Feds Milk Creamery Over Cash Deposits

A small creamery went to farmers' markets and sold its products for cash. It then deposited the cash in a bank -- nearly $10,000 per deposit.

That may sound like good business, but to the U.S. Treasury Department, it sounded like "structuring" -- conducting cash transactions in amounts just under $10,000 so as to avoid reporting requirements. So the feds seized Randy and Karen Sowers' money.

Now they've settled the case in order to get back a bit more than half of the money the government took. The rest has been forfeited.

H/T Cato's Walter Olson, who published a commentary on the case in the Baltimore Sun.