I’ve heard cases regarding civil asset forfeiture with citizens traveling domestically with large amounts still have it confiscated by DEA agents due to suspicion of criminal activity. So in knowing that, will they still seize non-USD currency: 30,000,000 Rials (~$78,125,000) in cash even though it’s being withdrawn from an Omani bank and it’s the individual’s own money just carried out in multiple stacks.
Comment on Why do airports place a cap on 10,000 USD for undeclared cash?
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
When entering or exiting the USA, the rule is that cash or financial instruments need to be declared above $10,000, but you can bring as much as you want. So bringing a literal suit case of Swiss francs worth $5 million USD is perfectly fine, provided you tell the customs agent.
While I can’t really advise going to the USA right now, it’s not like they will confiscate cash above $10,000. The particular phrase used in most places is “freedom of capital”, meaning that money can flow into or out of the country without significant impediment. The entire USA financial sector relies upon freedom of capital.
Declaring cash helps prevent money laundering, since people intending to secretly move money would not want to declare to customs. The threshold is intentionally set so that normal people going on holiday with cash or travelers checks (yes, I’m aware it’s 2026) won’t be burdened by the rule.
War5oldier@lemmy.world 1 day ago
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
Civil forfeiture and DEA is a separate problem unto itself, and you’ve always hit on the key points: DEA operates within the country, whereas customs is at port of entries. DEA’s corruption and geographic reach mean they have caused far more problems than any customs agent, in pursuit of a 1990s zeal that “drugs are bad” and expanding that into a parallel law enforcement system, despite already having a federal law enforcement department: the FBI. Civil forfeiture should be abolished as unconstitutional, violating due process, equal protection, and property law.
So yes, once you’re in the country, there is a risk to carry around large sums of cash. But that’s hardly connected to the customs declaration requirement, and certainly cannot be connected to the declaration requirement on the way out.
MoonWalker1999@piefed.social 1 day ago
Yeah sure, tell the government you have a large sum of money, I’m sure they’ll just leave you alone.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 day ago
travelhost.com/…/class-action-lawsuit-to-stop-tsa…
en.wikipedia.org/…/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United…
In the US, you should never have more cash on your person than you can afford to lose.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Tbf you’re more likely to get robbed by random people in broad daylight than encountering a cop that will civil asset forfeiture you, so its just bad idea to have lots of cash regardless of country.
SippyCup@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
You are much less likely to to be robbed by some random crook than you are a police officer. By almost a factor of 10.
There were 1300 cases of armed robbery in the US in 2024.
CAF resulted in 2.5 billion in assets seized in 2010, 11000 cases of seizure were for non criminal offenses.
tychosmoose@piefed.social 21 hours ago
That number seemed way off to me. Not sure where you got it. Perhaps in some kind of analysis of a sample/subset of cases?
Robberies all involve violence or a threat of violence, so calling out armed robbery specifically seems too narrow. Someone says they have a weapon and robs you, that’s reported as a robbery. If the police catch them and they are unarmed, that’s still just robbery, not armed robbery. But it seems relevant to the point in this discussion.
Anyway, New York City alone had almost that many robberies in the month of December 2024, and had 16000 robberies for the year in 2024. Source
The number I see for the country in 2024 is ~625000 robbery cases from FBI data. Just looking at armed robbery is more like 100k cases (200k if you include strong arm). Source
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
My mom got robbed and they took nearly $1000 from her… (okay idk why the fuck she was carrying so much cash, but that’s whole another story)
She was literally on the way to the bank…
Then again, we are Asian American and non-Asians in America loves to target us… and obviously cops don’t give a fuck.
We need to bring back the rooftop Koreans to patrol the streets, police is useless