Illegal to carry lots of money??

[SeerSGB]

Just

Simple reason: In my neck of TN hell, large undocumented cash sums screams "meth dealer/pot dealer" to the cops".

Really? Even if you're dressed clean and have all of your teeth?

I'll assume that you're being a bit sarcastic in tone, but yes even then. The cops around here have a hard-on for drug busts (don't know to many that don't) especially meth and they look for any "Cause" to start sniffing. And denying them permission to search your car will just get you slapped with a "impaired driving" or "appeared/behaved as if under the influence."

Not going to say every cop here is crooked, but I used to be an administrative volunteer for the previous Sheriff's administration and...yeah, they were (and still are from what a buddies still in the office tell me) to push hard for those drug busts and get those searches.

 

[John Picard]

Simple reason: In my neck of TN hell, large undocumented cash sums screams "meth dealer/pot dealer" to the cops".

Really? Even if you're dressed clean and have all of your teeth?

I'll assume that you're being a bit sarcastic in tone, but yes even then.

Oklahoma was once the meth capital of the US. I live in a rural area and learned there were several meth labs within a 5 mile radius. I am not being sarcastic as I've see meth heads, which I am sure you know don't care about their appearance and are lucky to have teeth.

 

[cultcross]

Why was he pulled over though?

The article doesn't say, so we can't speculate on that part of it.

And since having a "suspiciously large amount of money" violates state law

According to the reporter who wrote the article, note the lack of speech marks indicating the police did not, in fact, say those words.

Too similar to profiling people. Someone looks suspicious so they must be guilty of something.

What? Where did that come from? If someone has unusual items commonly relating to drug dealing, it is unreasonable to suspect (and nothing more than suspect) them of drug dealing?

The way it's written it really is a crime to possess any large sum of money regardless of the reason which is not reasonable.

The way it is written in a press article; it's not a statute, it's a media article barely a paragraph long. I very much doubt it is illegal under any state law to possess a large amount of cash, or cash transit vans are breaking it every day.

 

[SeerSGB]

Really? Even if you're dressed clean and have all of your teeth?

I'll assume that you're being a bit sarcastic in tone, but yes even then.

Oklahoma was once the meth capital of the US. I live in a rural area and learned there were several meth labs within a 5 mile radius. I am not being sarcastic as I've see meth heads, which I am sure you know don't care about their appearance and are lucky to have teeth.

Around here the scuzzy looking ones are the ones that make it or use it, the "bosses" (to use a term) are just like any other normal person.

 

[FordSVT]

From a police officer's point of view, it is a bit fishy for someone to be walking around with, say, $12,000 in cash. Are you on the way to buy a used car or other large purchase or to make a financial deposit? If not, sensible people would be worried about loosing or getting mugged over that much money if they simply carried it around all the time. So it's not illegal to carry money, and I don't think the simple fact you've got money on you would justify a questioning (and how would the cops know in the first place?). However, having a lot of cash on you in conjunction with something else like getting stopped for speeding or public intoxication would be justification for further inquiry because it's not common behaviour, especially in this day and age of e-commerce. You don't need to carry cash unless it's a person-to-person deal, and certainly no business demands to be paid in cash these days unless they're flat out crooked....

 

[SeerSGB]

From a police officer's point of view, it is a bit fishy for someone to be walking around with, say, $12,000 in cash. Are you on the way to buy a used car or other large purchase or to make a financial deposit? If not, sensible people would be worried about loosing or getting mugged over that much money if they simply carried it around all the time. So it's not illegal to carry money, and I don't think the simple fact you've got money on you would justify a questioning (and how would the cops know in the first place?). However, having a lot of cash on you in conjunction with something else like getting stopped for speeding or public intoxication would be justification for further inquiry because it's not common behaviour, especially in this day and age of e-commerce. You don't need to carry cash unless it's a person-to-person deal, and certainly no business demands to be paid in cash these days unless they're flat out crooked....

