U.S. Customs has seized cash from 13 travelers who were departing the United States just at Washington Dulles airport in the first six weeks of the year.
It’s widely known that you have to declare when you’re bringing over $10,000 in cash into the United States. You disclose this on your customs declaration form, and then must file form fincen 105. If you’re traveling as a family, under one customs declaration, then the $10,000 limit without disclosure applies to the combined cash being carried by everyone in the family.
Much less well-known is that it’s even required that Americans carrying cash out of the United States have to declare it if it’s in excess of $10,000. That’s true even though there’s currently not ‘departure immigration’ clearance when leaving the United States. Most passengers think that getting on an international flight out of the U.S. is no different than getting on a domestic one, and wouldn’t have any idea where or how to declare their cash even if they knew they had to do it.
- You can find a customs officer at your international departure airport
- Or complete FinCen form 105 online, especially important if you’re flying out of an airport like Washington National which has international flights but no customs facility. (International flights returning to the airport are limited to destinations with US immigration preclearance, and also are subject to the 1250 mile perimeter rule in any case.)
Yet, 13 of the 14 cash seizures at Dulles airport have been from departing passengers – mostly passengers heading to Africa, where the need to operate in cash is greater, like the Houston woman who had the money she was taking to Nigeria to start a medical clinic seized. She simply didn’t know that she was required to fill out a form to bring the money with her when leaving the country. There was no accusation she’d broken any other rules other than the paperwork.
Credit: Customs and Border Protection
Most of the cash from departing passengers is found by money-sniffing dogs. That’s entirely separate from cash seized at airports by the drug enforcement agency, over the period 2007–2016 the DEA seized a total of $3.2 billion in cash with “zero convictions tied to this money.”
More government thefts…….
@Gary, I’m not sure it’s just cash. I think it goes a bit broader than that.
On several occasions at PHX I have had TSA agents pimping for Customs pull my UK change bag out of my carry-on and poke through it suspiciously. Of course, to the drones TSA employs, UK pound coins look suspiciously like gold 🙂 You tell when Customs has paid for lunch.
I need me a cash sniffing dog!
You have to love how the government just gets to take your money “just because.”. Its not a tax, or a fee. But because it is “suspicious”. This isn’t just a travel issue, but since it is related to leaving the US. I can’t believe this is constitutional. They can get the money back, but the legal fees make it not worthwhile from what I understand. Which is what the problem is. They should be required to return the cash if no criminal charges are filed without having to go to court. In other words, charge me, or give me my cash back.
Yes, it’s unbelievable, disgusting, grossly unethical, and wrong. The amount of cash seized is in the billions of dollars, there are a number of great new stories online, this one comes from a trusted source: https://www.qcnews.com/news/investigations/government-seizes-billions-in-cash-from-air-travelers-without-ever-filing-a-criminal-charge/
I had to argue about why I had $1000 in smaller bills when going to the Dominican Republic. Not illegal, but “our” public servants got suspicious. (They were in my wallet. Next time I put the same amount spread out among papers in my laptop case and nobody noticed.) But worse yet, there have been a number of case where those charming folks at the TSA confiscating cash they saw on domestic flights just on suspicion of its use. Law suits can get it back but you know the mess that is. It’s mission creep on the forfeiture laws that fund a lot of police work today and encourage taking on flimsy grounds. Another example that America does not have a drug problem. It has a drug law problem.
It should be illegal for our government to seize money like that. $10k isn’t even that much. Not only is the amount limit outdated and based on a 1970 Bank Secrecty Act of $10,000 at that time but there is no reason to seize such cash if you have any sort of good reason.
In 2013 I was sitting at the tip of LAX T7 waiting for my NRT flight. A uniformed team of 3CBP agents (apparently able to speak the top 3 languages in the US) came out to the area, and went over to the other gate where a PVG flight was waiting to board and selected passengers there for questioning. China is another hotspot for undeclared items, inbound and outbound. (When CX had that early morning flight to LAX, everyone came out of customs quickly. Apparently when the flight left HKG too early in the day for Guangdongers to be on, customs clearance was much quicker.)
And the nerve that they BRAG about doing this sort of stuff.
This is ridiculous, as all asset forfeitures are. They should be illegal. This BS of confiscating your valuables because they “suspect” you of something is an outrage. Frankly, no better than any so-called banana republic. If anything, most of them are better because you can often “buy lunch” for the officer at a reasonable price. thus avoiding trouble. The idiots in our government can’t even be bargained with.
The important part is this: “In every case, CBP officers explained U.S. currency reporting laws to the travelers, giving them various opportunities to honestly report how much currency they carried with them. Regardless, all travelers “remained evasive and continued to underreport their currency,” both verbally and in writing, the agency said.” It isn’t the cash that’s the issue, it’s lying about it even after being given the chance to come clean. You can’t lie to customs and get away with it.
I do think that civil asset forfeiture is absolutely a sham, but I want to be clear that this is a very different situation.
Nothing new about this and I don’t understand what this is even a story. This has been the law for years. And I am glad that government officials that are just carrying out the law ‘ can’t be bargained with.” AS someone else said “it isn’t the cash that’s the issue, it’s lying about it even after being given the chance to come clean. You can’t lie to customs and get away with it.”
