A used car company has agreed to forfeit $1.5 million and pay a $250,000 fine over the way it handled cash transactions.

Zein Automobiles pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Wednesday to a charge of failing to file a monetary transaction report.Drug Enforcement Administration agents said the company, which runs Independence Auto Sales and Best Bet Auto Sales in Lynnwood and Everett, intentionally failed to report cash transactions of more than $10,000 to the IRS. They alleged that allowed drug traffickers to launder their profits by buying cars.

Agents raided the dealerships last month.

Seattle U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan said in a written statement the case should serve as a warning to other businesses. As part of the plea deal, Zein is entering into a corporate integrity plan to ensure similar violations don’t happen again.

Comments to the press release by the U.S. Department of Justice have interesting insight into this story.

1. What a joke. A lot of companies including new and used car dealers don’t declare the over $10,000 and there’s no reason they should. Worked at Ford for over 10 years in management and we never filed the documents with the IRS. The cash register does not know what is a cash transaction and what is a check transaction.

There have just been so many fake unconstitutional laws written over the last 60 years I just don’t see how this country can ever get back on the right track.

2. I can’t believe the government is still running this shakedown. They’ve been doing it for at least 20 years based on 300 year old anti-piracy laws (piracy as in yargh, parrots and yardarms). Free money for more cops, more guns and more oppression.  Seize their stuff, note up their deposition for the civil forfeiture case and let the owner decide whether to testify to get his stuff back and then get prosecuted based on his own testimony and sent to jail, or just walk away so the government keeps his stuff. Your money or your life. This is some serious low rent crap.

Meanwhile, the cartels and gangs run wild in the streets as America descends deeper and deeper into a drugged up stupor. But the DOJ decide the fate of the free world rests on sicking its DEA goons on some shady car dealer.