Posts Tagged ‘Police Confiscated Items’

Police Confiscated Items: How Personal Property Gets Sold at Auction (Part 2 of 2)

Friday, January 20th, 2012

This is the final part in a two part series, you can read part one here.

Benefits to Police Departments and Auction Participants

Auctioning items frees up space in police warehouses. It also reduces costs involved in storing, tracking and maintaining property.  And, auctioning unclaimed or seized items brings in much needed revenue to a police department to help them continue fighting crime.

The inventory of police confiscated items to be auctioned can be vast and diverse.  It’s not unusual to find very valuable goods for auction.  Products can range from cars and household goods, to jewelry and art.  By far, these auctions provide one of the richest assortment of confiscated items.

In addition, police auctions are held on a regular basis.  With police confiscated items stacking up as a result of ongoing criminal activity, you can expect auctions to be held at predictable intervals.

So, it’s typically easy to plan your purchases around auctions when police confiscated items become available.  You not only can get a special item at a reduced price, but you can also re-sell any great deal for a profit.

However, the major advantage of buying police confiscated items is you’ll often find amazingly low prices.  Since profiting from selling seized items isn’t the primary motive, police departments are more willing to liquidate warehouse inventories and sell items a lot cheaper than normal.

For additional information on police confiscated items, contact Auction Systems today.

Police Confiscated Items: How Personal Property Gets Sold at Auction (Part 1 of 2)

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Many people may not understand how and why an auction is conducted to sell police confiscated items.  Some may be surprised to learn the large amount and variety of property confiscated during law enforcement raids.  After seizing items, either a police department or a contracted auction service will sell the goods at auction.

Confiscated items end up in police possession in a number of ways.  Stolen goods may be recovered and unclaimed.  Local law will dictate how long a police department has to keep stolen goods they recovered while they wait for the rightful owner to claim them.  Once that period has elapsed and the item remains unclaimed, police agencies are free to auction property to the highest bidder.

Another source of police confiscated items results when criminals are arrested or suspected of unlawful behavior.  Because some acts come under the “civil asset forfeiture” provision, police departments can seize property associated with a number of offenses.  When this happens, police departments can keep the confiscated items or sell them at auction.  They often do the latter as a matter of course.

If a person commits a crime, the police department can confiscate any property used in conjunction with the crime.  Police confiscated items are most typically associated with drug crimes, but they can come from any suspected illegal activity.

Further adding to the volume of items available for auction is the way civil asset forfeiture works.  Police confiscated items can also result from the suspicion of illegal activity.  A suspect doesn’t have to be found guilty in a court of law before property can be seized.  Police officers typically have wide latitude to seize any property they suspect was used in connection with a crime.

As a result, many suspects, whether found guilty or not, don’t reclaim their police confiscated items.  In this case, police departments are free to conduct an auction and sell items to the highest bidder.

In part two of this series, we will discuss the benefits of police departments and auction participants. For more information, please contact Auction Systems today.

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