You are way more likely to get stuck up by a mugger (aka the real cash risk). But 2500 is insane. Is it really that much? Or does that include attorneys fees.
There were an estimated 345,031 robberies in the US in 2013, of which 42.5%, or about 146,000, were street/highway robberies (muggings) [1].
For the 13 years between Sept. 2001 and Sept. 2014, the Washington Post analyzed records from the DOJ and found 61,998 civil forfeiture cases "that were not made at businesses and that occurred without warrants or indictments". This is around 4,770 per year. [2]
Neither of these are broken down by location, race, etc. so your particular circumstances may vary, but at the aggregate level, you're about 30 times more likely to be mugged than to have assets seized at a traffic stop.
Yeah, and I don't mean to defend civil forfeiture at all. It's a very troubling practice. But it is interesting to see how far off we can be at evaluating the risk of various things happening.
