Welcome to Spodek Law Group. What you're about to read will probably make you angry - and it should. Our goal is to give you the reality of airport cash seizure, not the sanitized version the government presents, not the vague reassurances you'll find elsewhere, but the actual truth about what happens when federal agents take your money at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. If you're reading this, someone probably just seized your cash. Here's what they didn't tell you: you're not fighting for your innocence. You're fighting to prove your money is innocent. That's not a metaphor. It's literally how civil forfeiture works.
The federal government doesn't sue YOU when they take cash at the airport. They sue your money. The actual lawsuit will be titled something like "United States v. $15,000 in U.S. Currency." Your cash is the defendant. You are merely a "claimant" - someone petitioning to get their own property back. This distinction matters enormously because it changes everything about burden of proof, timelines, and what you need to do next. The clock is already ticking, and every hour you wait makes recovery harder.
Between 2000 and 2016, Customs and Border Protection alone seized over $108 million in cash from travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson. That's just one agency at one airport. Factor in DEA seizures, DHS seizures, local task force seizures - the actual number is staggering. Atlanta is the world's busiest airport, which makes it the world's most lucrative location for civil asset forfeiture. This isn't about catching drug dealers. It's about revenue generation disguised as law enforcement.
What Just Happened to Your Cash (And Why Nobody Explained It)
Heres the thing about airport cash seizures that nobody explains at the moment it happens. You were probably approached by a DEA agent or task force officer at the gate, or maybe CBP grabbed you after you went through TSA screening. The agent was polite. Maybe even friendly. Asked if they could talk to you for a minute. You said sure becuase why wouldnt you - your not doing anything wrong. That "sure" was a consent to encounter. Everything that followed flowed from that moment.
The agent asked about your travel, about the cash, about where it came from. You explained, maybe showed some documentation. Then they brought over a drug-detection dog. The dog "alerted." And now your money is gone. Heres what they didnt mention: virtually every piece of U.S. currency in circulation has enough drug residue to trigger a K-9 alert. Studies have shown that 90% of bills have cocaine traces. The dog alerting wasnt proof of anything - it was legal theater designed to create probable cause that already existed the moment they saw cash on the X-ray.
TSA saw your money in the scanner and alerted federal agents. TSA itself cant seize currency - thats not there authority. But they can hold you, hold your bags, and summon DEA or CBP to do the actual taking. Its authority laundering. The TSA search is "administrative" for air safety. But the moment they spot cash and call in other agencies, its become a criminal investigation dressed up as a security check. You probably didnt realize the switch happened.
What you recieved when they took your cash was a notice of seizure. It looked offical, full of legal language, and somewhere in there was a deadline. That deadline is everything. Miss it and your money is gone forever through "administrative forfeiture" - meaning they keep it without ever stepping into a courtroom. The government wins by default if you dont actively fight back within the window they give you.
Heres something else most people dont realize untill its too late. The agents who seized your cash are trained to seem helpful. They might have given you a card, told you to call a number, suggested you file some paperwork. What they didnt explain is that theres two completely different tracks. One is the "petition for remission" - basicaly begging the agency to give your money back out of the kindness of there hearts. The other is the "verified claim" which forces them into federal court where a judge actually reviews whether the seizure was legal. The petition almost never works. The claim is your only real shot.
And those agents? They work for agencies that directly benefit from seizing your cash. The Asset Forfeiture Fund isnt some abstract government account. Its a pot of money that goes back to the agencies doing the seizing. Equipment purchases, overtime pay, operational budgets - all funded by the cash they take from travelers like you. You werent stopped because you looked suspicious. You were stopped because you had cash visible on an X-ray machine, and cash means revenue.
The 35-Day Countdown They Dont Want You to Understand
Let that sink in. You have 35 days from the date the notice was MAILED - not received, mailed - to file a verified claim demanding your property back. If that claim isnt in their hands by day 35, you lose. Not because you're guilty. Not because the money was dirty. You lose because you missed a deadline you probably didnt even understand existed.
Think about that for a second. You just had thousands of dollars taken from you at an airport. Your confused, maybe scared, definately angry. You fly home (without your money). A few days later, a notice arrives in the mail. Its dense legal language. You put it aside to figure out later. Maybe you call the number on it and get a voicemail. A week passes. Two weeks. By the time you find a lawyer and understand whats happening, half your deadline may already be gone.
This is the system working as designed. The 35-day window exists in federal law - specifically 18 U.S.C. § 983 and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act rules. But the effect of that short window, combined with confusing notices and the stress of having your money taken, is that most people miss it. According to Customs estimates, 95% of seized cash is forfeited to the government because people either dont fight or dont fight correctly. Ninety-five percent. Thats not law enforcement. Thats a revenue machine.
