FARK.com: (7681972) Some Guy: "I calculate that my cash-on-hand falls well below the $10,000 threshold." Border Gestapo: :: Clikka-clikka :: "Nope. Sorry, Citizen. We are, however, grateful for the much-needed boost to Stephen Harper's Sweater Vest Fund"

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		Some Guy: "I calculate that my cash-on-hand falls well below the $10,000 threshold." Border Gestapo: :: Clikka-clikka :: "Nope. Sorry, Citizen. We are, however, grateful for the much-needed boost to Stephen Harper's Sweater Vest Fund" ( news.nationalpost.com)		36
		More: Stupid, Bank of Canada, detector dog, exchange rates, borders, Pearson International Airport, Federal Court of Appeal

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Baron Harkonnen

2013-04-04 06:52:24 AM

5 votes:

nmemkha: "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about!"

And by that logic, police officers who tape civilians without their consent all the time shouldn't be too concerned with being taped in return. But the really strange thing is, this doesn't seem to work in reverse.

Weaver95

2013-04-04 06:52:46 AM

4 votes:

MadSkillz: Bucky Katt: FTFA: a currency detector dog

I had no idea there was such a thing. Now I'm scared.

It just keeps walking away from me!

Side note: This guy taking just under the legal limit seems ... less than legit.

I guess we are no longer innocent until proven guilty. now we're guilty and are not permitted to prove our innocence. I think I'll go wave my tiny flags now, and pretend I matter to the powers that rule our lives.

abhorrent1

2013-04-04 06:49:13 AM

4 votes:

I love how they can arbitrarily decide the money you have is proceeds of a crime and just take it. And why is it only $10k and over can be the result of a crime? Maybe he was going to a casino.

mrlewish

2013-04-04 07:45:35 AM

3 votes:

Meanwhile bankers move around billions of dollars in tax avoidance slush funds over international boarders everyday.

Deathfrogg

2013-04-04 08:48:07 AM

2 votes:

Babwa Wawa: The Evil That Lies In The Hearts Of Men: Question:

Canada mints a 1oz gold coin with a face value of $50. If you need to transfer, say, $15000 over the border could you just take 10 Canadian gold coins and then point to the official total face value of $500 to show you're well below the limit?

Or are there laws that would foil my cunning plan?

It's the cash value (currency equivalent) of whatever you're carrying. Coins, bank notes, traveller's checks, cash, even the prepaid credit cards proposed by theknuckler_33are subject to mandatory reporting if the value is over $10k.

That doesn't apply to jewelry. You can go to Rio de Jenario or Mexico City, spend a few weeks selling machine guns or heroin or cocaine and make $10 Million or $100 Million, buy a few dozen exotic wristwatches an dother such things, put them in your luggage or just wear them, and walk through customs without the customs officers giving them a second glance. Incidentally, NASDAQ and the NYSE and investment banks such as Goldmann-Sachs are specifically exempted from the money-laundering laws. You can sell $50 million worth of cocaine every year, deposit it in a bank account in Lichtenstein, Monaco or the Cayman Islands, and as long as you funnel that cash into the stock markets the Federal government doesn't give a damn.

Several papers I read during the course of my research into the Civil Asset Forfeitures game seemed to show that, if we took all the illegal weapons and drug money out of the United States stock exchanges, the system would collapse, utterly. About 25% of ALL Stock transactions in the United States is based on drug money alone.

You want to win the drug war? Start busting the Banks, because they are becoming extremely wealthy laundering that cash. Mitt Romney made several tens of Millions of Dollars in that game back in the 80's and early 90's. Thats what his little Caymann Island Bank was created for. Specifically to facilitate the drug cartel's shifting their billions into the US Stock markets. thats why he was considered too dirty to run for President back in '04, the Statutes of Limitations hadn't run out yet.

Hosebag

2013-04-04 08:40:50 AM

2 votes:

yukichigai: MadSkillz: Side note: This guy taking just under the legal limit seems ... less than legit.

