February 27, 1991. Willie Jones, a second-generation nursery man in his family's Nashville business, bundles up money from last year's profits and heads off to buy flowers and shrubs in Houston. He makes this trip twice a year using cash, which the small growers prefer.

But this time, as he waits at the American Airlines gate in Nashville Metro Airport, he's flanked by two police officers who escort him into a small office, search him and seize the $9,600 he's carrying. A ticket agent had alerted the officers that a large black man had paid for his ticket in bills, unusual these days. Because of the cash, and the fact that he fit a "profile" of what drug dealers supposedly look like, they believed he was buying or selling drugs. He's free to go, he's told. But they keep his money - his livelihood - and give him a receipt in its place.

No evidence of wrongdoing was ever produced. No charges were ever filed. As far as anyone knows, Willie Jones neither uses drugs, nor buys or sells them. He is a gardening contractor who bought an airplane ticket. Who lost his hard-earned money to the cops. And can't get it back.

That same day, an ocean away in Hawaii, federal drug agents arrive at the Maui home of retirees Joseph and Frances Lopes and claim it for the U.S. government. For 49 years, Lopes worked on a sugar plantation, living in its camp housing before buying a modest home for himself, his wife, and their adult, mentally disturbed son, Thomas.

For a while, Thomas grew marijuana in the back yard - and threatened to kill himself every time his parents tried to cut it down. In 1987, the police caught Thomas, then 28. He pleaded guilty, got probation for his first offense and was ordered to see a psychologist once a week. He has, and never again has grown dope or been arrested. The family thought this episode was behind them. But earlier this year, a detective scouring old arrest records for forfeiture opportunities realized the Lopes house could be taken away because they had admitted they knew about the marijuana. The police department stands to make a bundle. If the house is sold, the police get the proceeds.

Jones and the Lopes family are among the thousands of Americans each year victimized by the federal seizure law - a law meant to curb drugs by causing financial hardship to dealers. A 10-month study by The Pittsburgh Press shows the law has run amok. In their zeal to curb drugs and sometimes fill their coffers with the proceeds of what they take, local cops, federal agents and the courts have curbed innocent Americans' civil rights. From Maine to Hawaii, people who are never charged with a crime had cars, boats, money and homes taken away. In fact, 80 percent of the people who lost property to the federal government were never charged. And most of the seized items weren't the luxurious playthings of drug barons, but modest homes and simple cars and hard-earned savings of ordinary people

But those goods generated $2 billion for the police departments that took them.. The owners' only crimes in many of these cases: They "looked" like drug dealers. They were black, Hispanic or flashily dressed. Others, like the Lopeses, have been connected to a crime by circumstances beyond their control. Says Eric Sterling, who helped write the law a decade ago as a lawyer on a congressional committee: "The innocent-until-proven-guilty principle has been overturned."
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Ethel Hylton of New York City has yet to regain her financial independence after losing $39,110 in a search nearly three years ago in Hobby Airport in Houston. Shortly after she arrived from New York, a Houston officer and Drug Enforcement Administration agent stopped the 46-year-old woman in the baggage area and told her she was under arrest because a drug dog had scratched at her luggage. The dog wasn't with them, and when Miss Hylton asked to see it, the officers refused to bring it out. The agents searched her bags, and ordered a strip search of Miss Hylton, but found no contraband. In her purse they found the cash Miss Hylton carried because she planned to buy a house to escape the New York winters which exasperated her diabetes. It was the settlement from an insurance claim, and her life's savings, gathered through more than 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper and hospital night janitor.

The police seized all but $10 of the cash and sent Miss Hylton on her way, keeping the money because of its alleged drug connection. But they never charged her with a crime. The Pittsburgh Press verified her jobs, reviewed her bank statements and substantiated her claim she had $18,000 from an insurance settlement. It also found no criminal record for her in New York City. With the mix of outrage and resignation voiced by other victims of searches, she says: "The money they took was mine. I'm allowed to have it. I earned it."

Miss Hylton became a U.S. citizen six years ago. She asks, "Why did they stop me? Is it because I'm black or because I'm Jamaican?" Probably, both - although Houston police haven't said.

Drug teams interviewed in dozens of airports, train stations and bus terminals and along other major highways repeatedly said they didn't stop travellers based on race. But a Pittsburgh Press examination of 121 travellers' cases in which police found no dope, made no arrest, but seized money anyway showed that 77 percent of the people stopped were black, Hispanic, or Asian.
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Last year, the 72 deputies of Jefferson Davis Parish led the state in forfeitures, gathering $1 million - more than their colleagues in New Orleans, a city 17 times larger than the parish. Like most states, Louisiana returns the money to law enforcement agencies, but it has one of the more unusual distributions: 60 percent goes to the police bringing a case, 20 percent to the district attorney's office prosecuting it and 20 percent to the court fund of the judge signing the forfeiture order. "The highway stops aren't much different from a smash-and-grab ring," says Lorenzi, of the Louisiana Defense Lawyers association.

The reason? The screener figured it just wasn't wise to open a bag in public view with all that money in there for others to see. He asked the supervisor if the bag check could be concluded in a private screening room. The elderly lady didn't quite understand all the fuss but eventually understood that the screener was doing it for her protection. Unfortunately, the son who dropped her off witnessed the whole thing from outside the checkpoint and drew the wrong conclusion. Eventually, he calmed down and thanked the supervisor for being so thoughtful.

The reason? With large amounts of cash like that, I wanted to protect my screener by having the supervisor and I act as witnesses just in case the passenger would later accuse my screener of theft. I asked the passenger how much money he had and then had him count the cash to make sure it was all there. Although the passenger was confused by my actions, I made sure he was satisfied that he had everything with him that he brought into the checkpoint.

Interestingly enough, she didn't think it was necessary to apologize to my screener after having made such a scene at the checkpoint.