Civil Asset Forfeiture is (ab)used by Law Enforcement Officers (LEO). In a vast majority of cases (estimated at 99%!) the property is never returned to the owner, regardless of whether they were charged with a crime! Police Departments are widely known to abuse this law in order to obtain money and vehicles that in most cases become property of the police department! This system ENCOURAGES abuse by the police department and many have been known to go after expensive cars even when no crime has been committed. There are absolutely no checks and balances with this system.
Read more here:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/03/civil-asset-forfeiture-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
http://nyti.ms/1uQmULZ