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takyon writes:

USA Today reports that Drug Enforcement Administration agents regularly mine Americans' travel information in order to seize hundreds of millions of dollars of cash:

Federal drug agents regularly mine Americans' travel information to profile people who might be ferrying money for narcotics traffickers — though they almost never use what they learn to make arrests or build criminal cases.

[...] It is a lucrative endeavor, and one that remains largely unknown outside the drug agency. DEA units assigned to patrol 15 of the nation's busiest airports seized more than $209 million in cash from at least 5,200 people over the past decade after concluding the money was linked to drug trafficking, according to Justice Department records. Most of the money was passed on to local police departments that lend officers to assist the drug agency.

"They count on this as part of the budget," said Louis Weiss, a former supervisor of the DEA group assigned to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. "Basically, you've got to feed the monster." In most cases, records show the agents gave the suspected couriers a receipt for the cash — sometimes totaling $50,000 or more, stuffed into suitcases or socks — and sent them on their way without ever charging them with a crime.

[...] USA Today identified 87 cases in recent years in which the Justice Department went to federal court to seize cash from travelers after agents said they had been tipped off to a suspicious itinerary. Those cases likely represent only a small fraction of the instances in which agents have stopped travelers or seized cash based on their travel patterns, because few such encounters ever make it to court. Those cases nonetheless offer evidence of the program's sweep. Filings show agents were able to profile passengers on Amtrak and nearly every major U.S. airline, often without the companies' consent. "We won't release that information without a subpoena," American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said.

[...] Agents seized $25,000 from Christelle Tillerson's suitcase in 2014 as she was waiting to board a flight from Detroit to Chicago. [...] Tillerson told the agents that her boyfriend had withdrawn the money from his U.S. Postal Service retirement account so that she could buy a truck, according to court records. Agents were suspicious; Tillerson was an ex-convict, who had spent time in prison for driving a load of marijuana into the United States from Mexico. She seemed to have little money of her own. And a police dog smelled drugs on the cash.

Agents seized the money, and let Tillerson go. Her lawyer, Cyril Hall, said she was never arrested, or even questioned about whether she could give agents information about traffickers. A year and a half later — after she produced paperwork showing that much of the money had indeed come from her boyfriend's retirement fund — the Justice Department agreed to return the money, minus $4,000. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Detroit, Gina Balaya, said prosecutors concluded that "a small percentage of the funds should be forfeited."

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