeiture. This means the agency that took your money decides weather to keep it. No judge. No court. No adversarial proceeding. The same people who seized your cash evaluate whether the seizure was justified. Sound familiar? It should. Its like asking a fox to investigate who raided the henhouse.
Institute for Justice research found that 93% of airport currency forfeitures were processed without any judicial oversight. Ninety-three percent. Let that sink in. The default isnt "a judge will review this." The default is "the agency keeps your money unless you fight back perfectly within 35 days."
And heres the kicker - most people dont fight back. Not because there guilty. Because the economics are designed to discourage it.
Why 93% Of Seizures Never See A Judge
The numbers tell a story the government doesnt want you to hear.
Between 2022 and 2024, DEA agents seized $22 million in cash from airline passengers. How many arrests? Fifty-seven. Thats $386,000 seized for every single arrest. If the goal was catching criminals, wouldnt the arrest numbers be higher? If the goal was taking cash, the numbers make perfect sense.
A 2017 Justice Department Inspector General report found that DEA seized more then $4 billion over the preceeding decade. Of that amount, $3.2 billion - 80% - was never connected to any criminal charges. Nobody was ever prosecuted. The money just... disappeared into government accounts.
Think about that. $3.2 billion taken from people who were never charged with crimes. Never convicted. Never even formally accused. They just happened to be traveling with cash, and that was enough.
This is not about catching criminals. This is about revenue generation disguised as law enforcement.
The DEA Stopped But The Seizures Didnt
In November 2024, the Justice Department ordered DEA to halt airport searches due to "significant issues" with cash seizures. In January 2025, DEA officialy ended its Transportation Interdiction Program - the decades-long practice of having agents approach passengers at airport gates to conduct "consensual" searches.
Victory for civil liberties, right? Not exactley.
The Department of Homeland Security quietly kept the practice alive. Task forces combining Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, and local police are still flagging suspicious passengers at airports like Dallas-Fort Worth. There still using drug-sniffing dogs to establish probable cause. There still seizing cash from travelers who are never charged with crimes.
The DEA stopped. The seizures continued. They just changed which badge is on the agents uniform.
This matters because different agencies have different procedures, different timelines, and different pressure points. If CBP seized your cash, the rules are slightly different then if DEA took it. If local police "adopted" the seizure into federal forfeiture, you're dealing with the equitable sharing program - which has its own complications.
How Equitable Sharing Turns Local Cops Into Federal Partners
Heres one of the dirtiest secrets in American law enforcement.
Many states have reformed there civil forfeiture laws. Some require criminal convictions before the government can keep seized property. Others have raised the burden of proof or eliminated the practice entirely. These reforms should protect you.
But theres a loophole the size of a jumbo jet: equitable sharing.
Under this federal program, state and local police can partner with federal agencies to seize property under federal law - even if state law prohibits or restricts civil forfeiture. If successful, the federal government kicks back up to 80% of the proceeds to the local department.
In fiscal 2023 alone, the DOJ distributed nearly $474 million in equitable sharing payments. Thats half a billion dollars flowing to local police departments as a reward for federal partnerships.
What does this mean for you? It means that even if your state has strong forfeiture protections, local police can simply call in federal partners and bypass those protections completly. Your state legislature's reforms become meaningless. The federal loophole swallows everything.
A 2014 Washington Post investigation found that $2.5 billion had been seized through equitable sharing since 2001 - all without search warrants or indictments. Only one-sixth of these seizures were ever legally challenged. And when people did challenge? The federal government returned the property 41% of the time. Which tells you something important: nearly half the time someone actually fought back, the government decided they couldnt defend the seizure.
The problem is most people never fight. They dont know they can. They dont know the odds improve dramaticly once a judge gets involved.
The Terrence Rolin Story And What It Teaches
Consider what happened to Terrence Rolin, a 79-year-old retired railroad engineer from Pittsburgh.
His daughter was helping him move his life savings - $82,373 that hed accumulated over decades - to deposit it in a bank. Reasonable enough. Except DEA agents at the Pittsburgh airport saw a large amount of cash and seized it. No arrest. No criminal charges. Just... took it.
