In cases where only one physical good (e.g. B a vehicle) is broken down and a federal, state or local authority or a foreign country requires this property instead of the proceeds of the sale of the property, the Treasury Forfeiture Fund must recover its costs and fair share. If the applicant party is unable to bear the costs and the fair share, the property shall be sold and the proceeds shall be distributed equitably in accordance with the formula set out in the preceding paragraph. Exceptions to this requirement are granted conservatively by Warrants and Forfeitures where it is guaranteed in writing that a lack of adequate communication between the law enforcement authorities of the Ministry of Finance and the applicant authorities often leads to ill will and confusion in the fair sharing process. To remedy this situation, TEOAF has developed form letters used to inform request agencies of the status of their Equitable Sharing request, while providing them with a contact name and the phone number of an agency representative, who will be able to provide them with timely information about their Equitable Sharing requests. These letters are contained in TEOAF No. 16, Equitable Sharing Acknowledgments and Advice on Sharing Requests. Warrants and Forfeitures send these letters to the requesting agencies after the Equitable Sharing requests have been submitted for approval by Headquarters/CI. TEOAF Directive No. 34, a directive limiting the adoption of federal seizures by national and local law enforcement authorities, establishes general adoption guidelines and procedures and covers the federal adoption form, the application for acceptance of state or local seizures (Annex 9.7.2-1), verification and authorization by the federal investigative authority, the period of application for adoption, notification requirements and retention of hts custody by public or local authorities. Directive No. 34 is summarized as follows: the acceptance by the Confederation of public and local seizures is prohibited, with the exception of objects directly related to public safety concerns, including firearms, ammunition, explosives, child pornography tools, adulterated food, falsified consumer goods and other similar objects, that pose a public health and safety concern.
The prohibition of federal adoption includes, among other things, the seizure of vehicles, valuables, and cash by state or local law enforcement. Cash is defined as currency and monetary equivalents such as postal instructions, personal and cashier checks, stored value cards, certificates of deposit, traveler`s checks, and U.S. savings bonds. Any other property that may trigger the public safety exception may be accepted at the federal level with the agreement of the Director of TEOAF, who is sent by the Director of Alerts & Forfeiture. Equitable sharing is prohibited for any federal adoption. This does not affect joint investigations and does not apply in the following circumstances: Federal law provides that participation in joint investigations reflects the degree of direct involvement of the requesting authority in law enforcement efforts leading to forfeiture. As a rule, this is done by comparing the number of hours of investigation spent by the application agencies. Hours worked include all hours worked by investigators or professional analysts and technicians until the end of the lapse directly attributed to the expiry measure. The time of secretarial and support staff should not be used to determine the time limits for an investigation by an authority. The final determination of the shares takes place only after the loss of the property and all the contributions of the agency participating in the seizure/development.
Forfeiture, like all legal proceedings, takes time. . . .