I&#x27;m not sure of all the cases, but one of the major common factors seems to be possession of large amounts of cash. They&#x27;re essentially saying that no one has a legitimate cause to hold thousands of dollars in cash, so they <i>must</i> be doing something illicit, so we have cause to take it.<p>It shouldn&#x27;t be legal, but thanks to the drug war and post-9&#x2F;11 anti-terrorism politics, it&#x27;s been enabled by federal legislation and rules. It needs to get challenged more in the courts on constitutional grounds, but this takes money and time, which the usual victims don&#x27;t have.<p>Also, they (the police) further complicate things by making it a civil asset forfeiture case <i>against the property</i> and not a civil or criminal case against the rightful owner.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;georgeleef&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;12&#x2F;time-for-civil-asset-forfeiture-laws-to-meet-the-same-fate-as-jim-crow&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;georgeleef&#x2F;2014&#x2F;09&#x2F;12&#x2F;time-for-c...</a>