Yeah. Especially via international travel. Doubly especially because, as far as I know, declaring that you have more than 10k in cash is f%$#ing easy as hell. Yeah, they'll ask for some paperwork maybe, but it's not a ton.

I've done it once... after a particularly good run at the Blackjack tables in Vegas, which pushed me just a little over the 10k limit. I just asked the TSA (after I got through security) to call over Customs to make a currency export declaration. 10 minutes later, the guy shows up, hands me a form, chats casually with me, accepts my declaration (didn't count the money himself, he accepted it as written as it was a voluntary declaration) and I went on my way. Back into Canada, I checked the box marked "more than $10k in currency" on the Canada Customs form, they asked me how much, wrote it on the form, and sent me on my way.

It's not hard at all, and I was only asked "how'd you get the money?" wherein I replied "won big at the blackjack tables". This guy was trying to smuggle the cash - didn't want any records or questions at all, even though they are pretty much all thrown in a large database to never be referred to again.

mattharvest

2013-04-04 08:31:31 AM

2 votes:

MythDragon: Bucky Katt: FTFA: a currency detector dog

I had no idea there was such a thing. Now I'm scared.

Just wait until you get hit up by the fruit beagle. I was coming back from Japan, and there was a military group who had come back from the same flight. We were waiting to pick up our bags so we could go clear customs and the fruit beagle starts sniffing this one guy's back (who is in full uniform, BTW) The agent makes him open his bag and finds an orange and loses his shiat. "Sir! This is an undeclared orange! You ARE NOT PERMITTED to bring fruit into this country! Did you not READ THE RULES??"

The guy tries to explain they gave him the orange on the damn plane and he was just saving it for later. The agent says "Sir, you are bringing OUT OF COUNTRY fruit INTO THE COUNTRY. You CANNOT do that!. You need to come with me now!"

The haul the guy off somewhere, and I didn't see him again by the time I had gotten my bags and cleared customs.

This is a good example of how if you looked up why a rule existed, you wouldn't be so indignant.

There are a large number of food-borne parasites and infectious organisms that can only cross the ocean by riding fruit. It is virtually impossible to determine, without smashing and examining the fruit, whether any given fruit has many/most of these. In order to protect each country's ecology, most (if not all) countries are extremely strict about these.

What's worse is that most countries have rather differing policies on what pesticides are permissible, what genetically modified foods are growable, etc., and so most countries cannot trust other countries to have policed their fruit according to the way the receiving nation wants.

For example, since 2011 many countries have been dealing with an infestation of the Khapra beetle, and so you cannot import dried rice without permission into the US. This isn't because the government is necessarily worried about intentionally polluting our food supply, but rather that we're worried about accidentally importing a devastating parasite.

Deathfrogg

2013-04-04 08:27:30 AM

2 votes:

I just did a shortish, half-ass paper on this for school. In Tennessee for example, the threshold is $100.

Thats right. $100. If you are carrying more than that in cash, and you get pulled over in one of their little speed traps or "color" traps, and you are carrying more than that, they take it. Alabama, it's $500.

One Linky-Dinky

Two Linky-Dinky

Three Linky-Dinky

Basically, when you get your money stolen by the cops, you are funding Department parties, aquisition of some pretty exotic weaponry and equipment including state-of-the-art helicopter gunships such as AH-64 Apaches (yes, fully armed), heavy equipment like bulldozers, excavators and farm tractors that are mysteriously resold to Sheriffs brothers for pennies, expensive firearms such as Connecticut Shotguns and Purdy Best ($120,000/pair) that are resold by the Departments for cash, multi-tenthousand dollar bonuses for individual Police officers, (one in a small town in southeastern California was making $120,000 as a cop, AND getting $80-$90 thousand per year in bonus money based on all the cash he'd confiscated over the previous fiscal quarter.

The system is robbing you, and it's all legal. And yes, they WILL shoot you dead to confiscate your property through the Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws. They don't have to arrest you, they don't have to charge you with a crime at all. They charge your PROPERTY with suspicion of involvement, and you aren't allowed to even hire a lawyer to defend it.

nmemkha

2013-04-04 07:45:28 AM

2 votes:

ModernLuddite: I'm okay with this.

