![]() In this sleepy city of 25,000 people, with its enviable low crime rate, police officers drive high-performance Dodge Chargers and use $40,000 digital ticket writers. And then to be able to turn around and use those same assets to benefit our department, that's a win-win situation as far as we're concerned," says Kingsville Police Chief Ricardo Torres. "Law enforcement has become a business, and where best to hit these narcotics organizations other than in the pocketbook? That's where it's going to hurt the most. So that one afternoon's work will boost the department's budget by 25 percent. ![]() According to the law, 80 percent of that will go to the Kingsville Police Department. He disavowed knowledge of everything," Tamez says. Inside the compartments we discovered 80 bundles of U.S. "When I pulled the drill bit out there was pieces of money on it, currency. He brought it into the shop to investigate. A density meter showed something bulky inside. Then Tamez noticed fresh silicone under the rear deck. In January, Tamez - a gung-ho former Marine with a buzz cut - stopped a white Land Rover for changing lanes without using a blinker. After searching for 20 minutes, Tamez and the other officers crawling over the truck don't find anything, and they send the motorists on their way. "Come over and look at air filter housing? Look how clean these are compared to the other parts of the vehicle," he says. He's looking for clues to where the driver might have hidden drug money. I have fingerprints right here," says officer Mike Tamez of the Kingsville Police Department, as he inspects the engine of a gray Ford pickup truck that was headed south. So that tells me somebody has messed with it. In the past four years, combined seizures have surpassed $7 million. On one 15-mile section that runs through Texas' Kleberg County, the southbound lanes have become a "piggy bank," according to the local sheriff. For the impoverished cities and counties situated along 77, it is like a river of gold. Think of it as a great two-way river - drugs flow north, drug money flows south. Highway 77 follows the coastal bend of South Texas past mesquite thickets, grapefruit stands and vast historic ranches on its way to the Mexican border.ĭrug agents say Highway 77 is one of the busiest smuggling corridors in the world. "If they catch 'em going south with a suitcase full of cash, the police department just paid for its budget for the year." ![]() Then they destroy the cocaine," says Jack Fishman, an IRS special agent for 25 years who is now a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta. "If a cop stops a car going north with a trunk full of cocaine, that makes great press coverage, makes a great photo. While drug-related asset forfeitures have expanded police budgets, critics say the flow of money distorts law enforcement - that some cops have become more interested in seizing money than drugs, more interested in working southbound than northbound lanes. In Texas, with its smuggling corridors to Mexico, public safety agencies seized more than $125 million last year. And that doesn't include tens of millions more the agencies got from state asset forfeiture programs. Justice Department figures show that in the past four years alone, the amount of assets seized by local law enforcement agencies across the nation enrolled in the federal program-the vast majority of it cash-has tripled, from $567 million to $1.6 billion. As a tactic in the war on drugs, law enforcement pursues that drug money and is then allowed to keep a portion as an incentive to fight crime.Īs a result, the amount of drug dollars flowing into local police budgets is staggering. ![]() John Burnett/NPR / Tamez searches an engine compartment for hidden drug money.Įvery year, about $12 billion in drug profits returns to Mexico from the world's largest narcotics market - the United States. ![]()
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