§ 124.17 — Confiscation and forfeiture.

§ 124.17 Confiscation and forfeiture.

(a) Confiscation authority. (1) An SLTT law enforcement or correctional agency and its personnel may seize or otherwise confiscate a UAS or unmanned aircraft as described in 6 U.S.C. 124n(b)(1)(E). This authority is contingent on a credible threat and applies to the physical taking of possession of an unmanned aircraft that is no longer active in flight or any other UAS component, such as a ground control station.

(2) This authority does not require Mitigation Certification, the use of systems on the Authorized Technologies List or Authorized Systems List, or advance coordination under § 124.9. However, personnel exercising confiscation authority under 6 U.S.C. 124n(b)(1)(E) must hold a current Detection and Warning Certification issued by the NCUTC. An officer who seizes an unmanned aircraft or any other UAS component under traditional law enforcement authority, including an abandoned or crashed unmanned aircraft, does not require Detection and Warning Certification.

(3) Any action that employs C-UAS technology to disrupt or seize control of, damage, disable, or destroy the unmanned aircraft or UAS is an action under 6 U.S.C. 124n(b)(1)(C), (D), or (F) and requires Mitigation Certification.

(4) Personnel exercising confiscation authority should follow standard law enforcement evidence handling procedures, including maintaining chain of custody, preserving digital evidence stored on the aircraft or its flight controller, and observing applicable hazardous materials precautions.

(5) This part does not affect the authority of any law enforcement or correctional officer to take physical custody of an unmanned aircraft or UAS under traditional law enforcement authority independent of 6 U.S.C. 124n. Traditional law enforcement authority refers to the seizure authorities generally available to law enforcement under applicable Federal, State, local, Tribal, or territorial law, including seizure incident to arrest, seizure of evidence or contraband pursuant to a warrant or a recognized exception to the warrant requirement, and seizure of abandoned property. Once an unmanned aircraft or UAS is on the ground and confiscated, subsequent law enforcement actions, including threat assessment, render safe procedures, evidence collection, and search warrant execution, are governed by traditional legal authorities, including Fourth Amendment requirements and applicable exigency or emergency doctrines, rather than by 6 U.S.C. 124n.

(6) When a C-UAS operation involves a known or suspected unmanned aircraft being used as a delivery mechanism for a hazardous device, the response to the hazardous device must be conducted by a public safety bomb squad accredited through the Hazardous Devices School, consistent with the National Guidelines for Bomb Technicians or any successor publication.

(7) The physical act of interception of a third-party unmanned aircraft while it is in flight, such as catching or netting an aircraft by hand or using a non-electronic physical device to capture it in the air, implicates 6 U.S.C. 124n(b)(1)(D), (E), or (F). Personnel conducting such actions must therefore hold a Mitigation Certification. This does not apply to the erection of physical barriers that a drone operator has an obligation to avoid, such as netting affixed to a physical structure.

(b) Forfeiture. Any UAS or unmanned aircraft seized by an SLTT law enforcement or correctional agency pursuant to 6 U.S.C. 124n(a)(2) is subject to forfeiture under the laws of the seizing agency's jurisdiction, as provided in 6 U.S.C. 124n(c)(2).