HindiDiscoMonster

2013-04-04 07:20:26 AM

2 votes:

Mr. Right: FTA: "Individuals are free to arrange their affairs so as to leave the smallest possible financial footprint," wrote Justice J.D. Denis Pelletier, on behalf of the panel of appellate judges, last week. "The disadvantage of doing so is that when a question arises as to the source of large amounts of cash found in their possession, they have very few means of establishing the legitimacy of those funds.

That would be the same in the U.S. If your income is not traceable through W-2 and 1099, you must be operating under the table and, therefore, illegal. Just another way governments aim to track and ultimately control every aspect of your life. If it isn't documented on a government form, it didn't legally happen.

This is where we live now... well, minus the cheese. (mostly)

Mr. Right

2013-04-04 07:14:01 AM

2 votes:

FTA: "Individuals are free to arrange their affairs so as to leave the smallest possible financial footprint," wrote Justice J.D. Denis Pelletier, on behalf of the panel of appellate judges, last week. "The disadvantage of doing so is that when a question arises as to the source of large amounts of cash found in their possession, they have very few means of establishing the legitimacy of those funds.

That would be the same in the U.S. If your income is not traceable through W-2 and 1099, you must be operating under the table and, therefore, illegal. Just another way governments aim to track and ultimately control every aspect of your life. If it isn't documented on a government form, it didn't legally happen.

bighairyguy

2013-04-04 06:59:35 AM

2 votes:

Why do stupid people always seem to have more money than I do?

dyhchong

2013-04-04 06:56:10 AM

2 votes:

Weaver95: MadSkillz: Bucky Katt: FTFA: a currency detector dog

I had no idea there was such a thing. Now I'm scared.

It just keeps walking away from me!

Side note: This guy taking just under the legal limit seems ... less than legit.

I guess we are no longer innocent until proven guilty. now we're guilty and are not permitted to prove our innocence. I think I'll go wave my tiny flags now, and pretend I matter to the powers that rule our lives.

Except he was guilty and it was proven, he brought in more than $10,000 without declaring it. They didn't just look at the money and say it was over 10k, they calculated it to make sure.

nmemkha

2013-04-04 06:48:48 AM

2 votes:

I love how the outrageous becomes the new normal.

"If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about!"

MadSkillz

2013-04-04 02:27:16 AM

2 votes:

Bucky Katt: FTFA: a currency detector dog

I had no idea there was such a thing. Now I'm scared.

It just keeps walking away from me!

Side note: This guy taking just under the legal limit seems ... less than legit.

Bucky Katt

2013-04-04 01:11:15 AM

2 votes:

FTFA: a currency detector dog

I had no idea there was such a thing. Now I'm scared.

dyhchong

2013-04-04 06:47:38 PM

1 vote:

I can't understand why the concept is so difficult.

I don't live in North America and every country has a similar rule (just got back from HK, Malaysia and Singapore to NZ, they all have something to this effect although the Malaysian one is a bit flakey). It doesn't matter whether it's a cent, a hundred cents, a hundred dollars or a hundred thousand dollars over the limit, if you declare it the legal requirement has been met and you can go on your merry way.

His crime is that he didn't declare it, it's the same with bringing four bottles of spirits in when you can only bring in three without declaration. If I bring four bottles of spirits in when NZ law says max 3x1.125L and advise I have nothing to declare, they will fine me well over what the spirits are worth or confiscate them if they find I had them (or both) because that's what has been set out.

If I declare it and say I've got four bottles I've always been told, "Okay, off you go." Although if I tried to bring in a crate they'd probably try and tax me because I'm importing goods to a value greater than the customs limit (which is $50 of GST worth of goods, around $400ish dollars).

