Based on his history/background when he was very young and 'stupid'....the made the assumption that the money and his personal assets (including the watch) were drug-related...

I believe they WERE legitimate government employees....viffer said in an earlier post that he called the airport police and they told him that yes indeed they are DEA agents...

add to that the fact these fake agents would need to have known viffer would be traveling @ this time, they would also need uniforms, and to also pass through security gates, and it makes for quite the parlay... i rly doubt they were just some robbers

blame canada eh

I've read 17 pages of this thread, and nowhere to be found is the obvious:

Don't talk to the police. By "don't talk to the police," I mean, not one word. Don't consent to searches. Don't voluntarily go to some back room or to the police station. The only thing you should ever say to a cop at an airport is, "Am I being detained? If so, I'd like to call my lawyer now. Otherwise, I'd like to be on my way." This goes double for Feds, because it is a felony to lie to them, and you are not in a position to figure out what they will or will not regard as a lie. The cop or agent is required to stop questioning you as soon as you say the magic words, "I'd like to call my lawyer now."

If your Mommy and Daddy failed to teach you this, as is evidently the case with the OP, then you deserve the consequences.

maybe you should realize how illogical this sounds.

I heard a lecture given by a DEA agent in which he described walking up to people at the airport, questioning them, and asking nicely to search their bags. He said he was always careful to tell the individual that he or she was free to leave; and he only searched bags with the permission of the individual. You would be amazed, he said, at the number of people who said OK to a search who actually had drugs on them.

because those people assume that saying no is an admission of guilt or something to hide.

i haven't read the OP in while, but my guess is that he assumed, like a lot of us unfortunately do, that the authorities are reasonable people, that whatever's happening will just take a few minutes, and that you can get on your way. when you say 'no, i'm calling my lawyer', you're raising the stakes right away.

my goal in an airport is to get the hell out of there as soon as possible, not turn any possible confrontation into a 4th amendment issue. being naive might cost viffer a lot of money here, but the cost of walking around threatened perpetually as you seem to might be much higher.

yea but if calling my lawyer means I have a better chance of not going what OP went through then I'd be doing that. As far as "raising the stakes", I guess that'd be fine with me as long as I had nothing legally to hide.

Do. Not. Talk. To. Cops.
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE

Wow.. that sucks.

i doubt many of us are surprised this happens

the question is:

why do we tolerate it?

I've been stopped by the DEA twice in an airport. Both times in a closed room with me and the agent(s). They asked to search my bags. Both times I told them no - one said "That's nice, but this is an airport, you don't get a choice." The other time they told me they would bring the drug sniffing dog and they implied that they could make him bark on command, so I might as well not waste my time and just let them search the bag. I didn't let them search either time and once and they pulled my checked baggage off the flight and detained me for a few hours while they went through all my stuff and made calls to various agencies. It was during the holiday season too so I ended up having to wait around another 8 hours for a flight. Wasn't a huge deal but mildly annoying that they treat you like a criminal.

me: "Hey, it's Thanksgiving and my birthday, am I going to be able to make my flight?"
agent: "Get comfortable kid, you're gonna be here a REAL long time."

agent:"So you say you're a professional poker player and this money is money that you won?"
me: "Yes."
"I don't buy it kid. Not one bit. You're lying."
"Ok."
"So what do you really do, kid?"
"Hey, you're under 25, why do you keep calling me kid?"
"You're gonna be here a real long time, kid"


Eventually they found a picture of me on google image search and let me go.

Should've said, "I'm Tony Rivera, bitch, who the **** are you?"

I've been detained a bunch of times of course, doing lots of international travelling with too much cash.

The time I was detained the longest, this is what happened too ha!

would have been nice to have shares some of the stories with the community here, so that some HS players could learn and avoid some of the hassles...

great videos man!

This is a great video and a great thread. I have enjoyed many of the responses.

When I was just getting my first real (career style) job, the guy I worked with looked like a complete goombah (a real life Bensonhurst, Brooklyn raised Sicilian) . In the late 80's he wore the white pants, no socks with leather bruno mally shoes, had long slick backed hair and basically looked like a cocaine dealer from Miami Vice.

