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Article: Give and Take on the Hot Issue of Asset Forfeiture
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- March 11, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Junk bond king Michael Milken forfeited nearly $200 million to
the U.S. government as part of his 1990 guilty plea to securities
crimes. The forfeited more than $600 million since 1992 for its
illegal takeover of U.S. banks.
Drug kingpins and money launderers have given up millions in
ill-gotten gains to the government's asset forfeiture fund. Asset
forfeiture laws, originally used as a club in the war on drugs, have
been used to take cars, boats, homes, guns and cash in thousands of
cases for all kinds of crimes since the 1980s.
In 1994 the Justice Department's asset forfeiture fund totaled
$549.9 million. The fund has taken in $2.7 billion in the past five
years, and much of it is ...