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Build a Secret Compartment, Go To Jail
KindMind writes "Alfred Anaya was a custom stereo installer who branched out to making secret compartments for valuables, who the DEA sent to prison as a co-conspirator when a drug dealer used his creation to smuggle drugs. But Wired points out the bigger question: 'The challenge for anyone who creates technology is to guess when they should turn their back on paying customers. Take a manufacturer of robot kits for hobbyists. If someone uses those robots to patrol a smuggling route or help protect a meth lab, how will prosecutors determine whether the company acted criminally?'"
... is to legalize absolutely all the drugs, and put the DEA, et. al., out of business. The insane drug war is just another excuse to violate citizen's rights, plus it provides obscene amounts of money to all the wrong sorts of people. And, reportedly, Mexico has lost 70,000 of its citizens since 2007 to drug war violence. Is the USA keeping drugs illegal really worth 70,000 human lives? I don't think so.
Under the same premise a car manufacturer should be liable for assisting in a bank robbery because the thieves couldn't have gotten away so quickly without their ingenious device called the automobile! This is just stupid and the judge that made that poor decision should be shot, hanged, and burnt at the stake!
Does a gun manufacturer or dealer go to jail as co-conspirator when the killer used the gun to kill people?
He used to work legally, and pay the taxes.
Now he will have problems finding a job, so he will build secret compartments for drug runners for living, not as a side job.
If you are a small Mom and Pop operations (Under 5 employees) you are going to jail.
If you are a Small Business (Under 100 Employees) you will get massive fines.
If you are a Medium Business (Under 1000 Employees) you will get a stern talking to
If you are a Large Business (1000+ Employees) you are considered an innovator, any misuse of your product is not your fault.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
On the face of it his incarceration is ludicrous. If he specifically created the compartment for drug smuggling and took part of the profits . . . well then I can see some justification.
There's more to it than this.
I think the lesson of this case has little to do with secret compartments. What mainly happened here is the police wanted him to work for them and he said no, so the built a case to punish him. The trial was a joke, the testimony against him was due to plea deals and some of it was physically impossible to be true, and most of it hinged on building up personal dislike by the jury due to his lifestyle.
He refused to put his life at risk when the police threatened him, and they made good on the threat, even if he was within the law. Being within the law does not matter when they want to get you.
"The judge agreed with McCracken’s harsh assessment. He sentenced Anaya to 292 months in federal prison—more than 24 years—with no possibility of parole. Curtis Crow and Cesar Bonilla Montiel, the men at the top of the organization, received sentences half that length."
Just to be clear -- the article doesn't reveal the 24-year sentence until almost the very end. Part of the problem is, as usual (see Aaron Swartz) unchecked prosecutors piling on crazy charges to force a plea bargain, and one person who truly believes they didn't do anything wrong, and refuses to take it for principle's sake. End result: epic miscarriage of justice.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
His mistake was in installing the second "trap" in the other vehicle. He could have legitimately claimed that he agreed to fix the first one out of a sense of responsibility for his workmanship AND fear that the guy would come after him for failing to do so. However, agreeing to the second one made it a clear money grab and it violated the California law. He knew the only way that the guy got that much money was through the drug trade. He should have told the guy that he had compromised his business by showing up with all that money in the "trap" and exposed him to legal liability beyond what he had agreed to.
I understand why he thought he was skirting the law, but he knew he was skirting the law. Once it went beyond merely knowing in an academic fashion that some of his customers were using his installations in an illegal fashion to having seen evidence (even though that evidence was not by itself enough to convict the customer) that a particular customer was doing so he had crossed the line. He crossed the line of plausible deniability.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The case hinged on whether Alfred Anaya knew that the compartments were being used to smuggle drugs. In this context, when he was repairing one of the compartments in question he saw that it was full of bundles of cash. The prosecutors argued (and the jury agreed) that this was clear evidence that something illegal was going on, most likely drugs. He could have said no at that point, but he didn't. I'm generally in favor of legalization for most drugs, but this fellow isn't as sympathetic and innocent as the summary makes him out to be.
Actually traps are pretty common for the rich or those who have to go to bad neighborhoods or even countries.
People keep normal valuables like their wallet, GPS, tablets or laptops in them. The idea is that anything out of sight is out of mind for a crackhead/methuser/dirty cop.
