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How the Feds can take your cash

By WHIO Staff
By WHIO Staff

DAYTON — An in-depth investigation has learned that if you fly with cash, law enforcement agencies can take the money from you without convicting you of a crime.

More than $1 million has been seized at Dayton International Airport in the last five years.

News Center 7′s Mason Fletcher has been digging into this trend and has learned the steps you should take if your cash is taken from you.

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Brian Moore, Jr., was flying from Atlanta to Los Angeles to shoot a music video. He said, “I’ve never been in a situation to where I was being treated as a terrorist or a criminal.”

Along with his travel essentials, Moore had cash in his bags that he was planning to use to pay for the video.

“I had about $8,500 on me,” he said.

Shortly after entering the airport, his excitement for the trip was gone, and so was his cash. It was taken from him by law enforcement.

“They announced we were about to start boarding and I was approached by two women,” Moore said.

They were both DEA agents and started by asking if Moore was carrying drugs or weapons. When Moore told them he wasn’t, they asked if he was carrying cash and asked how much.

Moore explained the money was being used for the music video and he got it from the sale of his grandfather’s car that he had inherited, but it didn’t matter.

“They put my money in a big Ziplock bag, and they told me I was free to go. They were like,” You might want to leave or you’re going to miss your flight.”

Just like that, Moore’s money was gone without ever hearing about a potential crime.

He said, “I was never charged, never convicted,” And, he never got his money back,

Brian Joslyn is an attorney who said, “The government is stealing from people. I don’t see it any differently than that. There’s no legal basis for them to be taking this money.”

It happens every day at airports across the country. Joslyn is an attorney in Ohio and has fought against this action for decades. He said the seizures start way before a DEA agent contacts someone.

“From my experience, I believe that TSA in many cases, tips off a DEA agent that is onsite to indicate that there’s potentially large sums of money in their bag just because they can see it when they go through the scanner,” Joslyn said,

He said that for most of the cases he sees, the seizures happen because the DEA is suspicious of the large sum of cash and thinks hit has something to do with illegal activity.

However, in 2017, a Department of Justice Inspector General audit found that out of a sample of 100 DEA seizures, only 44 fit the bill, meaning more than half didn’t relate to or create any investigations and never led to arrests or convictions.

Joslyn said agents are hoping to sweep it under the rug because most people don’t know where to start to get it back.

“Occasionally they just give up the money. They don’t even contact an attorney. Nobody even pursues. They don’t even pursue their own money,” Joslyn said,

However, Moore went a different route.

“I thought I would at least find out what I did wrong. And, you know, to this day, I still haven’t found out what was suspicious about me or what I did that was suspicious,” Moore said.

He sued to get his money back and after a grueling process of lawsuits, only saw a percentage of what he lost.

In 2023, Congress introduced the Fair Act, which would require police to prove the money is from a criminal activity and limits their ability to seize cash solely because of suspicion of a crime. Currently, it still sits in the House in D, C.

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