Nothing new about this and I don’t understand what this is even a story. This has been the law for years. No one said you can’t take cash out or bring it in – you just have to report it (this is related to money laundering). And I am glad that government officials that are just carrying out the law ‘ can’t be bargained with.” . As someone else said “it isn’t the cash that’s the issue, it’s lying about it even after being given the chance to come clean. You can’t lie to customs and get away with it.”
Have heard of TSA confiscating cash from those traveling on even domestic flights where it could be winnings from Vegas or cash being taken to Vegas for gambling. I know it should ideally be deposited in the bank before travel but some may want to keep it as cash for tax considerations.
@FR – “Nothing new about this and I don’t understand what this is even a story. ”
Because most Americans don’t know it, and wouldn’t know how to report it if they did. So seemed worth highlighting at a time CBP is bragging about their catches.
This was put into place when drug dealers were paying for their suppliers in cash with cash mules taking their money to wherever the drugs came from. On top of that, Treasury and/or the IRS can then attempt to see if there is unreported income. Back when bearer bonds were a thing, those were another method of moving money out of the country.
Leaving soon for a middle east trip, unique reasons mean I need to carry $3500 USD cash with us, I’ve been incredibly worried about it. About half is smaller bills, l guess I’ll spread it out as much as possible across our carry on baggage. Not enough to need to declare anywhere we’re going but don’t want to have some crappy TSA officer think they’d get an easy confiscation
It’s the law. Just disclose it. Quit whining.
Add a notice at TSA checkpoints. Problem solved.
Also, AFAIK, the $10K limit is per group of people traveling together.
Members of a family residing in one household entering the United States that submit a joint or family declaration must declare if the members are collectively carrying currency or monetary instruments in a combined amount over $10,000 on their Customs Declaration Form (CBP Form 6059B). Members individually carrying over $10,000 are then required to file a Members FinCEN Form 105. Members of a family residing in one household that submit a joint or family declaration are prohibited from causing others in the group to carry currency or monetary instruments in the group on their behalf, so that no member carries more than $10,000.
Hmm…I can’t seem to find my post?
One word: BitCoin
@matt, you have nothing to worry about. No one cares about $3500.
We have taken several thousand dollars (never 10k) on numerous trips. Hey you never know what you’ll run across! But having heard of this crap we always have our bank pop a letter in the bag so the government employees at least can’t say it’s ill gotten booty (or ill booten gotty)
@drrichard says “I had to argue about why I had $1000 in smaller bills when going to the Dominican Republic.”
I had to repeatedly plead with tellers a few years ago at Chase Bank in New York City as to why I needed smaller bills, a whole variety of denominations, and also CLEAN UNDAMAGED BANKNOTES for travel to Africa and Asia. My pleas fell on deaf ears, the tellers couldn’t care. But the one teller from the Caribbean totally understood that and took the time to find me nice clean banknotes.
Honestly it’s ridiculous trying to even obtain cash these days… imagine if you went to all the trouble to get $500 to $1000 in various denominations at a bank and then icing on the cake was a moron at TSA asking why you needed cash money.
I used to fly to the Cayman Islands a lot for work. It was not unusual for a customs officer make an announcement at the gate informing passengers to declare any cash over $10,000. But it was the Cayman Islands…
What is even more stupid is that you only get to spend$800 out of the country then you must report whatever you bought!! It has been $800 for many many years and no sign of it increasing!! Costs of things all over the world are going up but our limit stays the same…..
And then we have Ted Cruz lecturing Australians (who suffered a 5x lower excess death ratio in the 3 COVID years than the US) about tyranny!
He’s done ZERO to fix his own government stealing money (objectively a far worse form of tyranny than saving lives).
The lying is ridiculous.
I wonder if ATM machines in the African countries to which the travelers troubled by federal agents were going dispense US dollars. If they do, might not a person carry less than the $10,000 permitted w/o declaring it and then use ATM machines to withdraw the cash they need?
I do realize that (1) there may be few ATM machines in Africa; (2) few if any of those ATM machines may dispense US dollars.
Might not those traveling and needing more than $10,000 in cash at least inquire at their banks?
I suppose that the zealous federal agents were not filmed by other passengers, or their IDs demanded and photographed so that appropriate documentation could be shared with the news media and others. Pity.
@Vazir Mukhtar All the US wants is to know when people move money in and out of the US. If someone uses an ATM internationally to access a US bank account, it creates a record, so the US can look into the source of the money if they want to. It’s easier to use Western Union than an ATM in most cases. Federal customs agents have nearly limitless warrant-free ability to search people entering or leaving the US. They would much rather have people file the right documents than have to search people, as they have limited resources to apply their nearly limitless power.
@Ed Bitcoin isn’t the solution to money laundering, as all the exchanges in the US have to use Know Your Customer, so moving money to the non-US part of the exchange will cause notification to the US, including a 1099B. Acquiring Bitcoin outside of an exchange with cash is hard to do while in the US, leaving the original problem of moving cash outside of the US. About the only way to do this is to use cash to buy equipment and electricity to mine bitcoin into a private wallet, and to use a VPN to make it look like the coin was made outside the US.