The guy targeted any buyers. The only reason he is going to jail is that he refused to be a snitch so they built a case to punish him for that.
Since when is money an illegal good?
He knew they were moving large amount of money. That is it.
Right now I have a couple grand in my wallet, am I suddenly some sort of criminal?
My brother repaid a loan that I made him. I will either deposit this money or put it in my safe. If I put it in my safe am I suddenly some sort of drug lord?
If it's illegal to hold cash, then we all become Cypriots.
Having $800K in cash you can't account for is going to get you into the territory of seizure laws, unless you can account for where you got it (and the onus is on you to prove that).
And, sadly, once he saw it, and reasonably knew what the second one was likely to be used for .. he was screwed. Because either he said nothing and became complicit, or he turned in some shady people who might not be understanding of that.
If he'd never seen what was inside, and never agreed to make another one, he'd probably have been shielded with "your honor, I have no idea what he kept in there".
But once he asked if there was anything he needed to worry about, and saw that much cash, and then made another one for them ... well, I feel bad for the guy.
Depending on how much cash, if you were found with it you might need to prove it's legally obtained. Trying to deposit $10K or more (or whatever it is) into the bank in cash is going to get flagged as well.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Once this guy knew who he was doing business with, it gave him two crappy options:
1) Turn informant for the government. His customers would know in a moment that he flipped once they see that he's moved out of his house and suddenly has the money to open a fancy storefront with all the bells and whistles (bugged to the gills). Once they figure that out, he and his family are as good as dead.
2) Take your chances in court. Since the federal government moved the venue to Kansas, that'll practically secure a conviction for an LA Latino who can easily be painted as a gangster living large while working on spec for the drug lords. Also, this sets an example for those who refuse uncle sams generous offer to turn informant.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I read this article before it was posted on Slashdot, so I have had a chance to think about it. My biggest problem with this case is the guy's credibility. When it came time to make the money (lots of money) installing the traps he was content to play dumb. When it came time to cooperate with the Fed's after reality caught up to the guy all of a sudden he was in so much fear for his life about these guys that cooperating the Feds (they offered a sweetheart deal) was inconceivable to him.
Let's put it this way, it would be a little bit like one of the guys in Columbia that makes private submarines in the middle of jungle claiming that he thought they were for recreational purposes. This guy knew damn well what his traps were being used for and went right on making them and profiting off of them anyways. Point being that the guy knowingly facilitated the drug trade for profit, how is he any different from a dealer or a crooked border agent?
One of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence was that the British government was "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences". The Founders believed that any alleged crimes should be prosecuted in the jurisdiction where they occurred and that defendants should be tried by a jury of their peers. This was codified in the Sixth Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..."
It seems clear that this section of the Constitution was violated here. Anaya was prosecuted in Kansas, a state where he had apparently never set foot, on the grounds that some of his customers had smuggled drugs there using his secret compartments. But this meant that he would not be tried by a jury of his peers – Californians who are racially diverse, familiar with high tech, and understand that rubbing elbows with the occasional shady person doesn't mean you are necessarily a criminal yourself. Instead he would be tried by a jury in Kansas, a state which is almost all-white and which is full of (let's be honest) fascists.
This is far from the only outrage in this case – it never should have been prosecuted in the first place, and the 24-year sentence is utterly absurd for any offense that doesn't involve death or serious bodily harm – but it's one that hasn't been mentioned so far, and may have been key to Anaya's conviction.
Ask your government. I'm merely telling you what happens, I'm certainly not defending it.
The legal process to get your money back is horribly flawed, and they can seize it on suspicion, and it's mostly a cash grab for the agency seizing it.
However, the fact remains, that if law enforcement finds you with that much cash, they'll likely seize it from you -- and then it will be up to you to prove you obtained it legally in the first place.
Have you not been paying attention? This has been going on for years.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There is what's right, and then there's what's true. The accounting saying you should or shouldn't have $800k is how they determine if it's their business. It is right that the money you have is yours, and yours to do anything legal with (and illegal, if you accept those consequences). It is true that you cannot simply walk into most U.S. banks, auto dealers, etc, plop down $10k or more, and have a normal transaction. In fact, making multiple /perfectly legal/ transactions, totalling $10k or more in a short span of time, can get you arrested for evading the laws covering transactions over $10k, because by making transaction below what the law sets as a limit, you are, in the eyes of the law, /evading/ the limit. And that's... not right.