We worked in an all cash business in NY that was and still is 100% legit. However, he had a place in FL (where his kids lived) and would travel back and forth. At the time, he was one of those guys who didn't like credit cards and always paid with cash (later on he was made by his accountant to always pay with credit and ALWAYS leave a receipt trail for everything - a recommendation I make for everyone here).

To the point and relationship to the topic. He would travel back and forth from FL to NY and on 4 different occasions he was stopped at the airport for having more then 10k on him. This is no joke but on 3 of the 4 occasions he was strip searched (AND FULL BODY CAVITY searched) because of this and/or because of the old 80's profiling combination. He looked like a drug dealer, he was alone, he paid in cash, bought one way tickets, bought on the spur of the moment, and he had lots of cash on him, etc. These are all red flags, like them or not.

My only point is that you should be lucky that you don't get harassed as bad as he did. And, to be honest, I think Vif had a few things that made him stick out. First, why in the world would you show your roll to the agent? Every street wise person always has 2 rolls, one they use to pay for small purchases and to use when they have to and the other for whatever (they also use the small roll in case they are ever mugged - which again is surprising doesn't happen as much as it does with all these easy marks walking around in the poker community). I think you were too into showing off here and it came to bite you in the arse. Being loud, flashy, etc.

People can complain about the rights aspect and that is 100% spot on. But if you look the part, act the part, have priors, etc. I think you are the idiot for not doing more to protect yourself (your time) and your hard earned money.

My final suggestion to all of you is that the IRS is starting to investigate the poker world and as our country goes further and further into debt, this will become common (you saw it here first!). When you carry cash now you are flagged at airports and reported with the IRS. Get enough of these flags and you will be investigated personally. With the implementation of the "un"Patriot Act the IRS can spy on you, your emails, phones, computer, money accounts, etc. with no real provocation or solid reasons. Even a small flag reported by the DEA at an airport can trigger one of these. AND even if you are 100% paying your taxes in full, you will spend countless dollars, time, energy, etc. trying to defend yourself (what ever happened to innocent until PROVEN guilty). The IRS doesn't care if you are innocent or guilty, they want money. In the end semantics can create guilt even if innocent.

I feel our freedoms are being choked off by the so called government we have elected but aside from this we have to protect ourselves. Maybe someday enough of us willing to get off our asses and pull a Greenland but until then we are our own responsibility.

This usually happens when an agency gets bogus information that they deem to be reliable by an informant.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass, but it's instances like these that make me encourage people to know exactly what their rights are in situations where they're in/likely to be in some engagement with any form of law enforcement.

OP had more options.

sorry for the bump, essentially all i wanted to do was subscribe to this thread so i could read all 18 pages when i have more time, but it wont let me subscribe until i post in the thread.

Since it's already bumped, you can use "Thread Tools" to subscribe to any thread without posting.

yea, I think I would scratch trying to hide a partition on a hard drive....

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...msftlaw29.html
http://www.microsoft.com/industry/go...cofee_faq.mspx

Haven't read the last few posts, but fwiw there's no excuse for you guys to not have at least 3 comps: one poker, one for internet usage and one for travel. (I have 4 and i'm just a lowly mid-lo steaks grinder) Considering none of the above is high-level computing you can get a good solid laptop for as little as $300.

http://www.newegg.com/store/SubCateg...=32&Tpk=laptop

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...tops-Notebooks

And of course Best Buy shouldn't be poo-pooed on:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....rchterm=laptop

This would also go far in helping with the account hacking problem.

The fact that it might be better to carry lots of cash in the US than other countries is completely irrelevant. That's like saying, well, we're in a race to the bottom, but so far we're losing. Clearly, the US is trying to play catchup in this race and it should raise eyebrows.

-Michael

I think you are correct.

Super Meddlesome Politicians + Billy Bad Ass wanna-be Cops + ******ed Ass Justice System = America Land of the Freedoms we want you to have!