In France, shops that deal in buying and selling jewelry, coins, precious metals, antiquities, etc. are required to keep what is called a "livre de police," or a "police book." In it, they are required to list the seller's name and address, object, date and price paid for all items purchased across the counter. By law, this book may not be removed from the premises of the shop where it is registered. To do so constitutes a crime under French law.
During the last socialist regime (President François Hollande), French customs officers went out in units to terrorize shop owners and convention shows of the above listed items. They were instructed to "not come back empty-handed." In other words, find something, anything, and take money for it. One such unit "visited" a convention of collectors and dealers of old coins in Paris, including some exhibitors from neighboring countries, such as Spain and Belgium. They went to every table (maybe 50 or so?) and demanded to see the "livre de police" of every exhibitor, both French and foreign. The French dealers reminded them that they were forbidden by law to have their livres de police with them, as it was illegal to remove it from their shops. The dealers from Spain and Belgium didn't have them, either, as no such thing exists there. That made no difference. For not being able to produce their livres de police, each was fined between €150 and €350, depending on what the customs guys thought they could pay, even the people from outside of France. When some of them protested, the exhibitors were told, "OK, don't pay, and your entire stock here is confiscated, and you can come to our offices and try to get your stuff back. Count on a few months." Most paid. The only stand that got away without being extorted was the widow of a recently deceased French numismatist. When they tried to take money from her, she started yelling at the top of her lungs that what they were demanding was against the law, that they must have known this, that they had no right to be doing what they were doing, and that they should be ashamed of themselves. She was the last one they harassed, and a crowd began to form around her stand. Sensing that their scam was not going according to plan with her, they left without getting any money out of her.
But it's the same thing now in the USA, apparently. Think up some pretext to extort money out of some citizen at random, and threaten them with all sorts of time-consuming administrative grief if they don't fork over some money. I wonder if ICE sent the French socialists a letter of thanks for the inspiration?
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