Asset Identification and Removal Group

The **Asset Identification and Removal Group** (AIRG) is a highly specialized investigative group of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). They are tasked to locate, identify, evaluate, and seize assets of crime through federal asset forfeiture laws. AIRG agents often work in tandem with the Illicit Finance and Proceeds of Crime Unit (IFPCU).

## Overview

Every year, DHS seizes millions of dollars in assets through the course of investigations — everything from cash and houses, to boats and cars. Those assets are directed into a forfeiture fund maintained by the Treasury Department. The revenue from the assets is then used to cover a range of costs related to forfeiture investigations, from storing actual seized items to paying informants. Under a program known as equitable sharing, the revenue is also used to award and reimburse state and local law enforcement agencies that participate in federal seizure-related investigations, which those agencies then use to purchase equipment, weapons, and other law enforcement technology.

Though multiple DHS agencies contribute to the Treasury forfeiture fund — such as Customs and Border Protection and the Secret Service — ICE leads the way both in seizures feeding into the fund and in payments doled out to state and local law enforcement. According to a 2014 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, from 2003 to 2013, DHS poured roughly $3.6 billion into the Treasury’s forfeiture fund. From 2007 on, the report found, ICE was “consistently” responsible for “approximately 50 percent or more of total forfeiture revenues by DHS components.” Over the 2003 to 2013 period, the GAO noted, “equitable sharing payments constituted the largest” obligation in the Treasury’s forfeiture fund, with approximately $1.2 billion paid out to “a range of state and local law enforcement agencies across the country — as well as other federal agencies and foreign entities — that participated in law enforcement efforts resulting in forfeitures.”

“Among the three DHS components making equitable sharing payments, ICE made up over 90 percent of total DHS obligations for equitable sharing payments,” the report added. “State and local agencies accounted for the majority of sharing recipients, and accounted for an average of 96 percent of total obligations for equitable sharing payments from fiscal years 2010 through 2012.” State and local law enforcement officials who spoke to the government accountability researchers said the arrangement had “improved the relationship between federal agencies and their offices,” with officials adding that the “funds are needed by their agencies and have allowed them to purchase equipment such as bulletproof vests, weapons, mobile computers, and police station security cameras.”

## AIRG Teams

AIRG teams are made up of a carefully cultivated network of asset forfeiture specialists within ICE, who are placed in each of HSI’s field offices across the country. These specialists are known as Asset Identification and Removal Group members and are tasked with identifying and appraising assets to seize during HSI investigations.

Stipulating that each AIRG agent must have at least three years of investigative experience, AIRGs operate as “separate, specialized groups, dedicated solely to asset forfeiture responsibilities, and not commingled with other groups or burdened with excessive collateral duties.” ICE trains its AIRG specialists to meticulously input data about assets that ICE has either seized or is considering for seizure into an interoffice asset forfeiture database, known as the Seized Assets and Case Tracking System, or SEACATS. The asset forfeiture agents also plug their forfeiture numbers into a sprawling DHS database called TECS, which allows the agency to evaluate the performance of asset officers and assign scores for their cases.

“Individual AIRGs are evaluated by the quantity and the quality of their cases. TECS quantifies the number of investigations opened by each individual AIRG via the unique project codes,” their operational handbook states. “This is important because it allows all case participants to retrieve statistical credit for the overall results of their cases. SEACATS quantifies the number of seizures made by the AIRGs, as well as their values.”