Indeed. I own several dozen guns - almost all of which I shoot regularly and none of which have ever killed someone.
As a matter of fact, if a gun is "meant" for killing people, considering that there are approximately 200 million guns in the US and 11,000 gun deaths per year in the US, then even if you consider every single one of those deaths to have been caused by a different firearm (which isn't true, but that's a "worse case scenario"), then every year 99.9945% of those guns are used for something other than what they're "meant" for since they didn't kill anyone.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
That he freaked out and said told them to remove the money and “I don’t want to know about this. I don’t want any problems.” Seems like a good indication that he did in fact think it was likely the result of some sort of criminal activity. That he then took another job from them to build a hidden compartment in another vehicle puts him pretty clearly in the breaking the law category (you can argue the law is stupid, but it is what it is).
Of course this guy gets 24 years in prison for indirectly helping out drug traffickers move millions of dollars around. HSBC helps drug traffickers move billions of dollars around and all the people involved get a total of 0 days in prison.
My school had a few real meth heads when I was in high school. The harm that regular meth did was demonstrable in a way that made DARE completely unnecessary. A lot of students actually avoided meth because they saw the harm it did (damaged intelligence, rotting teeth, misc health issues, etc.)
Just calling the kid(s) on stage at a pep rally for 5 minutes and saying "kids, this is what regular meth use does. This is why we don't want you to use meth. Now Johnny, Susy, etc. please be seated." would stop 95% of kids from ever doing meth. It's not like a STD or something like that it's so in-your-face and repeatable that only morons (even by teen standards) would think it doesn't apply to them.
There is broadly applicable principle that laws should not usually yield counter intuitive results. If they do, the odds favor the law itself being unjust. In this case, we're punishing a harmless-but-stupid mechanic for making otherwise legal car customizations only because our perverse drug laws created an unreasonable situation. Also, the DEA and DOJ got pissed that he feared the drug dealers more than them.
There is ample evidence that drug prohibition causes crime and prevents treatment, making all the DEA agents, DOJ prosicutors, and prison contractors who lobby for unjust intimidating laws wholly responsible for the drug related deaths, addiction cases, etc. All the ridiculous scenarios like asset forfeiture cases or locking up mechanics who make otherwise legal mods flow entirely from the underlying corruption in our prison-industrial-complex.
There is one small measure I'd suggest that might reduce the problem somewhat : Do not permit federal prosecutors to become federal judges or win primaries for elected office. Any time we hear about a proposed judicial appointment or a new candidate in some race, just google them and find their past jobs. If they were a federal prosecutor, then google more to find if they ever brought charges under the CFAA, DMCA, etc. or if any drug cases stand out as unjust. If so, then make a stink online to help derail their career advancement. If federal prosecutors cannot usually become federal judges or representatives then they'll lose considerable lobbying power over time.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
If I was repairing something and found a huge stash of money within, my first thought would not be that my client was a drug dealer.
My first thought would be something along the lines of, "Holy crap. That is a lot of money. If some is ever missing he'll think I was the one who took it. I don't want any trouble, so I'll tell him to take his money, make sure it's all there, and keep it out of my reach."
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.
Dante: Whose house was it?
Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.
Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?
Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.
Dante: Based on personal politics.
Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.
Randal: No way!
Blue-Collar Man: (paying for coffee) I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. (pauses to reflect) You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet
Parent must be a public union employee.
Private Unions can be good or bad. If they get too bad they no longer have a job. (Ask the Bakers at Hostess)
Public Unions ARE BAD! In private unions there is management vs union. Balance can be struck.
In Public Employee Unions there can be no balance as the management (Politicians) are put into office with the union funds.
Why people can not see this as a horrible situation that can never work out well I will never understand.
The Hostess situation had nothing to do with the unions. The company was sold to private investors who stole all the retirement accounts and decided to gut the business and sell the brand... but they had contracts to get out of. So they gave themselves huge bonuses and cut worker pay until the workers finally stopped working, figured they'd milked it for what it was worth, and sold the assets. You'll be able to buy Twinkies again soon, because the brand was auctioned off to the highest bidder to repay the investors (who also got paid earlier as owners in the form of retirement money funneled into payouts).
The only way the unions failed in this situation is that they weren't powerful enough.
E pluribus unum