Rolin wasnt a drug dealer. He was a retired railroad worker with documentation proving every dollar was legitimate savings. Didnt matter. The money was gone and the administrative forfeiture process began.
Heres the thing - Rolin only got his money back because his case went public. Media attention embarassed the DEA into returning funds they had no legitimate basis to hold. Without that spotlight, without reporters asking uncomfortable questions, Rolin would have been just another statistic. Another elderly person losing there life savings to a system designed to take first and never ask questions later.
Most people dont have access to journalists. Most seizures never make the news. The Rolin case is the exception that proves how broken the rule truley is.
The $5,000 Training Threshold Nobody Mentions
Heres something that might make you reconsider how you travel.
The legal threshold for currency reporting is $10,000. If you're crossing international borders with more then that amount, you're required to declare it. Most travelers know this. What most travelers dont know is that some airports train there interdiction agents to flag amounts far below that threshold.
An investigation by an Atlanta news station revealed that agents working Atlanta's airport were trained to confiscate money from passengers carrying more than $5,000 - regardless of whether there was any evidence of criminal activity. Not $10,000. Five thousand dollars.
Half the legal threshold. For many people, thats an emergency fund. Thats a down payment on a used car. Thats money for a family medical situation. And at certain airports, carrying that amount makes you a target.
The legal justification? Large amounts of cash are "consistent with" drug trafficking. Notice the phrasing. Not "evidence of." Consistent with. Anything can be consistent with anything if you frame it right. Your gym bag is "consistent with" carrying workout clothes to a bank robbery. Your laptop is "consistent with" planning a cyber attack. The logic is circular and thats precisely the point.
What Doesnt Work And Why People Try It Anyway
Travelers who have cash seized often make the same mistakes. Understanding these mistakes wont just help you avoid them - it illuminates how the system is designed to encourage failure.
Mistake one: Calling the seizing agency to explain. This feels natural. You're innocent. You have a perfectly reasonable explanation. Surely if you just tell them where the money came from, they'll realize there mistake and return it.
What actually happens: The agent documents everything you say. Your explanation becomes part of the forfeiture file. If anything you say is inconsistent - even slightly, even because your stressed and misremembering details - that inconsistency becomes evidence of deception. Calling to explain helps them, not you.
Mistake two: Assuming the timeline is reasonable. You figure you'll do some research, maybe talk to a few lawyers, weigh your options carefuly. Theres no rush, right? You'll handle this properly.
In reality: Thirty-five days passes faster then you think, especialy when your emotionally processing what happened. By the time you've done sufficient research, the administrative forfeiture deadline has often passed. The agency filed there paperwork on day one. You were still in shock.
Mistake three: Thinking small amounts arent worth fighting for. If they seized $6,000 and a lawyer costs $5,000, the math seems to say let it go. Cut your losses.
The truth: You've just taught the system that seizures under a certain threshold are risk-free. More importantly, you've lost $6,000 that was rightfully yours. The calculation should include the principle - not just the dollars. And many forfeiture attorneys offer payment structures or contingency arrangements that change the math considerably.
The Economics Are Designed Against You
Lets do the math on a typical airport seizure.
Say you were traveling with $12,000 in cash - maybe for a car purchase, maybe to help family, maybe because you dont trust banks. Legal. Documented. Legitimate. But you looked "suspicious" to an agent, and now that money is gone.
To fight the forfeiture, you'll need a lawyer. Most forfeiture attorneys charge between $5,000 and $10,000 to handle a case through completion. Some charge hourly and it can run higher. Either way, you're looking at spending roughly half of what was seized just to have a chance at getting it back.
And thats assuming you win. If you lose, you've now lost the original $12,000 plus attorney fees.
This isnt an accident. The system is calibrated so that rational economic actors choose not to fight. If your seized amount is under $15,000, the cost-benefit analysis almost always favors walking away. The government understands this. There counting on it.
The seizure amounts are kept strategicly low enough that fighting costs more then surrendering.
What Actually Gets Your Money Back
OK so heres the part nobody tells you - the part that can realy help.
When you file a verified claim for court action, something interesting happens. The clock starts running on the government, not you. Once your claim is filed, the Assistant United States Attorney has exactly 90 days to either return your money or file a formal complaint for forfeiture in federal court.
