Bulk cash detection – a work in slowed progress

Despite the US government’s great need for new tactics to combat drug cartel-related money laundering activities, recent budget cuts are limiting the potential development of highly useful tools in this fight – including a bulk currency detector able to sense large quantities of money hidden in speeding vehicles. Pacifica Goddard reports.

In 2010, Virginia-based Lattice Government Services (LGS) (along with two other companies) was awarded a US$100,000 ‘Phase I’ small business innovation research (SBIR) contract from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) science and technology (S&T) directorate to develop “a device that would search for and identify bulk quantities of currency, secreted on persons, in hand baggage and luggage, and/or in privately owned vehicles.”