This is to avoid people completing commercial transactions through private means outside of the established commercial laws, eg, I wear a $16k NZD(about 14KUSD) Rolex which would attract the GST due to its value but they don't care, if I brought a suitcase of about 200 in, which would easily be under the 30KG limit then it's likely for commercial purposes and skirting the tax that must be paid for commercial imports.

If he had declared it, they would have sent him on his merry way, but he broke the law, if you don't like the laws of the country then don't live in the country. Before doing that, though, go have a look at the state of the countries who don't enforce laws like that (think poor, violent and drug fuelled).

Now he has gone to the courts to say, yes he broke the law, I have learned my lesson, can I have an exception? (Which I have done to get off tickets for not having a Warrant of Fitness on my motorcycle). And in this case he hasn't provided any sort of a case, compassionate or logical, for getting the exception so the courts have said no. Much like I have been declined an exception on my ticket because I was actually just being lazy in not getting it.

entropic_existence

2013-04-04 10:02:33 AM

1 vote:

MythDragon: It was an orange he got on the Goddamn plane. He wasn't smuggling West Asian Carp Nugget Trees which might contain the invasive Red Ethiopian Limpet Weevil. That would make sense that you can't have those. It was food that was flown, by the airline, into the country already. They didn't make an announcement that "Any food given to you on this flight must be consumed before leaving". One would assume that food provided on the flight to the country you're going to would be allowed in the country you're going to.

The customs form you fill out prior to landing asks about shiat like fresh fruit. It doesn't matter if you got it on the plane or not, you still need to either not bring it in to the country, or declare it on the customs form. It really isn't a difficult concept unless you're a complete moron. Whether it is stupid or not, in that circumstance, is irrelevant.

I swear some people just shouldn't ever cross international borders.

Honest Bender: I'm shocked and saddened by how many of you are ok with this. It's seriously farked up that a government body can do this to it's people. He wasn't even charged with a crime. They just didn't like what he had to say so they took his money. And all anyone had to say on the matter was, "Well, it was suspicious. And he couldn't prove he wasn't going to break the law... so the money is ours now."

/Disgusting.

He broke a law... he took more than $10K in currency across the border without declaring it. He wasn't oblivious to the law as he tried very hard to get just below the limit, but he obviously didn't do a good enough job.

dready zim

2013-04-04 09:36:44 AM

1 vote:

dyhchong: Except he was guilty and it was proven, he brought in more than $10,000 without declaring it. They didn't just look at the money and say it was over 10k, they calculated it to make sure.

And two days earlier it wasn`t over. They had to calculate it to find him slightly over.

Are you really saying that $9,999.99 is only ever carried by law abiding citizens and 10,000.01 is only ever carried by people who obtained the money by crime?

Are you really happy with saying that having over $10,000 itself is PROOF of criminal activity and so said monies should be confiscated?

You sound poor. And stupid. And an authoritarian conformer...

mightybaldking

2013-04-04 09:35:57 AM

1 vote:

abhorrent1: I love how they can arbitrarily decide the money you have is proceeds of a crime and just take it. And why is it only $10k and over can be the result of a crime? Maybe he was going to a casino.

That's not how it worked. It was the importation of more than $10 000 that was a crime. Had he declared it, they might have investigated, but they couldn't just seize it.

Same with guns. When the Canadian Border Guard asks if you have a firearm, say yes. They'll take it, and for a fee, will hold it for you. Don't declare it, and you're going to jail.

Honest Bender

2013-04-04 09:32:22 AM

1 vote:

I'm shocked and saddened by how many of you are ok with this. It's seriously farked up that a government body can do this to it's people. He wasn't even charged with a crime. They just didn't like what he had to say so they took his money. And all anyone had to say on the matter was, "Well, it was suspicious. And he couldn't prove he wasn't going to break the law... so the money is ours now."

/Disgusting.

MythDragon

2013-04-04 09:25:41 AM

1 vote:

mattharvest: MythDragon: Bucky Katt: FTFA: a currency detector dog

I had no idea there was such a thing. Now I'm scared.