This creates pressure. Filing formal court complaints takes work. It requires evidence presentation. It invites judicial scrutiny. Most importantly, it means an actual judge will look at whether the seizure was justified.
Many forfeiture cases settle at this stage. The AUSA looks at the file, sees a documented legitimate source for the funds, and decides that defending the seizure in court isnt worth the effort. You get your money back - sometimes all of it, sometimes a negotiated percentage.
But heres the thing - you only get to this point if you file the claim correctly, within the deadline, with proper documentation. Miss any step and you're back to administrative forfeiture. The agency keeps your money. Game over.
Todd Spodek has seen clients recover substantial seizures through this process - but only when they acted quickly enough to preserve there rights.
The verified claim must be sworn under penalty of perjury. This sounds intimidating but its basicaly straightforward if you have legitimate funds. You're stating who you are, that you have an ownership interest in the seized property, and that you're contesting the forfeiture. An experienced attorney knows precisley how to word this document to maximize your chances while minimizing any inadvertant admissions.
Once filed, the dynamic shifts entirely. Suddenly the government has to justify keeping your money to a federal judge. Suddenly there procedures come under scrutiny. Suddenly theyre the ones on a deadline, not you.
The Innocent Owner Defense And How It Works
Federal law provides something called the "innocent owner" defense under 18 USC 983(d). This is your primary legal weapon in civil forfeiture cases. Understanding it is critical.
The defense establishes that an innocent owner's interest in property shall not be forfeited under civil forfeiture statutes. Sounds promising, right? Theres a catch. You have the burden of proving your innocence by a preponderance of evidence. The government doesnt have to prove your guilty. You have to prove your not.
This is the inversion that makes civil forfeiture so problematic. In criminal cases, your innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. In civil forfeiture, your money is guilty until you prove it innocent by a preponderance of evidence. Lower standard, reversed burden. The system is designed this way.
What does "innocent owner" mean in practice? You must demonstrate either that you had no knowledge of the illegal activity that supposedly connected your property to crime, or that upon learning of such activity, you did everything reasonably possible to terminate it.
For most airport seizures, the relevant question is simpler: Was this money from legitimate sources intended for legitimate purposes? Bank statements showing regular deposits. Tax returns documenting income. Purchase agreements for the car you were planning to buy. Receipts from the business deal you were conducting. This is the evidence that proves innocence.
The government may argue that large cash amounts are "consistent with" drug activity. Your evidence demonstrates they're actualy consistent with something else entirely - saving money, conducting legitimate business, helping family members. When you have documentation, the governments speculation starts looking weak.
The First 48 Hours Matter Most
If your cash was seized at an airport today, heres what you need to do:
Do NOT call the seizing agency to "explain." Anything you say can and will be used to justify the seizure. That helpful agent who offers to "work with you" is building the government's case, not yours.
Do NOT wait to see what happens. Every day that passes is a day closer to the 35-day deadline. You cannot assume you'll receive proper notice. You cannot assume the process will be fair.
Do NOT sign anything without reading it completely. If you already signed form 4607, know that a verified claim can potentially invalidate it - but only if filed in time.
Document the legitimate source of your funds immediately. Bank records, tax returns, receipts, contracts - anything that proves where the money came from and what it was for. The burden is on you to prove innocence, so start building that case now.
Call a forfeiture attorney. At Spodek Law Group, we offer consultations because we understand that timing is everything in these cases. The 35-day deadline doesnt wait while you research options.
They Had Years To Build This System You Have Days To Fight It
The civil forfeiture apparatus took decades to construct. Federal agencies have refined there procedures over thousands of cases. They know exactley how to word the forms. They know precisley how long to set the deadlines. They know what amount triggers the "its not worth fighting" calculation in most peoples heads.
You have 35 days.
That asymmetry is not accidental. The system is designed to overwhelm you with complexity during a period of shock and confusion. Its designed so that by the time you understand what happened, its too late to do anything about it.
At Spodek Law Group, we've been fighting these seizures for years. We know the pressure points. We know which deadlines matter. We know how to document legitimate sources in ways that make prosecutors think twice about pursuing forfeiture.
The window is closing. Call 212-300-5196 before the deadline makes this conversation pointless.
