by Simone Kaplan

Police Booty for Sale Online

News
Dec 01, 20011 min
Internet

If you’re looking for wild and wacky on the Web, forget eBay. Instead try Bid4Assets, a Silver Spring, Md.-based company that auctions off government assets seized in drug raids or foreclosures, surplus and seized assets, as well as property from companies that went belly-up. Since the site was founded in 1999 some fascinating and bizarre things have gone on the block.

“We’ve sold a lawsuit against the District of Columbia government,” says David Marchick, executive vice president of Bid4Assets. “We’ve sold a drug dealer’s Lamborghini and 1,000 properties that were defaulted to a county government.”

The most unusual lot ever to go up for auction on the site? That would have to be some horse semen from a Colorado farm that went bankrupt, Marchick says. “We had a lot of jokes around here, but that’s valuable stuff,” he says. “We sold it to a horse breeder for several thousand dollars. We also sold several horses and some equipment from the farm.”

Bid4Assets.com typically runs 1,000 to 2,000 auctions a month and retains up to 20 percent of proceeds. To read more about the company, see “The Right Fit,” Page 72.