~waggles hand~ I don't know about that some smaller "mom and pop" places (gas stations/convenience stores, and couple of hardware stores) around here have stopped taking credit and debit and won't take checks for less than "X" amount. Transactions charges hit them hard and it just wasn't worth the money to keep taking them.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ My favorite deli in NYC only takes cash as well. AFAIK, it's always been that way. (For actual meals, anyway. For bulk orders I think they do take cards.)

 

[cultcross]

From a police officer's point of view, it is a bit fishy for someone to be walking around with, say, $12,000 in cash. Are you on the way to buy a used car or other large purchase or to make a financial deposit? If not, sensible people would be worried about loosing or getting mugged over that much money if they simply carried it around all the time. So it's not illegal to carry money, and I don't think the simple fact you've got money on you would justify a questioning (and how would the cops know in the first place?). However, having a lot of cash on you in conjunction with something else like getting stopped for speeding or public intoxication would be justification for further inquiry because it's not common behaviour, especially in this day and age of e-commerce. You don't need to carry cash unless it's a person-to-person deal, and certainly no business demands to be paid in cash these days unless they're flat out crooked....

Wasn't just the money - he had large amounts of cash and a set of scales. Those items together are classic of 'drug dealer', it is perfectly reasonable to suspect it of someone carrying those without some obvious reason.

 

[CaptainStoner]

We might suspect what he was doing, but that is not enough to violate his rights for having two legal items. and note again, what I highlighted about possessing a large amount of currency under suspicious circumstances violates the law.The sentence is awfully cavalier to me.

It is. And it doesn't indicate why the police stopped him to begin with.
I suppose the moral of the story, though, is not to give up your rights. Those police had no right to search his vehicle that I can ascertain, other than the driver letting them do it.
All he had to say was "I don't consent to any searches".

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Sure the items together might suggest something illegal is going on, but technically, neither is illegal by themselves, and the article states that simply carrying a lot of cash "for suspicious purposes" is illegal. m Let's not forget that "suspicious purposes" is vague as it gets and sets a bad precedant, that all a cop has to is suspect something. To me it doesn't matter if the cop was right in this case or in any other case... if someone one is carrying only two items together which are legal individually, it is a violation of that person's rights to say he is doing something illegal, regardless of whatever "suspicions" the cop might have. If he found drug paraphernalia but no drugs, that would be different, because drug paraphernalia is used for drugs. Scales can be used for weighing anything, regardless of what their common applications may be.

Again, it's this cavalier distortion of a person's rights under the law that bugs me.

 

[John Picard]

From a police officer's point of view, it is a bit fishy for someone to be walking around with, say, $12,000 in cash. Are you on the way to buy a used car or other large purchase or to make a financial deposit? If not, sensible people would be worried about loosing or getting mugged over that much money if they simply carried it around all the time. So it's not illegal to carry money, and I don't think the simple fact you've got money on you would justify a questioning (and how would the cops know in the first place?). However, having a lot of cash on you in conjunction with something else like getting stopped for speeding or public intoxication would be justification for further inquiry because it's not common behaviour, especially in this day and age of e-commerce. You don't need to carry cash unless it's a person-to-person deal, and certainly no business demands to be paid in cash these days unless they're flat out crooked....

~waggles hand~ I don't know about that some smaller "mom and pop" places (gas stations/convenience stores, and couple of hardware stores) around here have stopped taking credit and debit and won't take checks for less than "X" amount. Transactions charges hit them hard and it just wasn't worth the money to keep taking them.

BINGO. Here we go again with the old "everyone does e-commerce" speech again

Say I'm going to buy a used car from a private party. I'll most likely take a few grand in cash in order to negotiate. Were I selling a car, I'd be very leery of someone who wants to pay with a bank draft or cashier's check.

This recession has hit everyone hard, and more people are reverting back to using hard currency to complete transactions.

