CBP Money Seizure Techniques

U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP), among its many missions and responsibilities, tries to stop the flow of illegal goods and dirty cash flowing across the borders. In past articles, we wrote about how CBP money seizure techniques target people who might be transporting more than $10,000. Read our piece about Targeted Enforcement for Customs Money Seizure.

But exactly how CBP chooses their targets is less well known. This television show Border Wars has an an episode on Youtube that shows some of the CBP money seizure techniques in use to identify certain people for inspection to verify the amount of cash they are carrying.

If more than $10,000 cash, or if the traveler’s story is suspicious, Customs can seize the cash.

Curiously, the narrator of this program says that for CBP to seize the money it must total more than $10,000. That’s not quite true, customs can also seize it if they feel it is connected to illegal activity under any number of criminal statutes.

In this case, however, the seizure was $65,000, so there was a failure to report (along with bulk cash smuggling) that resulted in seizure. To see the relevant parts, skip to 8:40, 18:30 and 25:00.

Have you been the victim of CBP money seizure techniques?

If Customs and Border Protection seized money from you, you can learn more from our trusted legal guide toa customs money seizure and can contact us for a free currency seizure consultation by clicking the contact buttons on this page.