Facts
The appellant [A.] lodged an appeal against the decision of the High Court of the Canton of Schaffhausen of 19 January 2018, which dismissed her appeal against the confiscation of British pounds (GBP) 348'145.-- and Scottish pounds (SCP) 800.--. The money had been seized on 11 October 2016 during a control by the border guard in Thayngen and showed contamination with cocaine. The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Canton of Schaffhausen had discontinued the criminal proceedings against the appellant and another person on suspicion of money laundering and qualified violation of the Narcotics Act and had confiscated the seized cash.
The appellant claimed to be the owner of the confiscated cash and that it came from a legal watch trade. She denied the contamination of the money with cocaine as an indication of a criminal act and alleged that the denomination of the confiscated assets corresponded to the proportions of the GBP notes in circulation.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined the appeal and came to the conclusion that the lower court had not acted arbitrarily in assuming that the seized cash was of criminal origin. The lower court had cited various indications such as the high cocaine contamination, the denomination, and the type of transport of the money to conclude that the funds came from drug trafficking.
The appellant had submitted various invoices for the sale of luxury watches in the lower court proceedings as evidence of the alleged legal origin of the money, but did not elaborate on them and merely claimed that the cash came from this watch trade. The Federal…