A TSA supervisor cleared grandfather Kermit Warren to fly with $28,000 in his bag. Then the DEA ROBBED him of every dollar. His crime? Nothing. The government calls it “civil forfeiture.” Everyone else calls it theft. Kermit Warren flew to Ohio to buy a truck so he and his son could haul scrap metal for a living after losing their jobs during COVID. The truck was too big for what they needed, so they headed home with the cash. At the airport, he told TSA exactly what was in his bag. A supervisor said he could travel with it and waved him through security. Then the DEA showed up. Warren tried to show the agents the truck he’d flown in to buy. He offered to call the seller. They weren’t interested. “We think y’all are up here doing something illegal.” That’s it. That’s the evidence. A man’s life savings, gone on a hunch — and they wouldn’t even let him make a phone call to prove them wrong. WARREN: “When they seized my life savings, every penny that I’ve worked for, every honest dollar that I earned over the last 25–30 years, it made me feel like I was the dirt on the ground.” CONTEXT: Fortunately, the government didn’t get away with this one. After roughly a year without his savings, federal prosecutors agreed to return all $28,180 to Kermit Warren and dismissed the case.