OK so what happens if you DO file the claim on time? The government then has 90 days to decide whether to file a civil complaint in federal court. If they file, your looking at full-blown litigation - discovery, motions, possibly trial. If they decline to prosecute, they return your money. But heres were it gets interesting: the decision to decline often depends on whether you have an attorney. When the government sees competent legal representaion, they often calculate that fighting isnt worth it. When they see a pro se claimant, they know the odds favor them.
Why Your Receipts Wont Save You
Heres were people get tripped up. They think: "I have documentation. I can prove where this money came from. Bank statements, business records, tax returns - I'll show them its legitimate and they'll give it back."
That's the fantasy version. In reality, having documentation is necessary but not sufficient. Civil forfeiture operates under a preponderance of evidence standard - lower then criminal court. The government only needs to show its "more likely than not" that your money is connected to illegal activity. How do they do that? The cash amount. Cash in a paper bag instead of a wallet. Nervousness when talking to agents. One-way ticket. "Inconsistent" explanations. The very things that describe innocent travelers with cash-based businesses or emergency situations.
And heres the real kicker. Once the government establishes their initial case (which they do almost automaticaly through the K-9 alert and "indicators" of drug activity), the burden shifts to YOU. You have to prove your money is innocent. Not that your innocent - your money. You need to show legitimate source AND legitimate intended use AND that you had no knowledge of any illegal activity if anyone else handled the funds. Miss any element and the forfeiture stands.
Todd Spodek has seen this pattern with countless clients. People who run cash businesses - restaurants, laundromats, car dealerships - actualy look MORE suspicious to federal agents than someone carrying drug money. The drug courier knows how to avoid detection. The legitimate businessperson just throws cash in a bag becuase thats how they've always operated. The system ironicaly punishes exactly the people who have nothing to hide.
The burden of proof problem gets even worse when you consider what "preponderance of the evidence" actualy means in practice. The government dosent need to prove beyond reasonable doubt. They dont even need clear and convincing evidence. They just need to tip the scales slightly past 50%. And they start with built-in advantages: the cash was found at an airport (suspicious), you were traveling with large amounts (suspicious), a dog alerted (probable cause), and you might have said something during the encounter that can be twisted against you (consciousness of guilt). You walk into this fight already behind.
Meanwhile, to get your money back, you need to prove where every dollar came from, what you were going to use it for, and that nobody in the chain of custody ever used it for anything illegal. If you withdrew cash over multiple weeks from multiple accounts? You need records for all of it. If you sold a car for cash? You need the bill of sale, proof of ownership, maybe even the buyer's information. If its business income? Tax returns, deposit records, employee statements. The government seizes in five minutes what takes months to prove legitimate.
The Math That Makes Lawyers Hesitate
Heres the uncomfortable truth that most law firms wont tell you directly: fighting a cash seizure often costs more than the seizure itself. This is the part of the system thats hardest to stomach, but you need to understand it to make an informed decision.
Consider Brian Moore, an Army veteran from Georgia. In March 2021, DEA agents at Hartsfield-Jackson seized $8,500 from him. He was flying to Los Angeles to record a music video for his entertainment company. Never charged with any crime. Just a man with cash and a plane ticket. Moore decided to fight. He connected with the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that takes these cases without charging clients. Four years later - FOUR YEARS - the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August 2024 that Moore should get every dollar back, plus attorney's fees.
But heres the number that matters: if Moore had hired private counsel, his legal fees would have been aproximately $15,000. To recover $8,500. He would have "won" his case and still lost $6,500. The economics of fighting small-to-medium seizures are designed to make surrender the rational choice. The government knows this. They seize amounts that are devastating to lose but expensive to recover. The median civil forfeiture in Georgia is just $500. Who hires a lawyer for $500?
This is why Spodek Law Group approaches these cases differently. We look at the full picture - the strength of your claim, the likelihood of government declination, the possability of recovering attorney's fees if we win. Sometimes the math works. Sometimes it dosent. But you deserve to know the real calculus before deciding how to proceed.
Atlanta's $108 Million Secret
Why is this happenning so often at Hartsfield-Jackson specificaly? Its not coincidence. Atlanta handles more passengers then any airport in the world - over 93 million in a typical year. More passengers means more cash in transit. More cash means more seizure opportunities. And seizures feed the Asset Forfeiture Fund, which directly benefits the agencies doing the seizing.
Between 2022 and 2024, DEA agents at airports nationwide seized $22 million through their Transportation Interdiction Program. Want to know how many arrests accompanied those seizures? Fifty-seven. Thats a 0.26% arrest rate. For every $386,000 seized, one person was actualy charged with a crime. The other 99.74% of seizures happened to people who were never prosecuted for anything. In November 2024, the Department of Justice finaly suspended the DEA's airport interdiction program, citing "significant constitutional concerns."
