Slashdot Mirror
Meth Dealer Faces Loss of His Comic Book Collection
cultiv8 writes "According to an article from The Smoking Gun: 'A large-scale methamphetamine dealer who allegedly laundered drug profits by purchasing valuable comic books is in danger of forfeiting his 18,753-volume collection to Uncle Sam, according to a new court filing. Federal prosecutors yesterday filed a US District Court complaint seeking ownership of the comic book holdings of Aaron Castro, 30, who is facing a May trial in Colorado on narcotics distribution and weapons charges. The comics are valued in excess of $500,000.'"
Do not bang your head against the display case, please! There is a very valuable Mary Worth inside, in which she has advised a friend to commit suicide. Thank you!
I can't for the life of me figure out why this merits a Slashdot story. Even if you conclude "Slashdot readers are geeks, geeks have comic book collections" it's pretty unlikely that many Slashdot readers use their collections to launder drug money.
It is absolutely normal that the assets made with crimes get confiscated. Maybe except for the not so usual form of investment, why is this worthy mentioning?
The war on drugs is nothing more than a war on the American people by a bunch of holier-than-thou moral imperialists. It has squandered trillions of dollars in taxpayer money and claimed tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives over the years. It doesn't stop drug use and merely floods our prisons with people whose only "crime" is simple possession. Prohibition didn't work for alcohol and it certainly isn't working for drugs.
Dude, I don't think the guy reads comics.
Secondly, I think this is a clever way of laundering money. A bunch of small purchases that (should have) gone unnoticed, and then, one big sale of these on ebay while paying the income tax and paper trailing everything. Pretty smart, except for the fact that he got caught.
That's not true. When people say meth they mean something that's cooked up by somebody without any quality controls and it's really not the same thing as the chemical equivalent produced by pharmaceutical corporations. Suggesting this is a tug-o-war about legitimate distribution completely misses the point. There is no QA that goes into street drugs, no screenings about medical necessity, counter indications or any way of knowing how big the effective dosage is. And the main goal of the dealer is to get the buyer hooked.
It's a very different case on either side, and trivializing it isn't helping anybody out.
Did you bring enough for the whole class?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Crockett: "I need a new Ferrari! Didn't we confiscate anything from drug dealers that I can drive!?!?!"
Castillo: "Sorry, Sonny, no. But here, read some Incredible Hulk, Spider Man and Richie Rich. It will cheer you up.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
So let me get this straight: the difference between somebody cooking meth to sell in the Wal-mart parking lot and somebody cooking meth to sell in the Wal-mart pharmacy is quality control?
What if some illicit meth dealer did everything by the ISO standards and industry best practices?
So then what's the difference between somebody selling high-quality Blueberry Yum Yum with the little purple hairs and buds as big and juicy as cucumbers and Big Pharma selling some pills that deliver THC without the "making you feel good" part and charging $45 per pill to cancer patients who can't eat because of the chemo and their insurance company won't cover anyway?
If your point is that pharmaceutical companies are a very ugly part of the corporate tyranny that's working to keep people from having options or power, then I absolutely agree. If your point is that "illicit" drugs are a scourge because they don't come with a page of contraindications and possible side effects in 3-point type that's usually full of contradictory and misleading information anyway, then I'm not sure we're on the same page.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Assuming the facts are presented correctly, what this guy was doing is simple old fashioned money laundering. He was buying something with drug money so he could later sell it and have clean money. Comic books are actually a smart way to do this, its unlikely that anyone would suspect it.
Here's an example of how it may have worked:
1. Dude sells $500 of meth.
2. Dude takes the $500 cash to a comic book convention.
3. Dude buys a comic book for ~$500
4. Dude sells the same comic book for $450 in clean, crisp, legal bills
5. Repeat 1-4
6. Profit!
7.?
8. Prison!
Yeah, what does the government seeking ownership of your property before you're even found guilty of a crime have to do with your rights?
I've read enough comments here that seem to completely miss what is going on here and are completely ignorant on the abuse by our government in violating the Fourth Amendment. The assumption by everyone seems to be one of two things. Either the police are seizing property as evidence of a crime committed (in which case, you would presume it will be returned if he's found innocent) or that he has been found guilty and they're taking his ill-gotten gains.
That is not the case.
What they're doing is taking possession of someone's property. Someone who has not been convicted of a crime through a fair trial, yet. Then they're going to sell it and keep the profit. Does that sound right to you? Shouldn't you receive a trial and be found guilty of a crime, before paying for that crime?
In fact, not only do you not have to be found guilty through trial of an actual crime in this country for the government to steal your property and sell it for themselves, but you don't have to even be charged with a crime, in many cases. I went looking for something to explain it to those who care to be enlightened (by what I thought was common knowledge, but by the reactions on Slashdot to this article, seems to be foreign to 80% of us). I actually found a well composed video that from the Institute for Justice
(video 2m30s) - Policing for Profit - The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture
Essentially, what has been happening for about thirty years, is that instead of charging YOU with a crime, the government charges your PROPERTY with a crime. Your property can't defend itself, so it is assumed "guilty". They take the property, sell it at auction, and then split it up among various government departments. All without YOU being convicted. Or even tried in a court of law. Or even being charged with a crime. It is currently a billion-dollar scam in this country.
So save your "durr durr meth dealer bad!" bullshit. You aren't a hard-ass for saying "throw away the key!" or "execute this guy!" or "he deserves it!". You just look ignorant for not considering the due process we have in this country that protects people like you and me from being railroaded without evidence. Maybe the guy IS guilty. That's fine. If he's guilty, throw the book at him. The mere fact that someone has charged him with a crime doesn't mean he deserves punishment nor that he deserves to have his property stolen from him, auctioned off, and then split amongst his local government agencies.
They could freeze or seize assets until after the trial finds someone guilty or innocent if they wanted - but they don't. Instead they sue the items themselves under a rediculous legal theory so as to bypass the owners 5th amendment rights and get the lower burden of proof required under civil law. If the accussed drug dealer is found not guilty there is no return of assets, replacement, or money received from the sale given to them. Regardless of the outcome of the criminal trial the assets are permanently and irrevocably gone and typically the money from the sale goes into the police coffers. This creates a perverse incentive to lay insufficiently founded drug charges against people with easily disposed of assets to fundraise for chronically underfunded police departments. Worse yet, in some jurisdictions, the sales go primarily to police and their friends at dramatically below market value who then turn around and sell them a second time at more reasonable rates and pocket the profit. Even in the cases where the charges are laid in good faith, the disposal of assets prior to conviction and failure to compensate is profoundly contrary to the way the legal system is intended to operate.
In this particular case, the charges are probably legitimately laid against someone who there is reasonable evidence of commiting the crime. The farce is that even if he can prove that he didn't, he is still out $500,000 without legal recourse.