Asset forfeiture and seizure enrollment (SAFER) program. At the end of June, the Department of Justice transferred ownership of the program to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. During a six-month period ending in October 2015, the government took a total of $6.7 million from people whose accounts were seized, for a total of almost $7.7 million, according to the report. A year earlier, during a six-month period ending in October 2014, it took just $300,000 in revenue from seized accounts, for a total of $2.8 million. Fees and Expenses (F&E) from the programs — where assets from seized accounts are sold to pay for the programs’ operating costs — shot up from $18 million in the 2014 fiscal year to $43 million in 2015. In the past year, it increased by an additional $1.2 million to $46.8 million. As a result, the 2015 program brought in more revenue than the program brought in during all of the previous year. The report describes this as a “significant acceleration in F&E.” The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) collect and keep 75 percent of the money that comes out of seized accounts, while the cost of the seizures and the cost of the programs are split evenly between the DOJ and its partners, according to the report. “We have been saying that this was the real problem with civil asset forfeiture,” Kritzer said. “The government has not been spending the money from forfeitures that they were taking, so it wasn’t actually generating more revenue for its budget. But once these entities (like the Marshals Service and DOJ) began taking more cash from the forfeiture revenue, those programs began operating more efficiently. We have seen a huge uptick in spending in F&E. This is a result of government efficiency.” In a statement to The Intercept, USMS spokeswoman Pamela Fitzgerald said, “We know that the vast majority of the money forfeited comes from selling property acquired during criminal investigations. This forfeiture account does not represent the total amount of money seized that comes from criminal investigations.” “The F&E, in terms of what it represents, is a small amount of money compared to the total forfeiture amount,” she said. “The [USMS] oversees a very large amount of assets and seizures in a variety of different contexts. Given the complexity of those transactions, there is some lag time as agencies are able to process information and complete necessary compliance reviews to determine which proceeds should be forfeited.” In his June letter to the OIG, Charles Stimson, the executive director of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys (NAUSA), the professional organization of DOJ prosecutors, wrote that prosecutors are “not aware of any significant challenges to the soundness of the underlying DOJ initiative (i.e., the forfeiture and seizure of assets of persons engaged in money laundering),” but raised questions about the DOJ’s data integrity. “It is critical that the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ have confidence that the data being used by prosecutors is reliable and complete,” Stimson wrote. The report also notes that the department began keeping records of seizures and forfeitures in November 2015. Until then, they were “primarily tracked as seizures and forfeitures only on a general case basis.” “The USMS began tracking seized funds held by DOJ at the national level in FY 2016,” Fitzgerald said. “This tracking was done at the local level prior to FY 2016.” Still, according to the report, about half of the money the USMS seized was never put to use. The report notes that there were a number of reasons this was the case, including “a lack of an investigative rationale for seized funds.” And though the department says that it has already fixed a number of the issues with the data it began tracking in the past year, it’s not exactly clear what its compliance department does with that data. According to a 2014 memo from acting deputy attorney general James Cole, in response to a report by Stimson, information on “assets seized and forfeited is now available through an electronic database (as opposed to paper reports).” “We are in the process of reviewing the OIG’s report and ensuring that all data included therein are accurate,” Fitzgerald said. “In addition, we have implemented a number of changes to our practices in order to help reduce possible overstatement in all such reporting. As part of this implementation process, we will continue to review all data, in compliance with DOJ policies, and will ensure we continue to report accurate data, and are transparent about the challenges we face.” Civil forfeiture refers to the ability of law enforcement to seize property they believe is associated with a crime, without actually charging anyone with a crime. The government is then able to use that property to build their case against the alleged criminal. Fitzgerald told the report that USMS has had a “continual focus on ensuring data integrity in all such records since 2015.” And for those who believe that the data released by the Justice Department is inaccurate, another section of the report offers this remedy: ask a lawyer. “We also suggest that parties who have concerns about the data included in a DOJ publication should first seek the advice of an attorney who is well-versed in the subject matter,” the report reads. The OIG report notes that prosecutors have said that some of the seized assets are tied to ongoing criminal investigations and that not all funds seized in a given year necessarily end up being spent that year, as investigators spend time building a case against a suspect and obtaining necessary warrants and search warrants. “With regard to a small subset of cases, information provided to the OIG suggests that cases are being delayed due to the lengthy administrative process that prosecutors, and sometimes judges, must now undergo,” it says. “As of August 2016, new rules requiring case-specific justifications for continuing surveillance have impacted one third of ongoing cases, significantly slowing the pace of the DOJ’s program of criminal investigations, as has been reported by a number of news outlets. Prosecutors are still reviewing the impacts of this decision. Additionally, some information provided by federal prosecutors to the OIG revealed that certain investigations could be compromised because prosecutors were unable to identify the suspected criminal activity, which they believed could be seized or forfeited, due to the fact that a number of investigative files were not kept in a readily searchable format by the various components of the USMS.” The report mentions a number of different DOJ policies and practices that it says may have led to problems with data accuracy in the past year. It cites an increase in the number of criminal seizures it recommends be reviewed by the “responsible attorney,” an internal DOJ policy that prevents officials from seizing a cash or equivalent amount of property that’s under $10,000, unless there is a criminal indictment, a valid court order, or there are a combination of other factors. In some cases, this policy may prevent prosecutors from seizing money. It also mentions the Justice Department’s use of “asset forfeiture initiatives,” a program that allows prosecutors to seize funds without charging someone with a crime that has to be reviewed by DOJ leadership. In 2015, Kritzer’s office sent a letter to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch after a number of people said they were being forced to participate in this program. (DOJ did not respond to a request for comment on this letter or the letter itself.) A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service did not comment on the letter, but noted the government is reviewing that letter now, and will provide further comments later. According to the OIG report, between July and December of 2015, approximately $1 million worth of assets were seized and forfeited by the USMS and the DOJ’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. “In comparison, during this same time period in FY 2016, approximately $1.5 million was seized and forfeited,” the report reads. On Monday, the OIG began circulating its report to some of its recommendations. “This report was not intended to be punitive,” Kritzer said. “This report is our way of telling a story about the changes that we want to see at the DOJ, because it makes our job a lot easier.” She added: “This report is our opportunity to be proactive, it is our opportunity to get things done for the better. We feel we have been very open and transparent about the findings of the report.” The report will be included in the OIG’s “audit agenda,” a report that’s used by Congress when asking questions about the agency’s financial audits. Correction: The original version of this story stated that the U.S. Marshals Service is controlled by the US Marshals Service, when in fact it is the Department of Justice that controls the office. This version of the story has been corrected.