But heres what the suspension dosent tell you: DHS and CBP are still doing the exact same thing. The DEA stopped, but Department of Homeland Security officers simply continued the practice. They use the same drug dogs. The same "consent" encounters. The same seizure procedures. The faces changed but the machine keeps running.
Look, the system is built on an uncomfortable premise that nobody in government will admit publicly. Cash seizures are profitable. The Asset Forfeiture Fund took in billions during the DEA's peak years - $4 billion between 2007 and 2016, according to the Justice Department's own Inspector General. Of that, $3.2 billion came from seizures that were never connected to any criminal charges. Eighty percent of DEA cash seizures had zero criminal prosecution. Thats not a side effect. Thats the business model.
What Happens When You Fight Back (And What Happens When You Dont)
Lets be brutaly honest about both paths forward.
Path One: You Dont Fight
You recieve the notice. Your confused and overwhelmed. Maybe you call the number and someone tells you to file a "petition for remission" - basicly asking the seizing agency to please give your money back. These petitions almost never work for amounts over a few thousand dollars. The 35 days pass. The government issues a Declaration of Forfeiture. Your money becomes government property permanantly. No court ever reviewed it. No judge ever signed off. Administrative forfeiture means they win by your silence.
Path Two: You Fight
You hire an attorney within the first week. We file a verified claim before the deadline, demanding the money back and requesting judicial forfeiture proceedings. The government now has 90 days to decide. They pull your file, see competent representation, calculate the cost of litigating against someone who knows the rules. In many cases - especialy where the claimant has documentation and no criminal history - the government declines to prosecute. You get your money back, minus the legal fees you paid.
If they DO prosecute, were in federal court. This is where experience matters enormously. The government must prove by preponderance that your money was connected to crime. We challenge the stop, the dog alert, the "indicators" they cite. We present your documentation, your financial history, your legitimate purposes. In contested cases, outcomes vary - but having counsel dramaticaly improves your odds compared to fighting alone.
The third path - the one that happened to Brian Moore - is rare but real. With the right facts and the right legal team, you can win AND recover attorney's fees under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act. Moore's case went to the 11th Circuit and established important precident. But he also waited four years. Four years of litigation while the government held his money. Most people cant afford that kind of fight, which is exactly why most people give up.
Theres another reality most people dont think about untill there in the middle of it. The psychological toll. Four years of wondering if youll ever see your money again. Four years of answering discovery requests, sitting for depositions, watching government lawyers try to paint you as a criminal even though you were never charged with anything. Four years of explaining to your family why the government has your savings. The financial loss is just the beginning - the stress, the anxiety, the humiliation of having to prove your own innocence when you did nothing wrong. Some people say winning wasnt worth it. They got there money back but lost years of peace.
And if you lose? Not only is your money gone permanantly, but you may be on the hook for the government's legal fees in some circumstances. The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act was supposed to level the playing field, but it didnt eliminate the fundamental asymetry: the government has infinite resources and all the time in the world. You have a job, a family, bills to pay, and a limited ability to sustain years of litigation over money that was already yours to begin with.
The Call That Changes Everything
What Todd Spodek tells every client facing this situation is simple: time is the enemy. Every day you wait is a day closer to that 35-day deadline. Every day is a day the government assumes your not going to fight. Every day is opportunity slipping away.
Heres the reality about your situation right now. If you just had cash seized at Hartsfield-Jackson, your probably feeling some combination of shock, anger, and helplessness. Those feelings are valid. What happened to you may well have violated your Fourth Amendment rights. The "consent" encounter at the gate may not have been truly voluntary. The K-9 alert may have been legally insufficient probable cause. The seizure itself may have been unconstitutional.
But none of that matters if you miss the deadline.
At Spodek Law Group, we handle airport cash seizures from across the country, with particular experience in Atlanta cases given the volume coming out of Hartsfield-Jackson. When you call us at 212-300-5196, we will tell you honestly whether your case makes sense to fight. We'll explain the real costs, the real timeline, the real odds. Some cases we take on contingency or reduced fee structures because the facts are strong. Some cases we advise clients to consider the economics carefully. But we will never let you miss a deadline because you didnt understand what was happening.
The government had years to build the civil forfeiture system. They designed it for rational abandonment. They count on your confusion, your fatigue, your calculation that fighting isnt worth it. In 95% of cases, theyre right. But you dont have to be one of the 95%.
The clock started when they mailed that notice. Make the call while you still have options. 212-300-5196.
