The Bangor Daily News out of Maine reports on some notable monetary instrument seizures from 2012 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection — including one that stands out from the typical currency reporting violation cases we cover here. This one involves elder fraud, traveler’s checks, and a telephone scam that ultimately unraveled at the Canadian border.
In one incident the agency highlighted, two Houlton Border Patrol agents seized $89,808 in U.S. currency, $10,440 in Western Union traveler’s checks and $200 in Canadian currency from two men from Canada. The money was connected to a telephone fraud scheme that preyed on the elderly. The scam involved the subjects advising the elderly of a grandchild or other relative desperately in need of money, and instructing them to wire funds. The victims were subsequently bilked out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The $100,448 initially seized by Border Patrol agents was returned to 18 of the victims.
Why This Case Is Different From a Typical Currency Seizure
Most of the currency seizure cases covered on this site involve travelers who failed to file a FinCEN 105 form — people who either did not know about the reporting requirement, misunderstood it, or made a deliberate choice to evade it. Their money, in most cases, came from a legitimate source even if its transport was handled incorrectly.
This case is fundamentally different. The money was not the travelers’ money in any legitimate sense. It was the proceeds of a telephone fraud scheme targeting elderly victims — a “grandparent scam,” one of the most common and predatory elder fraud schemes in North America. Victims are contacted by someone claiming to be a grandchild or relative in urgent need of money, and are convinced to wire funds immediately. By the time the fraud is discovered, the money is gone. In this case, at least some of it ended up at the Houlton, Maine border crossing.
The Legal Basis for the Seizure — Connecting the Dots
The news report does not specify the exact legal authority under which Border Patrol initially seized the funds. The report covers $89,808 in U.S. currency, $10,440 in Western Union traveler’s checks, and $200 in Canadian currency — a total of just over $100,000. The combined amount across all monetary instruments clearly exceeds the $10,000 reporting threshold under 31 U.S.C. § 5316, making a failure to report violation a plausible initial basis for the seizure.
It is also worth noting that traveler’s checks are explicitly covered as monetary instruments under the reporting requirement — a fact many travelers do not know. The $10,440 in Western Union traveler’s checks counts toward the threshold the same way cash does. Whether the individuals declared any of it, or attempted to conceal it, is not stated in the reporting. My best guess — given that the money eventually traced back to a fraud scheme — is that someone was attempting to move the proceeds out of the country quietly, and CBP’s discovery prompted an investigation that unraveled the broader scheme.
The Outcome — Funds Returned to Victims
The resolution here is unusual and worth noting: the $100,448 seized was ultimately returned to 18 of the victims. This is the civil forfeiture system working as it is designed to work in fraud cases — the government establishes that the seized property represents the proceeds of criminal activity, and the funds are distributed to the identifiable victims rather than retained by the government or returned to the individuals who were transporting them.
In standard currency seizure cases involving legitimate funds and a reporting violation, this outcome — government keeps everything and distributes to victims — is not available because there are no fraud victims. The standard path is the petition process, where the traveler proves legitimate source and use and recovers the funds minus any penalty. But where the seized currency is demonstrably the proceeds of fraud, theft, or drug trafficking, the civil forfeiture serves a different function: it becomes a vehicle for victim restitution and law enforcement, not just a penalty for a reporting violation.
Houlton and Northern Maine — An Unusual Enforcement Setting
Houlton, Maine sits at the northern end of I-95 on the U.S.-Canada border — not the kind of port that generates frequent enforcement headlines compared to the Texas and Arizona corridors. But CBP and Border Patrol operate throughout the northern border, and the Houlton port of entry handles regular cross-border traffic between Maine and New Brunswick, Canada. Fraud proceeds moving south-to-north across the Maine border — wire fraud money that originated with elderly U.S. victims being transported back into Canada by the perpetrators — would follow a natural geographic route through a crossing like Houlton.
The northern border receives less enforcement attention in the public narrative than the southern border, but CBP’s legal authority to enforce currency reporting requirements is identical regardless of which border is crossed. 31 U.S.C. § 5316 applies at every port of entry and every border crossing in the United States — Houlton, Maine no less than Laredo, Texas.
What This Case Illustrates About the Reporting Requirement
The currency reporting laws serve multiple purposes. For most travelers, the relevant purpose is straightforward: the government wants to know when large sums of money are crossing the border so it can track financial flows and detect money laundering, tax evasion, and drug proceeds. For law enforcement, the reporting requirement is also a tool for catching people who are trying to move criminal proceeds quietly across borders — proceeds from drug trafficking, fraud schemes, and other criminal activity.
The grandparent scam victims in this case never expected their wired funds to end up intercepted at a Maine border crossing and eventually returned to them. That outcome — while not the norm — illustrates why the currency reporting and forfeiture framework exists and why it is broader than just catching travelers who forgot to file a form.
Has CBP Seized Your Currency?
If CBP has seized your cash — at a northern border crossing, a southern border crossing, or an international airport — contact us before taking any other steps. Read our customs money seizure legal guide or watch the video series. Read our guide on why you must not contact CBP without an attorney after a seizure. See our currency seizure case outcomes. Call us at (734) 855-4999, send a text message, or reach us on WhatsApp. You can also contact us online.