An investigation concerning the use of federal civil forfeiture law by local law enforcement agencies across the United States has exposed problems with a routine but rarely discussed police tactic.

After obtaining 43,000 reports from agencies across the United States, journalists at the Washington Post wrote over the weekend that the budgets of police departments and drug task forces are being padded largely by a program that redistributes the worth of seized assets, including property and money that might never have been involved in a crime but taken nonetheless.