Just wait until you get hit up by the fruit beagle. I was coming back from Japan, and there was a military group who had come back from the same flight. We were waiting to pick up our bags so we could go clear customs and the fruit beagle starts sniffing this one guy's back (who is in full uniform, BTW) The agent makes him open his bag and finds an orange and loses his shiat. "Sir! This is an undeclared orange! You ARE NOT PERMITTED to bring fruit into this country! Did you not READ THE RULES??"

The guy tries to explain they gave him the orange on the damn plane and he was just saving it for later. The agent says "Sir, you are bringing OUT OF COUNTRY fruit INTO THE COUNTRY. You CANNOT do that!. You need to come with me now!"

The haul the guy off somewhere, and I didn't see him again by the time I had gotten my bags and cleared customs.

This is a good example of how if you looked up why a rule existed, you wouldn't be so indignant.

There are a large number of food-borne parasites and infectious organisms that can only cross the ocean by riding fruit. It is virtually impossible to determine, without smashing and examining the fruit, whether any given fruit has many/most of these. In order to protect each country's ecology, most (if not all) countries are extremely strict about these.

What's worse is that most countries have rather differing policies on what pesticides are permissible, what genetically modified foods are growable, etc., and so most countries cannot trust other countries to have policed their fruit according to the way the receiving nation wants.

For example, since 2011 many countries have been dealing with an infestation of the Khapra beetle, and so you cannot import dried rice without permission into the US. This isn't because the government is necessarily worried about intentionally polluting our food supply, but rather that we're w ...

It was an orange he got on the Goddamn plane. He wasn't smuggling West Asian Carp Nugget Trees which might contain the invasive Red Ethiopian Limpet Weevil. That would make sense that you can't have those. It was food that was flown, by the airline, into the country already. They didn't make an announcement that "Any food given to you on this flight must be consumed before leaving". One would assume that food provided on the flight to the country you're going to would be allowed in the country you're going to.

Deathfrogg

2013-04-04 08:56:06 AM

1 vote:

willfullyobscure: I just don't get the point. Why bother risking what amounts to less than my monthly paycheck? is there really an underground cash economy sufficient to eschew electronic funds that one can maintain any kind of lifestyle on? Either he's so poor that $10,000 is like, his life savings or something and now he's broke, or he's terminally stupid...

There are banks in this world where the minimum required balance is $100 Million or more, several with minimum balance requirements of $1 Billion. Those banks are "private". They are exempt from nearly every money laundering law there is. They're the sort of place where you call the manager, and set up an appointment and they send a Rolls Royce limousine to pick you up and take you to the Bank to do your business.

It's much easier to borrow $100 Million, than it is to borrow $100,000.

Flakeloaf

2013-04-04 08:51:14 AM

1 vote:

mattharvest: There are a large number of food-borne parasites and infectious organisms that can only cross the ocean by riding fruit. It is virtually impossible to determine, without smashing and examining the fruit, whether any given fruit has many/most of these. In order to protect each country's ecology, most (if not all) countries are extremely strict about these.

Then don't hand them out on the farking plane. I'm not disagreeing with you because those rules are there for a long list of very good reasons. But are we so incomplete that we can't go twelve or fourteen hours without a fresh fruit that will probably just taste like vaseline at 30,000 feet anyway?

tenpoundsofcheese

2013-04-04 08:36:40 AM

1 vote:

looks like subby is trying to create a new definition for "well below".

ph0rk

2013-04-04 08:35:07 AM

1 vote:

Deathfrogg: The system is robbing you, and it's all legal. And yes, they WILL shoot you dead to confiscate your property through the Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws. They don't have to arrest you, they don't have to charge you with a crime at all. They charge your PROPERTY with suspicion of involvement, and you aren't allowed to even hire a lawyer to defend it.

Ah, well, don't appear lower class while driving.

Quantum Apostrophe

2013-04-04 08:04:47 AM

1 vote:

poot_rootbeer

2013-04-04 07:55:33 AM

1 vote:

It doesn't seem fair to punish people smuggling currency across the border by making them forfeit all of it, but in this case the guy's behavior was clearly shady, and he was given ample opportunity to argue his case in court, so, fark him and his dirty money.

