A lot of viewers wondered when the police would simply start pulling over armored vehicles to seize the money they carry.

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I always find it horrifying that the police get to keep or spend the assets seized. It rewards abuse.
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The lawsuit starts out by saying, "This is a civil rights lawsuit challenging the repeated and continuing highway robberies of armored cars by government agents." It is crazy that the government is engaging in highway robbery. This needs to stop. We need to get rid of civil asset forfeiture in it's entirety.
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Empyreal Logistics, an armored car and fintech company that operates nationwide, sued several federal law enforcement agencies and the San Bernardino County Sheriff after being the victim of roadside seizures which amount to highway robbery. The newly filed federal lawsuit demands law enforcement immediately stop targeting Empyreal for seizures that have no basis under state or federal law and violate Empyreal’s constitutional rights.
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On five separate occasions since May 2021, local law enforcement officers stopped Empyreal vehicles on highways. During three of these stops, officers seized the bank deposits the vehicles were transporting. Sheriffs’ offices in California and Kansas then transferred the funds to federal law enforcement to take advantage of lax federal civil forfeiture practices. If successfully forfeited, up to 80% of the proceeds taken through the federal “equitable sharing” program would then return to local law enforcement to spend as it pleases.

Civil forfeiture allows law enforcement to take property without convicting, and often without even charging, anyone with a crime. No federal or state criminal charges have been filed against Empyreal, its employees or its clients. Unlike in a criminal proceeding, prosecutors do not need to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt to keep property forever.
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A Pennsylvania armored car company that transports proceeds from licensed cannabis businesses to banks alleges in a lawsuit that San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies confiscated more than $1 million in cash deposits within the past two months during a pair of illegal roadside seizures.

“This is nothing but highway robbery using badges,” said Dan Alban, a senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based law firm representing Empyreal Logistics. “Empyreal is transporting proceeds from legal businesses to financial institutions. These seizures don’t stop crime or improve public safety; they just enrich these agencies, which get to split the proceeds from civil forfeiture.

“These funds are only being seized because of that profit incentive. And that’s not remotely legal or constitutional.”

The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court, names as defendants San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon D. Dicus, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Officials with the FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office and DEA declined to comment on the suit.

However, Dicus took to Facebook and Twitter on Friday to defend his deputies and the seizure of pot proceeds from Empyreal’s armored vehicles.

“The sheriff’s department has a duty to protect its residents from the threats associated with the illegal cultivation of marijuana,” he said. “Over 80% of marijuana at dispensaries was grown illegally. Illegal cultivation sites have created quality-of-life issues for many of our county’s residents. This ranges from threats to our communities and environment, including brandishing of firearms, human trafficking, money laundering, deputies being shot at by grow site tenders, to name a few.
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