Ted Poe: “Mr. Speaker, the forfeiture concept is very important to the helping of our law enforcement agencies throughout the…”

“Mr. Speaker, the forfeiture concept is very important to the helping of our law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. It is the concept that criminals, drug cartels make a lot of money off the crimes they commit; and that money, when confiscated, should be not given back to the perpetrator, of course. It should be used for law enforcement and other worthwhile endeavors. Under current law, this problem is an extreme problem because of the fact that many times, by the time the criminal cartel has been captured and they go to trial, they have hidden their assets and then there is no money to go back into the forfeiture. So this legislation prevents this problem from occurring in the future. It allows the seizure of those assets where they can be used for law enforcement. It makes criminals pay the rent on the courthouse and pay for the system that they have created, and it helps in the forfeiture. I cannot overemphasize how important forfeiture of illegal, ill-gotten gain is to our law enforcement agencies.”