Mister Peejay

2013-04-04 07:50:51 AM

1 vote:

mbillips: Yeah. I'd be more concerned about my civil liberties if there were anyone, ANYONE in the world with a legit reason to bring 10k in cash across the border. You do that to cheat on taxes and/or buy drugs, and for no other reason.

Canadian automotive import laws are more lax than the US. The age limit where the EPA and DOT don't care anymore is 25 years, while it's only 15 years in Canada. There are a lot of interesting Japanese and European cars that got shifted to Canada that are just now starting to become legal to bring into the US.

One of them which is just now starting to come out of the 25 year window is the Lancia Delta Integrale. Early examples ('87ish) aren't terribly expensive, enough so that one of my goals is to stash enough cash to go north, buy one, and bring it back home. But it would be a CASH transaction, because Mister Peejay don't do bank accounts. Sick of the relentless fees.

Mr. Right

2013-04-04 07:35:19 AM

1 vote:

ongbok: Mr. Right: FTA: "Individuals are free to arrange their affairs so as to leave the smallest possible financial footprint," wrote Justice J.D. Denis Pelletier, on behalf of the panel of appellate judges, last week. "The disadvantage of doing so is that when a question arises as to the source of large amounts of cash found in their possession, they have very few means of establishing the legitimacy of those funds.

That would be the same in the U.S. If your income is not traceable through W-2 and 1099, you must be operating under the table and, therefore, illegal. Just another way governments aim to track and ultimately control every aspect of your life. If it isn't documented on a government form, it didn't legally happen.

Show that you paid taxes on it and you are in the clear. It is simple.

You're right. It shows that you paid your taxes. It also proves that you reported all of your income because the government knows that you're a liar and a cheat and without them tracking every penny of your financial transactions they wouldn't get all of "their money." Orwell couldn't even imagine how thoroughly invasive governments would become.

mbillips

2013-04-04 07:34:48 AM

1 vote:

Yeah. I'd be more concerned about my civil liberties if there were anyone, ANYONE in the world with a legit reason to bring 10k in cash across the border. You do that to cheat on taxes and/or buy drugs, and for no other reason. That's why there's that law, and why Congress critters who support that kind of law are super popular with voters.

Slartibartfaster

2013-04-04 07:14:42 AM

1 vote:

Ive walked through that border with .... shock horror .... credit cards (with a significantly higher limit than 10k)

It is a dumb law

// foreign cards

doglover

2013-04-04 07:10:49 AM

1 vote:

God, they should shoot Polanski.

ongbok

2013-04-04 07:09:06 AM

1 vote:

Not helping his case was the fact that Mr. Docherty had little in the way of business records to prove the origins of the cash.

The guy couldn't even prove his claim that the money came from a mushroom business or an inheritance as he claimed. This is why he tried to bring $20 under the limit across instead of declaring it. The idiot should have given himself more of a cushion, say $500, or something that a small daily fluctuation in the dollar wouldn't have pushed him over the limit. But if he had planned for that he would be smart enough to have a real business, and therefor have a legit $10k and would be able to declare it.

Korzine

2013-04-04 06:59:54 AM

1 vote:

He did break the law though. He tried to move more than $10k across customs without declaring it. The penalty of breaking said law is seizure of the money. It's not like he didn't know about the law either, by his own admittance he was trying to carry just under the legal limit that necessitates declaration.

Whether he was doing something illegal out of country seems rather irrelevant because they aren't charging him with those crimes, just the one they know he committed.

yukichigai

2013-04-04 04:08:04 AM

1 vote:

MadSkillz: Side note: This guy taking just under the legal limit seems ... less than legit.

Yeah. Especially via international travel. Doubly especially because, as far as I know, declaring that you have more than 10k in cash is f%$#ing easy as hell. Yeah, they'll ask for some paperwork maybe, but it's not a ton.

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