 

[cultcross]

Sure the items together might suggest something illegal is going on, but technically, neither is illegal by themselves, and the article states that simply carrying a lot of cash "for suspicious purposes" is illegal.

Yes, the article does say that. No-ones produced a statute to support it yet that I've seen.

To me it doesn't matter if the cop was right in this case or in any other case...

That is self evident.

if someone one is carrying only two items together which are legal individually, it is a violation of that person's rights to say he is doing something illegal, regardless of whatever "suspicions" the cop might have.

He is doing something suspicious, not something illegal, unless you can show otherwise.

If he found drug paraphernalia but no drugs, that would be different, because drug paraphernalia is used for drugs. Scales can be used for weighing anything, regardless of what their common applications may be.

Large amounts of cash coupled with scales is a suspicious combination, it's that simple. If you have an innocent reason to have them, then there's no problem, but there's nothing wrong with investigating suspicious circumstances. Nor does it violate anyone's rights to do so.

Again, it's this cavalier distortion of a person's rights under the law that bugs me.

And again, you've managed to draw that conclusion without any supporting evidence bar an indirect statement by a journalist.

 

[ThankQ]

I don't understand having to "account" for where the money came from.

Perhaps I've held out $50 cash from every paycheck for the last 5 years.

I, in fact, do keep a large sum of cash (for me, anyway) where I can easily get at it. This just seems sensable to me.

And how did I get that large sum of cash? By throwing a $20 in the sock drawer, then a $10, sometimes a $50 or a $100 if I've got some left over at the time. I built it up slowly, and in fact, continue to do so $10 and $20 at a time.

NO WAY could I account for where I got it.

 

[SeerSGB]

I don't understand having to "account" for where the money came from.

Perhaps I've held out $50 cash from every paycheck for the last 5 years.

I, in fact, do keep a large sum of cash (for me, anyway) where I can easily get at it. This just seems sensable to me.

And how did I get that large sum of cash? By throwing a $20 in the sock drawer, then a $10, sometimes a $50 or a $100 if I've got some left over at the time. I built it up slowly, and in fact, continue to do so $10 and $20 at a time.

NO WAY could I account for where I got it.

I do that from time to time: Stick 10 or 20 in the back of book, then go to clean and end up with a few hundred dollars I didn't know I had.

I think the whole "account for it" thing comes from the relative uncommon nature, or the perception that it's uncommon, for people to have large sums of cash and not know how they came by it, much less carrying said money on their person in a age of debit/credit cards.

 

[DonIago]

There's a serious difference between a few hundred and a few -thousand- as well. I'd also call eight more than a few.

Possibly it's just the social environment I tend to frequent, but even someone wandering around with a few hundred on them would prompt a WTF? from me. Note I said wandering around, not 'I'm going to a convention and plan to spend this there.'

 

[RoJoHen]

Possibly it's just the social environment I tend to frequent, but even someone wandering around with a few hundred on them would prompt a WTF? from me. Note I said wandering around, not 'I'm going to a convention and plan to spend this there.'

There are so many reasons for people to carry a lot of money around that it's hard to really judge them. When I was a bartender, all the money I made was from cash tips, which I just shoved in my wallet at the end of the night. It was not unrealistic of me to have $1000 cash on me at the end of the work week, simply because I hadn't done anything else with it yet.

 

[DonIago]

Well I don't have any bartender friends, at least not that I know of.

 

[RoJoHen]

I'm just saying. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for a person to have a lot of cash on them.

 

[DonIago]

True, and I'm saying that in my experience most people aren't -usually- in situations where those reasons apply.

But since we don't know exactly what the circumstances were in this case anyway, this is largely idle speculation.

 

[John Picard]

Want to get on the IRS's radar? Just have $10,000 or more deposited in a bank account of yours or move $10,000 or more out of a bank account of yours. Yes, this reporting rule goes back to the 80's as a means of trying to out drug dealers. Too bad that during the recent economic boom of the 90's and onward, a lot of folks who were doing well kept getting tripped up by that antiquated law.