guys. The staggering profits of the cocaine trade had created a sleek, high-tech underworld with more firepower, better communications, faster cars, planes, and boats than the cops. To strip the narcotraffickers of this obscene wealth, the administration dusted off a legal strategy that originated in the early days of the republic when the government fought smugglers by seizing their ships and cargo.^[21]  The concept, known as forfeiture, was used again during alcohol prohibition to relieve bootleggers of their assets.  Now it would be transformed into a Sword of Damocles, hanging by a thin judicial thread over every citizen in the country.

The Omnibus Crime Bill of 1984 gave the administration everything it asked for and then some. In addition to the inevitable boost in prison terms, prosecutors could now confiscate cash, cars, boats, homes, bank accounts, stock portfolios—anything believed to have been tainted with drugs or drug money—based on nothing more than an accusation. And because drug traffickers are notoriously slippery, the law provided for an element of surprise.  It allowed police to take  property without notice. In other words, the goods would be seized first, then charges would be filed, then the evidence would be gathered—the exact reverse of due process. While this legal shortcut proved to be a powerful weapon against the guilty, it contained no safeguard for the innocent.  And the new law had one additional clause that would subtly alter the relationship between citizens and police.  From now on, seized assets would be shared among the law enforcement agencies that made the seizure.  The symmetry was appealing—using the trafficker’s ill-gotten gains to combat drug trafficking—but in practical terms, the cop on the beat now had a cash incentive to capture property instead of criminals. In an era of belt-tightening, profits from seizures were a way for strapped departments to make ends meet.  Very shortly, law enforcement agencies throughout the country began including seizure projections in their annual budgets. Now there were hard numbers on paper that represented official targets—