I'm sure there's some people here more legally qualified than I am who can shed more light on this sub-topic than me, but the relevant law is in the NSW Crimes Act:
Crimes Act 1900 No 40
Crimes Act 1900 No 40
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527C Persons unlawfully in possession of property
(1) Any person who:
(a) has any thing in his or her custody,
(b) has any thing in the custody of another person,
(c) has any thing in or on premises, whether belonging to or occupied by himself or herself or not, or whether that thing is there for his or her own use or the use of another, or
(d) gives custody of any thing to a person who is not lawfully entitled to possession of the thing,
which thing may be reasonably suspected of being stolen or otherwise unlawfully obtained, is liable on conviction before a Local Court:
(a) if the thing is a motor vehicle or a motor vehicle part, to imprisonment for 1 year, or to a fine of 10 penalty units, or both, or
(b) in the case of any other thing, to imprisonment for 6 months, or to a fine of 5 penalty units, or both.
(1A) A prosecution for an offence under subsection (1) involving the giving of custody of a motor vehicle to a person who is not lawfully entitled to possession of the motor vehicle may be commenced at any time within 2 years after the date of commission of the offence.
(2) It is a sufficient defence to a prosecution for an offence under subsection (1) if the defendant satisfies the court that he or she had no reasonable grounds for suspecting that the thing referred to in the charge was stolen or otherwise unlawfully obtained.
(3) In this section:
motor vehicle has the same meaning as it has in section 154AA.
premises includes any structure, building, vehicle, vessel, whether decked or undecked, or place, whether built on or not, and any part of any such structure, building, vehicle, vessel or place.
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In court and police jargon it's referred to as the offence "GIC" or "Goods in Custody", or the slightly longer version "a person having goods in (their) custody reasonably thought to have been unlawfully obtained".
This is a very unusual law, because it seems to reverse the usual onus of proof. In other words, in the case of other criminal charges you are usually presumed to be inoccent, and the Police have to prove you are guilty. In the case of a GIC offence, in many ways, you are presumed guilty and have to prove you are innocent. However, as the police lurking on this forum will know, any magistrate or judge in New South Wales is no pushover with this charge and the police have to make a good case. In the case of circumstances where drugs are involved, large amounts of cash in possession of a person also found in possession of drugs almost always leads to this charge. Circumstantial evidence which will support the police's case may be that the cash was bundled in amounts which are a divisor of a "buy" of drugs. This depends upon the type of drug of course.
In the case where someone may be in the vicinity of a casino and claim that they have cash in their pocket because they won it at the gambling tables can be easily proved or disproved by that casino's CCTV surveillance tapes. Similar for bookmakers' records. Or the TAB.
A GIC charge is also often laid by police in circumstances where they may arrest someone for a robbery, who also has a lot of other cash in their possession. They may not be able to discover from where the cash may have been stolen - hence GIC. Another likely circumstance is where the police detain someone walking along the street who has tools or implements usually used for breaking into houses. The person may also have a DVD player under their arm, some diamond rings in their pockets, $3,000 in cash, and 100 CDs in a pillow case over their shoulder. The police may reasonably suspect that the property is the result of a burglary. However the victim may be away on holiday and the crime may not be reported. Hence GIC.
The NSW police having the ability to lay a GIC charge results in the return of a lot of stolen property to its' lawful owners. And the confiscation of a lot of cash from drug dealers.
On the topic of sniffer dogs in New South Wales, I think that they have been in pretty constant use since the Sydney Olymipics in 2000. Election or not. The police had very limited sniffer dog capability prior to the olympics, and had to have the dogs trained up for all sorts of sniffing duties as part of the police security protection brief for the Games. Then after the games they had to find a use for this very valuable asset. Hence the dogs were retasked and retrained to sniff illegal drugs. what else would they do?
I suggest that you make yourselves familiar with your rights. You will find a good guide on the NSW Council for Civil Liberties website:
sniffer dogs
Oh, and I thought I should add this:
I think that it would be very likely that undercover police would be used within any nightclub going to be raided with sniffer dogs
prior to the arrival of the sniffer dogs to identify likely drug dealers for "extra attention". This would assist the police in saving time, and in maximising the drugs and cash obtained. For sure I can see a drug dealer throwing some drugs on the floor. But I think throwing the cash away is extremely unlikely. That's where the profit has already been taken.
But I am in no position to confirm my suspicion about how the operation is run.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
