GovAuctions Research · live inventory
Every day, the US government takes $5.5 million in forfeited cash and assets
Seized sports cars. Gold bars. The contents of forgotten safe deposit boxes. A slice of it ends up on public auction sites, where anyone can bid.
What this map is
This is a map of where taken property is being sold, not where seizure happens. Each of the five biggest concentrations is almost all from a single seller. San Antonio is high because one towing company lists heavily; Raleigh is the North Carolina State Treasurer's unclaimed-property division.
A state being dark means we see little of it on the platforms we track, not that nothing is taken there. The points of interest are picked by how unusual the object is rather than by volume, so a single interesting lot can put a quiet state on the map.
Methodology
$5.5M/day is the U.S. Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund, FY2024: $1.48bn of forfeited cash plus $525.6m of forfeited property, per the DOJ Inspector General audit. That is federal forfeiture only. The lots above are mostly state and local — sheriffs, tow yards, state treasurers — and across the platforms we track they turn over about $48,000 a day.
Drawn from every currently-active U.S. public-auction listing we track plus the last 90 days of completed sales. A lot is included only when its title, description or seller identifies the legal route it took to auction. Lots are placed by their pickup location; 183 of 1,474 carry no coordinates and are counted but not plotted.
Free to cite with attribution to GovAuctions.