http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcaxpmKaZhYNew Front in Civil Forfeiture: Authorities Get Devices to Seize Funds Loaded to Prepaid Cards
Oklahoma Watch - By Clifton Adcock
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several devices capable of seizing funds loaded on to prepaid debit cards to aid troopers in roadside seizures of suspected drug-trafficking proceeds.
The portable card scanners are designed to be carried in law enforcement vehicles, allow troopers to freeze and seize money loaded onto a prepaid debit card, and to return money to an account whose funds were seized or frozen.
The vehicle-mounted scanners are also capable of retrieving and storing limited account information from other cards as well, such as banking debit cards, credit cards and “payment account information from virtually any magnetic stripe card,” according to the website and patent documents of the device manufacturer, Texas-based ERAD Group Inc. ERAD stands for Electronic Recovery and Access to Data.
The card readers could reignite debate over civil asset forfeiture in Oklahoma and across the nation. State and federal laws allow law enforcement agencies to seize property and cash believed to be involved in the illicit drug trade and then take ownership of the assets through a civil-court action.
Law enforcement officials say that civil asset forfeiture is essential in disrupting drug trafficking operations. Civil-rights advocates argue that the process violates individuals’ property and civil liberties and sometimes results in innocent people having money seized on the roadside without being arrested or charged.
The new devices will now allow law enforcement to not only seize money in physical possession of a person being stopped, but from a financial institution holding the money loaded onto a prepaid debit card as well.
Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, said the new tactic could easily run afoul of the Fourth Amendment and land the issue in court.
“I think this is likely to expand pretty radically the scope of civil asset forfeiture procedures,” Henderson said. “This is a capability that law enforcement has never had before and one that is very likely to land DPS in litigation.”
However, law enforcement officials say the devices are essentially part of the arms race between police and drug traffickers, who in recent years have been loading pre-paid cards with millions of dollars for transport as part of the drug trade, thus decreasing the likelihood of seizure by law enforcement.
“They’re basically using pre-paid cards instead of carrying large amounts of cash,” said Lt. John Vincent, public information officer for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
The contract signed by the state and ERAD Group, obtained by Oklahoma Watch, states that Department of Public Safety will pay a one-time $5,000 implementation charge and a $1,500 training charge for the devices.
ERAD Group will receive a 7.7 percent cut of all funds seized via the card readers. Vincent said the 16 prepaid card readers obtained by the department were installed in May.
The card readers will not be used to randomly swipe motorists’ gift or prepaid cards, Vincent said, but only in cases in which the trooper suspects criminal activity is taking place. The device logs which trooper is using the device when a card is swiped.
“If we have reasonable suspicion to believe there’s a crime being committed, we’re going to investigate that. If someone has 300 cards taped up and hidden inside the dash of a vehicle, we’re going to check that,” Vincent said. “But if the person has proof that it belongs to him for legitimate reasons, there’s nothing going to happen. We won’t seize it.”
A joint law enforcement drug interdiction team under the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office also has the devices, and Oklahoma City police officers who are part of the team use them, said Capt. Juan Balderrama, spokesman for the Oklahoma city Police Department.
Henderson said the devices were something that his organization has not run across before.
“You have effectively a way of instantly seizing a digital account from a traffic stop,” Henderson said. “That’s a capability I have never seen before.”
Judith Rinearson, a partner with the law firm Bryan Cave and a prepaid card-industry attorney, said in the past most individuals who used reloadable prepaid cards were unbanked or low income, but younger adults have begun using those cards as their primary financial transaction card.
http://oklahomawatch.org/2016/06/07/new-front-in-civil-forfeiture-okla-authorities-get-devices-to-seize-funds-loaded-onto-prepaid-cards/For those interested, here is the actual contract with ERAD Group:
CONTRACT AGREEMENT Between THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA Department of Public Safety (DPS) And ERAD Group, Inc.