Steven Bailey is the owner and CEO of Global Coin Logistics, a wholesale currency exchange business.
In October 2025, one of Steven’s employees was transporting currency from the company’s California vault to sell it to an ATM provider on the east coast. When the employee went through TSA, he was flagged for additional screening and brought to a separate room where a DEA agent claimed that a drug dog alerted to drug residue on the currency, which happens with essentially all currency. The employee provided the DEA agent with all of the necessary paperwork regarding Global Coin as a business, as well as paperwork showing the source of the money and its destination. Still, the DEA agent seized the money and provided the employee with a receipt. Eventually, the DEA sent Steven a notice that it was seeking to permanently take the money through civil forfeiture. But the notice made no mention of what law was supposedly violated nor did it provide any evidence, leaving Steven with no way to intelligently respond the forfeiture.
Now, Steven has teamed up with IJ to challenge this forfeiture in federal court.
