An innocent party's money is returnable if it's clearly separate from the fraud.

WSJ: Federal Asset Seizures and Forfeitures Rise; 'Equitable Sharing' Grows

Many of us also handle the claim on behalf of the innocent party to ensure the best quality repair for the owner, and a market value repair for the repairer.

BBC: Have Your Say: Replacement car costs

Mr. Lieto, the New York businessman, discovered the frustrations an innocent party can face as he worked for months to keep open his check-cashing business after federal agents seized his firm's working capital.

WSJ: Federal Asset Seizures and Forfeitures Rise; 'Equitable Sharing' Grows

Under the law, an innocent third party generally can't seek an asset's return until the underlying criminal case is resolved, which can take time.

WSJ: Federal Asset Seizures and Forfeitures Rise; 'Equitable Sharing' Grows

Nevertheless, on Nov. 1, after years of delay and controversy, a jury found Gonzalez, the son of the head of Panama's ruling party, innocent of murder, setting off an explosion of indignation.

CNN: The Canal Cronies

Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy (BDP) party, accused the government of deliberately massacring innocent civilians to intimidate his people.

ECONOMIST: Turkey and the Kurds

On the other, ham-fisted policing might implicate the innocent in transactions to which they had not been a party, merely because they once handled suspect notes.

ECONOMIST: Money of the future may almost literally talk

And I believe a just society and a society of that holds people to account and believes in rule of law protects innocent people from murderers, no matter what their political party is.

NPR: Maliki Assures Bush on Iraqi Force's Readiness