Very expensive traffic stop

[Truman]

Friday the Walton County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Interdiction Unit stopped a vehicle on I-10 at the 83 mile marker for a traffic violation for following to close to another vehicle. Upon contact, a K9 alerted on the vehicle and deputies conducted a search and found $103,820 US dollars inside the vehicle. The money was seized and placed in evidence. The driver was issued a written warning for the traffic violation and was released from the scene.

Ok I guess there's more to the story. But what gives the right to take cash if all the person was guilty of was a traffic violation? And all he got was a warning that cost a hundred grand?

 

[Bob Wells]

From what I could find there is no limit to how much you can carry. I does appear that the reason they may have confiscated the money is to have the owner provide proof it is theirs, which does seem to be the trend when I looked on google. There was a Parish in Louisiana that was performing traffic stops on the interstate and confiscating money, vehicle of out of state travelers a few years ago. It was on on of the news magazines like Dateline or 60 minutes

 

[RTR]

it never occurred to me that dogs were trained to sniff out money....interesting. and how would one provide proof that money belongs to you?

 

[Lake View Too]

Yeah, actually I think that money belongs to me... the guy in the car had just borrowed it...

 

[Zebraspots]

The dogs smell the drugs that are on most of our money, not the actual cash.

 

[graytonbeachguy]

Or dogs don't smell anything at all. The "K-9" officer simply states the dog "alerted" on the car, providing him with probable cause to search the car. When nothing is found, the driver goes on his way; when the officer finds money or drugs, the dog was "right" and detected the drugs or money. These dogs are a joke.

 

[LA033]

Interesting subject.

From Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

"The discovery that cocaine is so prevalent in U.S. banknotes has a legal application that reactions by drug-sniffing dogs is not immediately cause for arrest of persons or confiscation of banknotes. (The drug content is too low for prosecution but not too low to trigger response to drug-sniffing dogs.),[SUP][10][/SUP] though this has been contested legally in a number of U.S. states[SUP][11][/SUP] as a standard of what constitutes 'unusual' levels of contamination remains to be achieved

 

[BeachRob]

Was the vehicle in question an armored car? LOL

 

[graytonbeachguy]

You are too right. I think the whole thing is a ruse.