Elsewhere, there are some other worrying developments: In Bulgaria, the assets of tax evaders have recently begun to be confiscated and turned over to the National Revenue Agency and the State Receivables Collection Agency.
Property is confiscated even when the tax assessment is disputed in the courts. The Agency cannot, however, confiscate single-dwelling houses, bank accounts up to 250 leva of one member of the family, salary or pension up to 250 leva a month, social care, and alimony, support money or allowances.
Venezuela has recently reformed its Organic Tax Code to allow for: " (P)re-judgment enforcement measures (to) include closure of premises for up to ten days and confiscation of merchandise. These measures will be applied in addition to the attachment or sequestration of personal property and the prohibition against alienation or encumbrance of realty. During closure of premises, the employer must continue to pay workers, thereby avoiding an appeal for constitutional protection".
Finally, in many states in the United States, "community responsibility" statutes require of owners of legal businesses to "abate crime" by openly fighting it themselves. If they fail to tackle the criminals in their neighborhood, the police can seize and sell their property, including their apartments and cars. The proceeds from such sales accrue to the local municipality.
In New-York City, the police confiscated a restaurant because one of its regular patrons was an alleged drug dealer. In Alabama, police seized the home of a senior citizen because her yard was used, without her consent, for drug dealing. In Maryland, the police confiscated a family's home and converted it into a retreat for its officers, having mailed one of the occupants a package of marijuana.
III.Money Laundering in A Changed World
If you shop with a major bank, chances are that all the transactions in your account are scrutinized by AML (Anti Money Laundering) software. Billions of dollars are being invested in these applications. They are supposed to track suspicious transfers, deposits, and withdrawals based on overall statistical patterns. Bank directors, exposed, under the Patriot Act, to personal liability for money laundering in their establishments, swear by it as a legal shield and the holy grail of the on-going war against financial crime and the finances of terrorism.
Quoted in Wired.com, Neil Katkov of Celent Communications, pegs future investments in compliance- related activities and products by American banks alone at close to $15 billion in the next 3 years (2005-2008). The United State's Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (finCEN) received c. 15 million reports in each of the years 2003 and 2004.
But this is a drop in the seething ocean of illicit financial transactions, sometimes egged on and abetted even by the very Western governments ostensibly dead set against them.